The Beginning and the End.

Look at the date of this entry. Now look at the date of the last entry. I wrote on this blog in January 2009 and today is December 21, 2009. Where did the year go? So much happened in my family this year yet I failed to write about it. So with the new year fast approaching I hope to start afresh and document the important events in my life and my family.

But right now I need to recap a few of the exciting things that happened in 2009.

Crystal gave birth to her first child in March. A dear little boy who they named, Van Alisdair.

He is now crawling, has two teeth, has the cutest smile and is a darling cuddly little guy.

Crystal and Kyle moved to a small apartment in Park City after Kyle's father sold the house. They were ready to move on and wanted to live in a smaller place.

In May Kelsey went to her senior prom and then in June she graduated from high school. She also graduated from 4 years of seminary. In July she travelled to Australia with Graeme, Emily and myself and stayed there. She now has been over there for 5 months and is loving it. She lived with Tim and Jenny up in Townsville for 4 months and in November she moved down to the Gold Coast to live with Juanita in an apartment. She is enrolled in a beauty school and starts school in January.

Graeme and I made an emergency trip to Australia in May to be at Nana's bedside as she passed on to a better place. This trip was very sad but filled with some of the most special times I have ever experienced. We were able to arouse her from a deep sleep just long enough for her to realize we were there and she was able to touch Graeme's face and kiss him and say some very tender sweet things to each other. Glenda was with us as well and she also had these special moments. Graeme and Darryl gave her a blessing and the next morning with her sons, Graeme and Geoff, daughter, Glenda, and daughter in laws, Judy and Sharon, at her side she quietly and slowly passed away. I am grateful for her wonderful, humble life and the example she was to me. I spoke at her funeral and was strengthened to do so without becoming too emotional.

Michael got engaged and then married in July. He married a high school sweetheart who had been married before , ironically, to Glenda and Darwin's nephew. She had 2 adorable children who Mike has totally accepted as his own and is a wonderful father to them. Nicole Smith had dated Mike in high school for several months in his senior year and then drifted apart as Mike went on a mission. They are so happy and have recently announced their pregnancy with the baby due in July next year. Mike has also started an internet company with his friend, Cody, which is slowly growing and giving them hopes of becoming very successful over the coming years.

Steven and his family moved to Kennesaw, Georgia, in March. Action Steel Detailing closed the Utah office in April. Steve knew it was coming and had the hindsight to apply for a job with the software company, Tekla. Even though they are a long way away from us we are so grateful that he has a good job and a steady income. Lexie got baptized in March also just before they left. His family continues to grow with their announcement of a baby BOY to be delivered in February next year. We are so happy for them. Graeme, Emily and I flew over to spend a long weekend with them in September and we had a great time. The girls are just so sweet and happy.

Jason and Lara also added to their family with the arrival of Andrew Graeme on November 1st. He was a big boy, coming in at 10 pounds even. He is a dear "little" boy and so happy and content. Jason, Lara and Lillian came to Australia with us in July. We actually stayed for 4 weeks and Jason and family came over for the last 2 weeks. we had a wonderful time catching up with family and just enjoying being in Australia.

Damien, Chellie and their 3 children flew to Australia in September. They stayed with my sister, Maree and then with my niece, Leonie. They had a wonderful, busy time and they loved it so much, especially the hospitality of their hosts.

Crystal, Kyle and Van came to Australia with Graeme and I in November. We had originally planned this trip to coincide with Nana's 90th birthday, which unfortunately she didn't quite stay on earth to celebrate. We did share very fond memories of her and her life during this trip. The weather in November was hot and sunny and we were able to spend every day on the beach for walks and swims.

Emily started high school at Woods Cross and is doing exceptionally well. She turned 16 in December and got her drivers licence. She now drives around in the Subaru and I am always nervous about it. She is having fun with her friends, who are wonderful, and it is a joy to see them together.

I continue to have a love hate relationship with the scales, mostly hate! I just can't seem to stay away from candy and sweets of every kind and I can't keep up with any type of exercise, so what can I expect. I do plan to make some changes starting in January. I am going to start to run again. Yes, at age 58, nearly 59, I am going to start running. I think I will begin by jogging on the treadmill for very short distances and gradually build it up and then get outside as the weather improves. Do you think I can do a half marathon by December?? That's my goal!! Big one....yes, but I need to be motivated. Crystal might do it with me.

Graeme diligently travels to Arizona every week when we are not travelling. He loves the house in Arizona in its peaceful serene setting. Unfortunately, the business is not doing very well in this terrible down economy. But Graeme is always hopeful and tries to be as positive as he can.

He celebrated his 60th birthday in December. We also celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in December with a trip to Las Vegas for 4 days. We had a great time. We went to 2 shows, a Cirque du Soleil show, KA and then to an Andre Bocelli concert. It was amazing.

So that is a recap of the major family events of the year. Of course there were many other smaller day to day achievements by all the children and grandchildren too numerous to write here in my belated notes.

Another so called resolution for the new year will be to keep this blog updated!!

Winter in Utah

Sometimes I wonder why we are living up here in Utah. The winter is especially miserable at times but then we have sunsets like this view from our back patio and delicate snow forming a real winter wonderland like this along the streets around our neighborhood. I just sigh and thank God for the beauty of nature all around us and say how grateful I am to be able to see scenes like this.

Well as you can see the candy cupboard is still here. I have been pretty good the last 2 days. Just a few red licorice and 2 See's chocolates.  The cupboard below this one is full of chips, crackers, cookies and cereal. Oprah and Dr Oz would die if they saw this!

The New Year

I love the holiday season with all the wonderful food and treats. It starts at halloween really. I always buy too much candy to give out and it seems that I now tend to buy the bigger candy bars that I love. I have come to realize that I do this because I know there will be candy left over and I want to be able to eat it. I hate those little runts and skittles etc. So I managed to have a whole bowl of candy bars left and enjoyed eating one, ok, two, a day for several weeks. Then came Thanksgiving with all the desserts. This year we had Christmas right on top of that. So I had a cupboard full of chocolates, candy, cookies of every variety, chips, licorice, cakes, and a refrigerator full of frozen desserts, cheeses, eggnog etc, you get the picture. I ate way too much as usual and put on more pounds than usual. I think it must be an age thing. The older I get, the more the pounds seems to want to stick around. 

I am terrible at organizing as you may have read in a previous post. But I thought it would be easy to just open the cupboard and throw out most of the sweets, besides, I am the main person who eats them and I had made up my mind. But.........It was harder than I thought. Once again, I just transfered candy from one jar to another smaller jar making the cupboard look like it was cleaned out. I thought I was pretty clever.

So I decided to start the new year off by not eating sweets of any kind. By the end of day 2 I was doing well but started to develop a headache which wouldn't go away. On day three, today, I opened the banned cupboard and I couldn't help myself, yes, you guessed it, I hungrily devoured a chocolate bar! It tasted so good but then I felt terrible. How could I be so weak?

The only consolation I have is that I have gone 3 days with walking on the treadmill and pumping some weights. 

Today I have talked myself into thinking that moderation in all things is the way to go. I just love chocolate, but if I can cut down from 2 bars a day to 1 or sometimes not even one, then I'm good with that. I just hope I can keep up with the walking in the hopes that I can loose some pounds over a few months.

So that's how my new years resolutions have gone so far this year.

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving commemorates the feast held by the Pilgrim Colonists. On this day people express gratitude to God for his blessings and give thanks to dear ones for their love and support. Feasting with family is an integral and most delightful part of thanksgiving celebrations.

This year we had a wonderful turkey prepared by my friend Laura. Along with the turkey we had about six different vegetables and a salad. To top it off we had, trifle, chocolate cream pie, cranberry cake and pavlova.

We had a wonderful, peaceful day and enjoyed each others company and of course, all the food. After the meal we went around the table and one by one expressed our gratitude for the blessings we enjoy. Number one on everyones list was FAMILY. I couldn't really say all that I wanted to say for fear of raining tears all over the table but I hope all my children know how much I love them and are grateful for their love. Graeme is an amazing husband. He has worked so hard all his life to support his family. I can remember times when he would be working up to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week. Other times holding down 2 jobs at the same time. I was at home with the kids and being frustrated at times but he was always there for me. During one period of time he was in the bishopric and working long hours. I had a particularly hard time trying to get the kids to sit and behave in church and after the Sacrament meeting he came up to me and all I could do was cry and say "I'm going home", and I did. I wasn't home but a few minutes when Graeme walked in the door and gave me a big hug and told me he would do anything to make it easier on me. Boy did I feel silly. He was the one with the stress, long hours, and commitments yet he cared and wanted to make ME feel better.

He has always been like that. He has always treated me like a queen and he has taught all our children to respect me and treat me like a queen. How do I deserve this man?

One of he most important things he does is bring humor into the home. He is always saying funny things. Sometimes in the company of others he will say a joke and only I, or those in our family will laugh. Sometimes I don't even get the joke but I laugh and he appreciates it. Then we laugh even harder when I tell him I didn't get the joke in the first place.

So today especially, I am thankful for a wonderful husband. I am thankful for great kids. I am thankful for our health which we pray we will always have. I am thankful to have the necessities of life plus MORE. I am thankful to have the gospel in my life. My life has been blessed beyond belief because of the gospel. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father and the relationship I have with Him.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY EVERYONE.

Duel Citizenship

With November being a huge political month over here in America, I thought it was about time I did my duty and vote. But before I could do that I had to take out citizenship. So in June I sent in my papers to get the process started. I thought it would take quite a long time to get any reply back and I might not make it in time for the November elections but to my surprise within a couple of weeks I had received notification of where and when I needed to get my finger prints taken. From then on it all went quickly. On September 22nd I became an American citizen.  I now hold duel citizenship. I dressed up in my red, white and blue clothes and thought the taking of the oath would be a big deal, but it wasn't, in fact I was quite disappointed.  Then on November 4th I dressed up to brave the cold and snow and prepared myself to stand in a long line to vote. There was no line where I went and it was a very easy process. I actually had a few tears well up in my eyes as I cast my vote. This was the first time in my life that I had ever voted and it felt good. I proudly displayed my "I Voted" sticker all day. 

Over the past few months we also managed to get Kelsey and Emily duel citizenship too. They are now Australian citizens as well as Americans. 

So let's see where this new president takes us. It is a scary economic time for most people and he has a lot of work to do to try to bring America back to where we have faith in the government, where people can feel secure in their jobs and can trust that things will get better before too long and before too much damage has been done.

I still call Australia home but America has been very good to us over the past 22 years. Luckily my red, white and blue clothes work for both countries.

My Children

So as the title of my blog says, this is me and my aussie family. This was taken almost a year ago at our annual buffet night up in Deer Valley.

Jason, Michael, Me, Graeme, Steven, Damien. Front row, Kelsey, Crystal and Emily. I hope we can get together again next January. 

It amazes me that I have been a mother for over 38 years now. I love my kids so much. They give me so much joy and my chest swells with pride when I see them all together which is not often enough.

With Thanksgiving approaching I count my blessings that we have had such good health over the years, that we have wonderful daughters in law and a son in law and 7 grand children. Crystal is expecting our 8th in March. This will be Crystal's first baby and everyone is thrilled and extremely happy for her. It's a boy by the way. I feel we are a close knit family but how else can that be when the 4 boys all work with their dad.  Even though the majority of the kids were born in the USA and Canada, we all feel like fairdinkum Aussies. My own family in Australia keep in touch by a family newsletter that gets sent out 3 times a year and lately there are a lot of family members contacting each other via facebook on the internet. I am most grateful for a loving husband who treats me like a queen. We have been married nearly 39 years and he is my best friend. I love spending precious times with him because he is humorous, loving, gentle, generous, kind and sensitive and I love him with all my heart.