Cameron's gift

Have to post this one. Cameron worked so hard on cards for the entire family. She took it very seriously and must have done at least 30. She brought them along to give to everyone. They were so cute, each with specific name. Here is a small sampling of some of them.

Christmas at the Askeroth's

Breya naming all the reindeer for her cousins she did it perfectly!
5 oldest cousins: Nolan, Carys, Cameron, Breya and Afton on Christmas Day
Kylee and Tara, bonding and watching "The Sisterhood of the Traveling pants 2" in the scrapbook room
Our Christmas morning breakfast table. We had sausage, bacon, Irish toast (Askeroth favorite) and scrambled eggs. Yummy, but couldn't eat that kind of breakfast everyday! Once a year is enough!
Our Christmas Dinner on Sunday Dec. 21 Check out that festive jello!

Christmas Celebrating began at our house on Sunday, December 21st with 13 adults and 4 of the grandchildren here for a big Christmas Dinner. It was busy, but we knew that we would not get them all there for Christmas Eve and our regular program and dinner. We had a very quite Christmas Eve, and a lovely-busy Christmas Day with 6 of the 7 grandchildren here. I took lots of pictures in the last week and here is a little photo montage of the events.

Jacob is Engaged!

Jacob has found his sweetheart, and has asked her to marry him. We would like to introduce Kelli
Ann Snelson as Jacob's fiance, and welcome her to our family. She fits right in to our family, and looks like she belongs. We have also fallen for her as well! She is beautiful and very nice. Welcome Kelli!!!!

Make a Smilebox postcard

Caleb with Santa!

have to post this one even though there are similar ones on Isaac and Tiffany's blog. I snapped this picture when he was so enthralled with Santa and completely not scared of him in the slightest. We thought that he was the Cutest Santa ever, and he was so nice. We had a fun day at the Meadows mall in Las Vegas.

Christmas Decorations done!

Got it all done. We had a Christmas Tree Tour for a Girls Night Out Activity. My house was on the list. It was fun to see the different trees and taste the different recipes and everyone's Christmas decorations. We saw 10 different trees, all with a name attached. Names like Winter's 'Shimmering Solitude' and 'A Snowman's Fantasy.' Here are some pictures of my own decorations and my other tree called 'Scrolled Elegance' and also the treasured Dept. 56 North Pole Series Santa's Village.

I have been busy making ornaments for this new tree. The large peppermint looking pinwheels were made from wrapping paper with buttons in the middle. The red round snowflake ornaments are round flannel circles with batting in the middle and fancy stitched on my machine. I got to use my Cricut to cut out the "Seasons Greetings," then they were glittered. This tree has many blown glass ornaments on it that I have been collecting. some I got at the DI. It has a new Tree Skirt from Walmart and ribbon from Costco. Total cost of This new tree is about $45.00. I am proud of this because if you go into Tai Pan Trading or Roberts, some of the trees cost around $1,500.00.

December is here!

December 1st means putting up the Tree. So many people seem to put the decorations up sooner and sooner each year. I used to gripe about it, but now I really enjoy it, because of the weird and troubled world we live in, it is just nice that we can enjoy the holiday season a little longer. I say as soon as Thanksgiving is over let's get out trees and think about getting them up. (I also put up a tree in the living room and a mini one in the kitchen.)
I was having an unbelievable day with phone calls, requests and trying to get some of the new Christmas ornaments done for the new tree. I can't believe I was able to get the one tree downstairs done on Monday, December, 1st.

Ty was less than enthused when he heard that I would be doing a new tree for the downstairs
instead of the traditional ornaments we have put on every year from all of the stuff the kids made at school etc. There were many ornaments that had special meaning. I say just trust me Ty, and you will probably like it. (He grumbled all the way through helping me to decorate it under his breath trying to make me feel guilty that I wasn't doing it the way it has always been done), but now he agrees that the NEW TREE is really nice.

Thanksgiving

Todd and I have decided that it is really cool to use the China, but after this past 4 day weekend and doing endless dishes after meals, that next time we host Thanksgiving, we will definately get some Chinette and plastic cups. We did about 4 load just on thanksgiving day and we still weren't done with the dishes.

Also thanks to: Elliah for the great rolls and doing the beautiful relish tray
Tiffany for the wonderful candied yams
Tara and Trent for the chocolate pie fixins
Kendra and Sterling for the Apple pie
Paula Askeroth for the cheesecake

Thanksgiving at our house was pretty much the same as it always is when you have 20+ people for dinner. We had all of our children home accept for Josh and Courtney and their girls. But we had a very special treat, in having Gramps, Paula and Aunt Jeanne here for a little while. They came here from St George, Utah and all of our older kids came from Utah as well. Caleb and Nolan were the 'life of the party' and Breya was Grammy's little helper. We brined the Turkey again this year and that makes for the best meat and all the other dishes were pretty much quite traditional, and that makes for the tastiest food.

Isaac, Tiffany, and CALEB time!

On my way up to Fairview, I decided to go stay in Cedar City for the night to spend time with Caleb, and his parents. I also got to spend the time with Jacob and Kelly, and got to see Lindsay and Micheal Peterson (Tiffany's sister and husband) We had the yummy chicken and garlic pizza from Papa Murphey's and watched a movie late after Caleb went to bed. Caleb entertained us all with his dancing and charming little ways. I sure love that little guy. And check out those green eyes of his!

Fairview revisited

I got back Monday from another great time with the gals from our "Pine Valley Scrapbook
Retreat" only now we refer to it as Pine Valley/Fairview Retreat. this is completing our 11th year of doing this get together bi-annually. Kimmy built a beautiful vacation/farm house in Fairview, Utah in a beautiful Valley in Central Utah. We had great food and great company as always, so I am including some photos of the wonderful food and gals and we also had a visit with Tara, Trent and baby Evelyn. It was Tara and Kendra's Birthday, so they came to celebrate with us for that.

33 years later

Todd and I were able to visit our favorite spot, exactly 33 years to the day and pretty much the same time. It was November 8 and it was a Saturday in 1975. Todd asked me if I wanted to go to Kolob with him, we had been dating for almost one week. I said yes, because I really loved Kolob and I so much wanted to spend every minute with him I could. We found a special tree there and took a fun picture of us together. This particular picture became very special to us in our developing relationship and the years to come as a very fond memory.
We were able to find the tree once again, but had forgotten how hard it was to get to. It is hanging out over a very steep and high-up part of a cliff. (Maybe it was not hard back when we were 18 and 20 years old) We had to do some rock climbing, and we sure did not remember it being so high up. Here are some pictures to prove it all and the picture from 1975. We have deemed it our "Special Place" We will go back again, but maybe find a different route up there, so we don't have to rock climb. We sure had a blast though and were so happy to have found the same tree that meant so much to us.

I feel Special

It isn't everyday that a magazine article is printed about me. In fact, it has never happened before. For my Creativity, I actually was in the family section of a local newspaper once, entitled "Modern woman with a Victorian soul" That was fun. I also said that if I could have one scrapbooking layout published in a magazine it would be so great. I did have that happened two times, and then they called me to publish two layouts in a book about scrapbooking teens. Those things were really fun too. But this has surpassed all of that, (however I am keeping my perspective on the importance of things) I must admit that it was a great joy for me to see my creative works and picture in Elan Woman magazine, and the article written was so cool. Darci Hansen is a very good writer. I feel special! Thankyou to Darci and Amy Hansen (the photographer) and the magazine. It is a beautiful tribute to woman and the things they do!

Magazine is out.

The new edition of Elan Woman is out with me in it! Only problem is I have not seen it yet. Maybe today I will find someone who has a copy already in this valley, and I won't have to wait until tomorrow. I CAN'T STAND IT!

My Halloween wish came true!

My wish all week long was that some of my grandchildren would come on Halloween in full costume. Well, Josh did call late in the day and asked if he could come and trick-or-treat at our house. I was so happy. They did some trick-or-treating in Santa Clara and then piled in their van and headed to Grammy and Pa Pa's house. Cameron came as a southern Bell, Carys was the cutest little witch and Afton was a reluctant Ladybug. they all looked so cute. (I heard that the other 4 grandchildren were dressed up as Jasmine, a Ninja warrior, a Lion and Evelyn as a little pumpkin). After they were here for a few minutes, Josh's family, Pa pa, Ty and I walked down to the Anderson's Halloween bash down the street and had Chili, Donuts and Hot Chocolate. Actually the Hot chocolate was not needed due to the fact we have been having record high temperatures. We had so much fun with the lttle girls. I got my Halloween wish and pictures to share and scrapbook.

Valley of Fire

A weekend with Jacob and Kelli, was so much fun. Kelli is Jacob's girlfriend and she attends SUU as well. They had Monday off at SUU so they decided to come to Logandale. We also had Elliah, Breya, and Nolan here over night on Friday. Saturday came and we thought we would take a drive over to Valley of Fire, and do some hiking around. Here are some of our pictures of our time at this amazing State park. The rock formations are really something as well as the phenomenon of "The Indian Staircase"

I know it is fall when. . .

Saturday October 3, 2008 I finally felt as if Fall were really here,
in Logandale. In our little part of America at about 1100 ft. in elevation, (desert) I know it is fall when certain things take place. The Askeroth granddaughters were visiting Todd and I for the weekend. The following are events which took place letting me know that fall was arriving here in the Desert.

1. I woke up to a cloudy day, (very important) and temperatures were down a lot.
It felt so good! ah ah ah

2. At 8:00 Todd went down the street to Ramona Crane's and pick up a bushel of Utah peaches. There is nothing like a Utah peach this time of year.

3. October General Conference was starting. Great conference as usual.

4. Cameron, Carys and Afton helped Grammy make ghost shaped sugar cookies and we frosted them with white icing.

5. It got windy, and a big storm blew in, complete with thunder, lightning and pouring rain. It rained for quite some time in late afternoon and evening. (happens so rarely in this place) It was a cozy feeling!

the weather says, it will warm up a couple of days this week, then it will cool off a lot and stay cool. Yeah!

Finally we can use this line

Finally we are able to use a line we have talked about for years. In 1978 after Todd returned home from his mission and I was visiting Minnesota before we got married, Todd's 4 year old nephew Reed Olson asked me, "You live near the mountains?" I replied yes! (I was living in Provo,Utah) He then asked, "if you fall off the mountain, then you would land on the town?" Well now we can actually say yes to Reed. We decided that when you are in Ouray, Colorado and you are up on one of the mountains, that if you fall off you indeed would land on the town. Ouray is a very happy little hamlet, completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. here are some more pictures to prove it.

Colorado Trip

Wild ride on the Million Dollar Highway

I was leaning toward Todd a lot going south. He kept telling me he was hugging the yellow lines and he would not take his eyes off it!
This is coming back North to Ouray
This is also traveling north, and notice how close the white line is to the edge of the road.

Our visit to the" Million Dollar Highway" was just as we expected. We had been forewarned
by Todd's Mother Leslie. Leslie and Ron had been there a few weeks earlier, and had their wild ride on the highway.


If anyone wants to travel south to Silverton or beyond from Ouray, they must do so on the Million Dollar Highway. I am wondering if it is the scariest highway in America! It gets scary just beyond the "Switzerland of America" sign just leaving Ouray, and for about 11 or 12 miles it is white knuckles for any passengers. The driver however feels a little bit safer, because he or she has control of the car. This highway has two lanes, no shoulders, and no (yes, I repeat no) guardrails, and about a 100-300ft drop off on one side. I am posting some of the pictures I took of the highway, on our way back to Ouray from Silverton. I was too scared to take many pictures on the way there.

Very Happy 30th Anniversary

Well, we got back last night from a very enjoyable week in Ouray Colorado. We had never gotten away for a whole week together like that ever. When I say ever, I mean, going someplace where we did not know anyone,with no children and a place we had never been to before. It was so relaxing. By that I don't mean that we laid around all day either. We hiked and hiked and then did more hiking, and soaked in mineral hot springs hot tubs right outside our hotel room. We strolled through many galleries and shops both in Ouray and Silverton. Ate out at some cool restaurants, and watched the whole entire 4th season of the"Office" in our hotel room at night, because there just happened to be a DVD player in our room. The mountains were breathtaking and it was a chance for us to just focus on one another and not think about any thing but the wonderful 30 years we have spent together. What a wonderful week it was.