Grandma Honey

A few of the Halloween costumes are coming in...

Hailey the veterinarian
And the twins Téa as Princessuh, so sorry, don't know my princess names ....and Spider-manAKA Jonas.
Hoping more pictures will come my way!

Jonas looks like he is leaning in real quick so his Mom can take a courtesy shot. 
He was probably off to play within a second of this picture.

...to see our grandgirls in their Primary Program.

I want to tell you 2 of my favorite parts.
The first one:
A sweet 7 year old girl from Cami's class walked up to the microphone holding little Cami's hand,
and then proceeded to tell the congregation what an example Cami was to her
of friendliness, love, and joy.
Then Cami's sister Elora came up to the microphone too, and coaxed Cami into saying, "Hi."

I was in awe, and in tears.

Then, or maybe it was before....a little girl, Taya, who is about 5, I think,
got up to the microphone to do her part but instead she froze with tears streaming down her face.
She just couldn't do it. So the Bishop's wife who was nearby, started crying too,
and said Taya's part for her....but she could hardly get the words out through her own tears.
Sweet empathy tears, for this woman to cry right along with this frightened little girl.

A special day. It always is.

Heading off to class.
Cami is often stopped by people along t…

Yesterday Dennis and I attended the funeral for a woman who was 105 years old.  I have never even known someone close to her age. 
Since I am married to a man who believes "it is better to be a half hour early than 1 minute late," the Methodist church looked like this when we arrived. 

So to back track, about a week ago my Dad called to say that Marie Carnahan died.  I had to think for a minute who he was talking about.  Wasn't she a friend of Mom's? He said, yes, they had been friends since the 1940s.  Then after emailing my Uncle Don, I learned that Marie was actually close friends to my Grandma (who died in 1984) 

So after we hung up I found her obit in the paper and noticed that Marie Carnahan was 105 years old!!  She became a widow in 1942. So she outlived her husband by 70 years!  She also outlived her 2 children. And she never had any grandchildren.
I was interested in attending her funeral.  I felt certain my Mom and my Grandma would have wanted me to.  But …

A friend of a friend's cardiologist told her she needs to eat steel cut oats every morning.  She was eating regular oatmeal and he told her that was not good enough for her.  Ever since I heard that, I've been cooking steel cut oats in my crockpot, but I really don't care for the flavor of them....until I started making it this way....
Picture, along with this recipe, taken from GreenLiteBites.com
What I love about this recipe is that it uses an entire 16 oz can of pumpkin to 1 cup of steel cut oats.  It not only ups the nutritional value of this breakfast but I absolutely love the way it tastes.  It takes me minutes before I go to bed at night to put it in my little crockpot. and my house smells like pumpkin pie in the morning.  One little recipe lasts me 3-4 mornings.  Dennis doesn't like pumpkin in any form so he won't even try this.
I follow her recipe exactly except I leave out the nutmeg.  I'm just not a nutmeg loving person.If you are, leave it in. She…

...or so says John Tesh. 
I listen to him every afternoon while making dinner. 
Today he shared this list. He says by saying these things your relationship will improve. 
They all make sense to me except for #4.

1. "We're all in this together."

2. "You're better at this than I am."

3. "Please tell me what's going on."

4. "I'm angry."

I think #4 should instead say, "It's not your fault, but I'm angry."  
By simply saying, "I'm angry"...wouldn't that put your husband or friend or whoever it is, on the defensive?

Last Tuesday while my Dad's wife was at the doctor's,  he told me that he was planning a surprise for their 5th anniversary the following Saturday.  During dinner at their retirement facility he had made arrangements  to use the microphone from his wheelchair and announce their anniversary PLUS sing   "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?"
That was a video moment if I ever heard one!
So I made plans to be there.  I talked Dennis into hiding out with me in their large dining room amongst all the residents (no small task...talking Den into it I mean),  and then I would pop out just in time to catch his announcement and singing.  So I called my Dad about 4pm that day to let him know my plan,  and that's when he told me it already happened!  I had forgotten that "dinner" at their facility means lunch.  And "supper" would be dinner. I missed it!! I was so disappointed!
So that evening we went by to get the details.  Susan said doing that for he…

This is how 2 parents look after  taking their 5 older children to a Weezer concert at the Fair. 
And no, this picture was not posed.  Re-enacted maybe, but not posed.
But they perked up enough to pack up their babies and head home. I think Amy loves Logan's muscles.

Last Friday on our way home from getting Elora from school
I asked if she would get our mail while I waited in the car.


I had the car window rolled down and I could hear Elora say, "I feel sorry for your mailman.  You can call this number, Grandma Honey, and get on the DO NOT SEND list."
And just so you'll know, that was only 2 days worth of mail. I think this must be peak week for Christmas catalogs.

Do you want to see a really cute announcement? Check it out here on my niece's blog.

I wasn't about to pass up the chance to be with my grandchildren's Joy School at the park.
Especially since my camera was invited too.




Den and I are off to my Mac class tonight so I can learn how to make more sophisticated videos.
I'm excited about this 6 week course. I have the right computer now, just lack the knowledge.
But I hope to get there eventually. I don't even care if I'm the oldest one in the class.

I predicted a few years ago that Austin would land 
the lead in the school play when he was a senior. 
Well guess what? I was right!


Last night Den and I, along with Elora, got to see it for ourselves. 
I knew Austin would be good. I knew it. And he was! He fit the part perfectly of Pierpont Finch. 
Or is that Finch Pierpont. Whatever.  
Amy and Logan and all Austin's siblings, including the twins attended opening night on Thursday. 
Then last night Amy could not stay away so here she is coming in again,   this time with my sister in law, Kim.
I was able to capture a few pictures after the show. Chandler was also in this play, his first time on stage, and he looked SO GOOD. 
He didn't have a speaking part but he danced and sang a lot 
and it was so fun seeing him. He will be back!
Chandler, Austin, Amy, and Kylie
Kylie worked one of the doors. She had the cutest shoes on  but I think the heels were about 6 inches! She was absolutely darling but this picture does not do her justice.
Chandler …

The day Elora turned a decade old, (YES a DECADE!)
we got to see Violet show off her new talent.

Do you remember the little car incident we had in the Sweet Tomatoes parking lot a couple weeks ago?
How this older gentleman was not looking as he backed out, and ran into our car? 

So his insurance paid the $789 it cost to fix our car, plus they also covered the $97 for 3 days use of a rental car. 
Problem was though, the last day we had it I misjudged how far I should have driven our car into the garage by 1/2 inch. 

But I didn't know this. 

Not until later on that evening when Den came in the house to find me and announced, 
"I hate to tell you this, but when you closed the garage door earlier today, it scraped the bumper of the rental car." 

I had that instant I-wish-I-could-rewind-life feeling. How could I have done such a thing?

Then Den decided he was going to Lowes to see if he could find some auto paste of some kind. 
He thought possibly the car just had paint from our garage door and it could be rubbed off. 

A few hours later: Good try, but didn't work at all.

Then I…

I said I would show pictures of it and here they are! 
(Thank you Susan for taking all these and letting me borrow your camera card.)

 You can enter through the main door at this facility,  or you can knock on one of their outside patio doors  (Dad and Susan have 2 !)
And now, let's go inside...
They have lunch and dinner in the main dining room  with all the other residents,  but they like to have breakfast right here. 
Dad taking a break from the game to change his pressure points.  Susan use to do this for him every 30 minutes but now  with this new electric chair, he can do it by himself.


Susan and Dad with Corinne (Sue's sister) 
who drove from southern Ca to help with the decorating! Hope you enjoyed the tour!

My Daughter in law Erin along with her Mom, Lynn, and her friend Kristy,
will be running in the Susan G.Komen Breast cancer race in just a few days on October 20th.


As you can see above, they have done this before.  The same race this month will have even greater meaning to all of us,  since it marks TEN YEARS Lynn has been cancer free!!!
If you would like to donate, feel free to visit their I LOVE LYNN page.

And LOVING it!

When Dennis asked me what the monthly lunch/lecture was about this month in Hanford
I said, "Oh it doesn't matter what it's about, but we are going right?" He said sure.
Of course he did.

But a few days before, I finally did tell him the lecture was by an OB doctor, all about pregnancy.
He wasn't interested, so then I said,
"Look, we have adult children having babies. We need to keep up on the latest." 
His response?  "No we don't. That's their business, not ours."
He's right, but I still wanted to go, so we did.

And it wasn't just for this lunch...which is always wonderful there, and free I might add.
 Dennis likes to pile it on. Chicken Alfredo, manicotti, salad and cookies.
So we learned a few things. Did you know that pregnant women are not suppose to eat cold cuts unless they are steamy hot?  Something about the bacteria needs to be killed.
I thought tuna was out these days for pregnant women.  But no, this Dr said they ca…

We all have faults, right? There are several people I can think of who seem perfect to me,  but since we are all human they must have flaws somewhere in them.
I have a mental list of my own, plus probably many more I am not even aware of.  Like two that I found out about just this past week.
The first one came to my attention by one of my daughters in law.  (And by the way, I did ask her if I can share it here.)  She said when I answer the phone I sound uninterested at first  or tired or like I don't want to be bothered.  I do not want to sound that way AT ALL. I didn't even know I did!  She says as we talk longer, then I cheer up.
So I thought back to our previous conversation and I said I was distracted when she called.  She said, no, it happens a lot, not just that time. 
I told her I think I must have trouble switching gears.... like from what I am doing at the time to the phone ringing.  And thinking about it later, I also think I brace myself for bad news.  Maybe I s…

His daughter Emily: "I remember someone telling me my Dad would never be a rich attorney  because he gave way too much of his work."
"He got up every morning for 9 years before early morning seminary to fix us breakfast.  He showed us how important we were and how important scripture study was."  His wife Anna Leesa:   "John would wake up every morning and say he loved Clovis.  'Another beautiful day in paradise.' That's come to have great meaning for us."


His son Steven:  "In many ways life is like a grand relay... at this point my Dad has finished his leg and is handing off to the rest of us to continue this work."



Duane Matsungaga:  "...Perhaps one of God's tender mercies, that John Barrus was allowed to linger with us  as he again began to teach us.  He turned our minds, our thoughts, and our hearts to the Savior.  So typical of what he always did."
Doug Stokes:  "He was concerned and saw the best in every person... He lo…