Fall Family Reunion

It seems that summer is so busy that it seems hard to find time to get together for a family reunion.  This past summer we had so many family, class reunions, cousin reunions plus getting the vacation/work and now rental house ready to rent that we decided to have the Joe &  Barbara family reunion in the fall.

We found a beautiful home to rent in Heber City that had three floors and plenty of bedrooms for everyone.  Doug and Jessica came up with a theme of Harry Potter.  They planned the first dinner together.  We went all out trying to make it like the first meal when the students arrive at the castle. For the meal we had pumpkin soup served in a large pumpkin, dry ice in bowls,  Butter Beer, a Potions Station and Honeydukes.  Jessica make chocolate frogs that everyone loved.

After dinner we were sorted into our houses.  We had a sorting hat with a phone in it and then Doug went outside and talked to each of people as they were sorted.  Carter was not sure he wanted to wear the hat that talked.  When he found out it was Uncle Doug talking he was OK with it.

There was a small pond down the road that the boys could fish in.  All the boys had tons of fun catching fish.  Even Grandma Willis went fishing. 

We also got to ride the Heber Train and ride up Provo Canyon.  They called it the haunted canyon and told ghost stories on the ride up.  We had a great time.

Spaghetti Squash Tree

This spring I planted a spaghetti squash plant. I had no idea it could grow into a tree that looks like a pine tree with squash growing from it but here is the proof and this not Photo Shopped (like I would know how to anyway).

Finally I can post

For the past three months I have not been able to log in to my blog to post. Today Joe helped find out the problem, it had a different address. I don't know how it changed but it did. Then I went to post and I could not post anything :). What is going on? Joe found out under settings there was an up date. So it appears I am back in business.

Can It Fit?

We have been fixing up the garage. The roof was in really bad condition. After a couple of months it is done. Forgot to take pictures along the way. Part of the idea was to park one car in the garage and then be able to back out onto the grass. If it worked we would make part of it into a patio. Well, there is no way it was going to work so no garage for the car at this point.

We were driving home from Idaho this past July. We were around Brigham City and saw the most beautiful rainbow. The colors were so brilliant. I don't think I have ever seen a bright large rainbow.

The Number Mountain

Growing up in the Lost River Valley just north of Arco Idaho had a couple of unique features. Arco was the first community in the world ever to be lit by electricity generated by nuclear power on July 17, 1955, from the nearby National Reactor Testing Station. My Dad was an Health Physicist at the Site as we always called it. The other was called the number mountain. The painting of our class number was something that was planned for as soon as you became a freshman. We would talk about what area on the mountain would be the best spot to put our number "72". The number is the year we would graduate from high school. It took a couple of days to paint the number. I wish I could remember more details about the painting process.

You can see my number to the left of the 44 which was year my Mom graduated from Arco.

This last picture shows the oldest numbers that I was ever able to find "21 and 21". The "A" stands for Arco and the "B" for Butte county.

4th of July fun in the Sun

The 4th of July was a great day this year. We had a backyard picnic at Doug and Jessica's. They have a nice large tree that provided lots of nice shade. We had fried chicken, cooked outside for easy clean up, potato salad, cucumber mint salad, fresh corn on the cob and watermelon.


After playing yard games which weren't a very big hit, Jessica got out the water slide which was a huge hit. All four boys had a ball playing in it and spraying me. Braeden thought that was great to spray me and I must admit it did feel good as it was a hot day.

After playing in the water we had ice cream with fudge topping, blueberries, raspberries and a pastry. I think it was well liked by all as can be seen in the pictures. Happy fun 4th.