A Utah Harper Gathering!

Sunday night, about 38 of the Harper Clan that is in Utah met at Pat and Jim Patton's in American Fork, Utah. Here is a picture of Michael with (l-r) his brother Leland, his sister Faye, his brother Richard, and his sister Pat. We also were able to see his brother Gary while in Las Vegas. He's the youngest of 12 children and there are 10 surviving siblings.

Here's Leland with his wife, Mary Kay in the background coming in to the gathering!

Here is Richard's family greeted by Jim Patton on the left. His wife is Clarnell and Isaac is their youngest, who graduates this year!

Here's the living room with one view showing people there. We visited and later Jim got out his guitar and we had a little bit of music! I hadn't heard some of those West Virginia songs before but boy were they funny!

Amanda's baby shower!

Michael and I made it to Provo just in time for me to get there for Amanda's baby shower. One of her friends had it for her in her little basement apartment. It was fun and we even played a few games! Amanda is in the white blouse and Caprise (Adam's wife) is in the green.



Amanda's family, the Lundy's had a great idea! They each picked out a children's book, wrote a note to baby Harper in the front and then separately wrapped them up in a box for her. They even had one or two books in Spanish with the English version . . . maybe a bilingual baby boy?!

Caprise used her talents to crochet a baby blanket that is darling! Adam helped her pick out the colors and so they chose Cougar Blue! She tried to surprise Amanda but I think Amanda came into their apartment when she was working on it (they live next door to each other).

Of course baby harper had to try on some of his new outfits that he got! I think they will fit!
Beth came to the shower!!! For those who do not know Beth, she is from Duncan, my partner Rachel's daughter and I have known her since birth. She made a darling diaper cake that was the hit of the shower. After the shower while Caprise and the guys went to a basketball game, Amanda and I went to visit Beth and see her apartment and meet her roommate.

Long Lost Aunts in St. George

We flew to Las Vegas Friday night late and visited with Michael's brother Gray and Judi until late that night. It was part one of more to come! We got up early because I wanted to get up to Utah. A couple of years ago, I reunited with two aunts, Marie Rice and Dorothy Thompson. Dorothy is a half sister of my mother and Marie is a daugther-in-law of her half brother, Walter. I wanted to be able to see them and they were having a baptism Saturday morning in the stake center next to the St. George Temple. We stopped in St. George and saw them for a few minutes and made reaquaintences! I would love to have had more time to visit but we will make that happen in the future. Here's a picture of all of the family that was there, including several children of both of these wonderful women.



We figured that I was probably 12-13 the last time I had seen them, maybe 1968! Anyway, here is a picture of me with Dorothy Thompson and Marie Rice. They are wonderful women!

What do you do on a snow day?

I've wanted to try this for a long time to add to my food storage. You can can butter and it turned out wonderful! It's very easy and really doesn't take a long time. I bought some butter at Sams and 4 pounds will make 5 pints of butter. You warm the jars in the oven for 20 minutes while you melt the butter. You also boil the lids to get them hot. You then pour the butter into the jars and put the lids on them. After they seal, you may want to turn the butter a little to bring any air to the top. It's that simple! I figure it cost about $1.35 a jar.

March came in like a lion!

Here I thought we may have spring on its way, but instead March 1 was a lion of a day! After three days of heavy rain (a lot like the Oregon winter storms) it all turned to snow last night. It was so strange because we had thunder and lightening while it was snowing. I've heard that is a very unusual phenomenon.
We ended up with over 4" of snow which is our biggest snow in years. We lost power for a couple of hours about 9:45 but it was so bright outside from the snow we could still see out. It's beautiful this morning and I'm so glad I have a job that I
can stay and work from home!

Maybe Spring is Coming!

I heard a loud honking noise outside this week and looked out to see our first geese of the season on the pond! Maybe they are tired of the heat further south but I'm hoping it means that Spring will soon come. . . of course we have snow in our forecast for March 1st!

2009 Valentine's Day

I thought instead of puttng up pictures, I'd try to do a slideshow video of our fun Valentine's Dinner and activity at the church on Saturday night!

Before and After Pictures of Dad's Apartment

Here's dad, finally happy in his new little home. In fact, Renetta and Richard saw him this week and he still seems to happy. He has people coming in and out and checking on him. He has nurses making sure he is taking his medicine and he's bathing twice a week. Overall, he seems pleased to have "downsized." I decided to show some before and after pictures. Having his furniture and pictures on the walls really made it his home.

Here's a from his bedroom door looking into his living room and little kitchen area. It's very interesting that he wanted to have his lamp on that table and not another one we tried to put there!Here's the entrance to his apartment. That little nick nack shelf fit perfectly and the temple on one wall and Mom's toll paintings on the other make it a great first thing to see.

Here's the after and and before picture of his TV corner. LaDonna almost put all of the pictures up herself except for some big ones that the maintence man helped with.
He settled down and was so much happier after LaDonna put things on the wall for him. These are views of his living room. The door goes into his bedroom and this is the corner for his TV.














This is another corner of his living room where we put the couch. Mary did the cute quilt on the wall for him.

Dad's Moving Day

The four of us put in a lot of work the last week of January moving dad into his new apartment. All in all, the move went well. He lives on the same level just in a different area of the building so we could use some dollies to move his furniture. The ward was going to give us some help but someone got the day mixed up so we moved him ourselves and the big stuff was mostly there in a couple of hours, thanks to Rich. and Mick.




Richard and Renetta came up for moving day. In fact, Renetta had planned on just spending the night Sunday night to be with us early on Monday but ended up staying with us until Thursday to help! She was such an angel. We were so tired every day but several nights we would eat and laugh and would go back to the motel and use their jacuzzi and relax. Renetta described the experience as being a leader at girls camp. You don't eat or get a lot of sleep, you cry a lot and laugh and lot and sleep with your buddies! We definitely did all of that and had some girl bonding!
It was interesting that the three of us each just went to different areas to help. Renetta mainly packed up dad's old apartment. I went through a ton of paperwork and files and LaDonna moved dad into his new place and put up all of the pictures on the walls. He truly calmed down after he saw his furniture and familiar things on the wall.

We had one tough time with dad. He got confused the first night and went to each and then came back to the old apartment. I was working in there and he came in and stopped and asked, "What in the world is going on here?" He had forgotten he had been moved to a new place even though he sat in his new apartment all day while we moved things in. I mentioned that to him and offered to take him to his new apartment but he said he wanted to sit down and rest. Then he went into the old living room that only had boxes and things strung all over. He got mad. I gently took him to his new place but he fussed all the way that he didn't want to move.

TRIP TO OREGON - DAY 1 - Snowy Day

The last week of January, LaDonna and I traveled to Oregon to move my dad into an assisted living apartment so he could get better care. He turned 94 on January 21st and is doing pretty well but is slowing way down and his memory is not very good. We met up in Atlanta and flew to Portland together and were surprised by a little snow fall that met us at the airport! We rented a car and the first place we went was to the Skylyn Cemetery to visit mom's grave. What a peaceful site and the trees were gorgeous so i had to stop and take a few pictures. The trees almost looked like they had cotton on them!


The whole week was very cold and we also had snow and/or ice the next few days!