Uh . . . Was that Christmas???

And Merry Christmas to anyone else who blinked and missed it. I guess I shouldn't say I missed it, but it sure came in a whirlwind. I thought that since I wasn't working anymore, things would be a lot calmer and relaxed. Not. However, I must admit my stress level has dropped drastically.

On December 8 I got to go to Phoenix to be with Chris, Shawn and family for the birth of new baby Emma on Dec 9. I wasn't at the birth, but I got to take Kaylee and Crew home for baths and dinner while Chris was at the hospital helping Shawn. When it came time to leave Crew came running down the driveway yelling "Grandma, I need you!". That just about did me in. All the way home I worried about how Shawn was going to handle a newborn and getting Kaylee to school, etc. Chris left for Sedona the next day. Hang in there guys!

I came home to find everyone survived without me. (maybe I should take off more often!) The twins handled everything fine.

The picture above is the twins on a hike the day after Christmas. Annie took them through some slots by Snow Canyon. They found some ice on a water puddle and and some fun with it.

All in all, I had a great Christmas. The food was too much. The family was big. (in a good way) The noise was thunderous at times. The gifts were thoughtful and much appreciated. Thank you one and all for all you have done. We are truly blessed. As we move into a new year, may we remember our lessons learned from the past and move forward with faith.

Lo! The mighty hunter!

In carrying on with the Syphus family tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree, we took to the hills the day after Thanksgiving. Along for the ride were Laura and Jesse and Family, Dave and Maddie (Annie had to work :( , Spencer and Taylor and Logan. It was a georgeous day and not too cold. Jesse brought his four-wheelers which made the hunt so much easier. We left the house at 9:00 a.m. and got home by 12:30 p.m. so we still had a whole afternoon to relax! The only downer was Jesse and Cooper took a spill on the four-wheeler, which is Laura's story so ask her.

I still haven't got this adding pictures thing straight, but you can see Logan and Taylor liked it too.

I am anxiously awaiting a call from Phoenix telling me that Shawn is in labor. I know she is way more anxious than I am, but I guess its just a girl thing. I have baby blankets all finished and ready to go. I almost have Christmas presents done to take down. I haven't planned any menus and food for Doug and the twins. Hopefully they won't die of starvation while I'm gone.

Ahhhh Fall!

I should say that fall is absolutely my favorite time of the year, except for spring when we go camping again, and winter when we get to go to the snow. But fall . . . fall is for pine nut hunting! After two years of not being able to find any we took to the hills once again in search for nuts. Alan and Rebecca had asked us to watch Cohen and Eliza that weekend for them. (rebecca had a chance to go on a cruise with some old school mates (you go girl!) and Alan was working) So we took them along with us. Having young kids along always adds to the entertainment value. The weather was perfect. Doug and I just laid a tarp out and slept under the stars. It was georgeous just lying there looking up at the stars. We found some pine nuts, but it was hit and miss. We drove around a little the next day to find some good trees. Doug got almost a bucket full.

Halloween was fun with all the grandkids coming by to scare us and get goodies. I made two kinds of soup (one was chicken tortilla, the other was a chicken/chili stew) both were really good. I was trying them out to see which one I was going to make to take up to our Young Women retreat.

I thought I would just warn all of you. If you ever read something on this blog that doesn't seem to quite fit the mold - it probably means that Sara or Amanda have cracked my password and are trying to post. They have threatened several times and I wouldn't put it past them. Anyways, hope you enjoy the pics, if anyone wants to take pity on me and show me how to put these on in the right spots in the text I would do something nice for you, maybe cook dinner or something.

The "Birthday Trip"

Every year Doug and I try to get away for a weekend for our birthday. Since mine is in August and his is in September, we go around this time of year. This year we went to Mt. Carmel. It is where the road from Zion park meets up with Hwy. 89 and there are a couple of motels and restaurants there. There is a golf course also (although we don't play golf) and we thought a lot about how much Ben would enjoy spending a weekend there. (with Tasha of course). We went to church in Alton, which is about 20 miles north of where we were. We drove some dirt roads that we hadn't driven before and just generally relaxed. We weren't in a hurry, and had no set plans for 3 whole days! I could get used to that.

When I got home I got busy again. Lin's had chicken breasts on sale for 1.29 so I bought 40 lbs! I know, pretty weird, but my good friend Penny had told me how much cheaper it is to bottle your own chicken when it is on sale instead of buying it canned. I froze 10 lbs. and bottled the rest. I got 27 pints out of that 30 lbs. of chicken. That was $1.43 per bottle and they are bigger than what you get in the cans. If it sounds like I'm bragging, oh well. I was suprised how easy it was to do. Somewhat time consuming, but once you know the drill on how to do it, you can squeeze other chores around filling bottles and checking the pressure cooker gauge. I was so proud of myself that I tried to bottle beans next. I heard you could do it by just putting the dry beans and water in a jar and then pressure canning it. They turned out good, except that I haven't opened a bottle yet to see how they taste. The chicken I opened and made a chicken salad out of and it was great. This next week we go to get apples in New Harmony. Laura says she wants to do 60 quarts! I can't believe I used to do that! It has been three years since we have been able to get apples from up there. They have been frozen all the other years.

Here are a couple of pictures. One from our trip and one of Cohen's birthday party .

Now, wasn't that worth it?????

Our long awaited trip to Kiabab plateau finally happened! Thanks to all our kids and their very patient and tolerant spouses we all took that epic journey out to North Timp Point (otherwise known as the west rim). We would all walk down to the point and say goodnight to Mr. Sun. The grandkids had a blast. I think Gabby won the dirtiest kid award and Tasha won the best kid cleaner award. The others were not far behind though. I think we broke our record for flat tires. The last count I had was three: Jesse, Dave, and Doug. Jesse and Dave's happened on gravel road, but Doug's was a blow-out just outside of Cliff Dwellers when we went to pick him up from fishing. I had just turned the driving over to him when it happened. The tire had been low before we left town so we put more air in it and I checked it again before we left camp. We drove all that way on the gravel roads and all the way to Lee's Ferry without a problem, and JABLOW!

All I can say is the good Lord is watching over us. Doug had the tire changed in 20 minutes and we were on our way again. We were all tired when we got home and I was feeling especially punk, but I found out why Sunday morning when I woke up with a sore throat, chills, etc. Thanks Cooper! J/K I'm still trying to figure out this adding pictures stuff and they are ending up all over the place here, so I will just tell you about them here. The twins made a "fort" (another cherished syphus tradition) with the help of the grandkids. They had them parading through camp with logs and sticks for the construction process. The end result was truly inspiring and the kids had a place to play without the mothers worrying about wandering off (mostly). Thanks everyone, for all the wonderful food, company, and entertainment. You guys all make me glad to be a part of this family. I figure that after all the parenting mistakes we may have made, at least we taught you how to camp!

Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeee!

This blog posting stuff is new to me, and as you can see I am still trying to make it a habit. My birthday was Aug. 19 (Wednesday) I know, almost a month ago, but I might as well tell you about it anyway. I spent the day with Elyza and Cohen. Rebecca had to work, so they came over and I took them up to the pool for the afternoon. It was quite relaxing and not crowded at all. I thought I couldn't have found a better way to spend the day than with some of my grandkids. Along with my kids, they are the light of my life.

Laura, bless her heart, kept trying to get everyone together for some kind of birthday celebration so we ended up going to her house on Saturday for a nice lunch and good company. She is always such a gracious hostess. Who knew I had Martha Stewart genes in my blood. They skipped my generation landed in hers. Thanks Lar, you're the greatest!

I'd like to thank the academy . . .

For awhile now I have been going through what I have been calling a "Technology rebellion". I am enjoying my land lines and visits with real people. However, I started to realize that my kids knew more about each other than I did because they kept up on their blogs. So . . . under somewhat duress I have taken the plunge (with the capable help of Laura) into blogging. This isn't going to be easy for me, but I have enjoyed reading all the blogs in the family and admire and am envious of the great job you guys have done on yours. Hopefully, as I go along I will learn how to add pictures, videos, etc.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never be good at texting, and be up on all the social technology, but at least you all know you can call me whenever and talk to me. At least this way I can keep a more permanent record of our family and maybe I might even find out more about myself! Stay tuned for events and the crazy happenings in the life of the Syphuses!