Annabella getaway

Grandpa and I spent a lovely few days with the Lee kids while their parents were
away celebrating their anniversary.
Everyone loves to read at this home and they love books early as you can see Becca
loving this book from all directions.



Max is into dinosaurs and was devouring this book and another like it.

Brianna talked Grandma into reading her this VERY LONG Barbie story.

Trav was busy with his studies.

Recess ! - Grandpa declared himself Principal of their school and was very keen
on recess and lunch time.

Travis was good to help Becca ride the purple dinosaur.

Max was going to surprise Alyssa as she came down the slide.

Hannah and Alyssa being silly.

This is the new kitchen clean up crew in training. They have a great kitchen training program at this home. Grandpa and Grandma were only invited to the kitchen to eat. Hannah cooked dinner the first night, Alyssa was our breakfast specialist
and Travis cooked our lunch and dinner the next day. Pretty amazing crew!

Grandma declared Friday as Photo Day! We tried re-enacting Jon's puppy photo but
it doesn't work with children. Here is our best effort of all the girls.

Then all the boys !

My personal favorite - (I took it myself) of Travis and his Grandpa Lee

Becca shouts for joy as her parents return home.

shoot quick

We've been here, there and everywhere the last few weeks. Some weeks we can say that we've seen all of our Utah grandchildren.
Just after Christmas we got together for a few days of peace and quiet and good food in Annabella.
Catching 19 grandkids and getting them to pose for a photo is a major challenge - but this time they were all very co-operative
This isn't all pretty and proper like Sarah's kids when they pose or all cute and lined up nicely like Jon's puppies pose - but these are 19 of our grandchildren and they make me smile.

Getting the four Cherry children to pose is quite a feat too. Here's our best effort from our visit at Thanksgiving.
Add these 4 to the other 19 and you have all of the current Lee Family grandchildren. THEY ARE THE GREATEST!

Peaceful, Heavenly, Wet and Fun

You've all been there at least once so you know that a weekend camping at Capitol Reef is something to look forward to and to enjoy.
We were the first campers to arrive so Roland and I set up our tent while the deer grazed? on the fallen pears nearby.
Most people campout by sleeping in tents - but not Jon - he made cozy beds for the kids in the van and set himself a bed outside.
Everyone did a great job with their meal assignments and we had plenty to eat at all times.
The kids loved the zipline, the irrigation ditch, the rocks, the horses, and the pinata.
And I think we all loved the hike to the waterfall. Some were timid about getting wet at first but not for long. I enjoyed seeing the cousins playing together.

Gardens

Early this year we planted in our cute little grow boxes and we were so pleased with our harvest. We had yellow squash, zuccinni, swiss chard and our favorite was the potatoes. Our cucumbers didn't do well and our tomatoes had beautiful plants and not much fruit. Still we were happy with our efforts.
The Eves' planted later in the year and as always have a great garden with quality green beans, peppers and tomatoes, which we are always excited to partake of.

On Labor Day weekend we were at Clear Creek visiting and Jon was cooking up some squash. He hollered to Brianna to run to the garden and get him a few green peppers and some other kind of peppers. I went along to be her helper. Wow! Holy smoke! The garden was huge and there were vegetables ready to pick in every direction. Tomatoes, peppers, all kinds of peppers, corn, and potatoes. But this was only Garden #1 - we hadn't even noticed the other garden.
Jon says "don't come to my garden with out a grocery bag" so I hurried off to find a bag to fill. Jon is showing Jennie a watermelon. The garden had cantaloupe, yellow squash, banana squash, acorn squash and miles of pumpkins.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650433141733705378" />
Max and Ellie are showing me where to find the cherry tomatoes
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650432847361357730" />
Josh found a pumpkin just the size he is
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650432545300335394" />
Max found a giant pumpkin. Wow! what a pumpkin patch!

Some extra fun activities we enjoyed that weekend - Max and Ellie at the cabin swing - Jason and Josh rowing on the pond

Don't be discouraged all you garden growers - Jon always likes to do things in a BIG way!

Row, row your boat

It is the desire of all our family members, young and old, to get to row in the boats at Uncle Jon's. All except me! Roland talked me into a romantic moment on the pond and I, wanting to be with him, fell for it. The day was beautiful, the company great but the boat was too wiggly for me. Little Josh, Jason and Jennie were there to witness my most ungraceful moment trying to get out of the boat.

We had a great weekend - We all celebrated Hannah's birthday with a yummy cabin breakfast and some delicious banana cake with cream cheese frosting. I believe Emma was invited to accompany Hannah and Uncle Jon on their birthday luncheon in town. Lucky girls!
In the meantime Ellie, Max and Josh came to the cabin with Jennie, Jason, Grandpa and Grandma and we spent a lovely afternoon enjoying a rainy day at the cabin.

Hopefully all our other family members had an enjoyable holiday - wherever they went.

A piece of happiness

Today we had big plans to celebrate our anniversary #40. I told
Roland that when we got married I had no conception of living long enough to be alive or married for 40 years. But time flies when you are having fun and fun we have had.
Today I have been a real party pooper with a fever - couldn't even work up enough get up and go to go out to dinner - Dad is fixing me "Fe Fie Fo Fum" for dinner.
He served it very formally in suit and tie by candlelight.

At noon today we did have a piece of happiness as we went for a ride up Hwy 18,
turned off at Snow Canyon and drove on through. It was beautiful as always and plenty warm. We found a shady spot by the sand wash and Dad talked me into getting out and sitting in the shade. A breeze was blowing and it was cool and lovely.
Watched a little squirrel, two dragonflies and a bird. It was a little piece of heaven and I guess that will be the way we celebrated our 40th anniversary.

Who Knew?

Perhaps some of you will recall the golden colored box cars that were always up at the top of Dad's closet or stored away in his box of special things. Sometimes he'd get them out and just look at them - sometimes he'd let us use them to decorate our house but mostly they were up in the closet.

Well times have changed at the Lee home. Thanks to a train shop in Tehachapi and good old ebay we now have the whole train.

All you young mom's that are experiencing motorcyles, bikes, boats, and all kinds of boy toys. Been there, done that. Now we are moving on to trains.
I know Dad's alltime biggest wish is to have a Sportsmobile or a camper on the back of his truck but that will just have to stay on the list. But trains, I think we can afford the trains.

Jodi, Kyle and family were here last Saturday when the package arrived. Grandpa invited the boys to help him unwrap all the train parts. So with Kade and Kyle laying track, Zach on the switch, Sam jumping all over and Grandpa supervising here is a movie of the fun times we had that afternoon.

Who knew a few trains could make everyone so happy?

We know the way!

Come to find out that Roland does "know the way to San Jose" although it took us two days to drive to San Jose. We made a stop half way and stayed at a Marriott hotel (thanks Kyle). The town happened to be having a Farmers Market that afternoon and we enjoyed shopping for apricots, plums and berries. Driving across the rest of the state we sampled from the fruit stands - strawberries and cherries. So, so far the trip has been very fruitful and we hope it continues to be so.

surprise outing

Wednesday turned out a lot differently than I had planned. First I was doing some laundry for a friend, waiting for Jodi and Kyle to come so I could watch the kids, and tried to finish up my visiting teaching and then I was going to work on some scrapbooks. But then Jodi called and said they wouldn't be coming and Dad said "how about taking our tent to Snow Canyon and camping out?"
So that is what we did. We set up our tent and then went on a fun hike on the Hidden Pinyon trail. We didn't come equipped for meals so we make a quick trip back to town for dinner and then back to our little camp spot. It was a glorious view we woke up to this morning.
Wish you had all been there.

top and bottom - oldest to youngest

We have had a fun filled few weeks. Jana, Phil and family came from Houston and natually so did everyone else. We followed whereever they went. As Jodi said, "its cheaper to drive all over Utah than to fly to Houston".

If the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is correct - and I have thousands of pictures from our adventures these past weeks - I would have a very wordy blog. There were so many darling pictures of all my darling grandchildren that I couldn't decide which ones to post - so I will leave you with this one photo of our oldest, Christian and our youngest, Sarah Joy and you will just have to believe that all of them are as cute as these two.