No. 9 & No. 10 Granddaughters Arrive

So Kelsey delivered her twin girls on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:20 and 7:28.

All went well, except that the epidural did not work, and Kelsey and girls are doing great. In fact, they were all able to come home today. Not too often that twins are born 5 weeks early and get to come home in less than 48 hours:)

Kelsey looks great and little girls are adorable. Names.....Quinn Gracie and Rian Palmer. Quinn was 5 lbs 3 oz and 18.5 inches and Rian was 5 lbs 7 oz and 18.5 inches. Quinn is the oldest by 8 minutes. However, Kelsey said it was more like only 5 minutes.

Cliff and I are flying to Puerto Rico on October 18th and will stay there til December 1st. Well, we fly into Tampa on the 18th, spend a couple days with Linsey and family and then back to Florida on Nov. 29th for a couple more days with Branson family and then home.

We just returned a month ago from spending three weeks with Linsey in Florida and Kelsey in Puerto Rico. It was so fun being with all of them again. I miss my girls (all of them). We have 14 girls now....4 daughters and 1o granddaughters.

We also spent two weeks at Priest Lake this year with our other two daughters, Katie and Morgan and their families. So it has been a very fun filled summer.

Pictures to come when I have more time:)

Another Change in Our Lives

Last Sunday Cliff was released as the Bishop of the University 10th Ward. The church is making a lot of changes with the Young Single Adults and have dropped the name "University" or "Student" wards, and they dissolved all "Married Student" wards and sent the married students back to the family wards in which they live. All these changes took place last Sunday and in the process of these changes our 1oth Ward was dissolved and our kids were put into 5 different wards. So because our ward was dissolved and Cliff has been bishop almost three years now up there, he was released. So we will be returning to our home ward, Chubbuck 6th, this Sunday. It will be nice to return to the 6th Ward and I'm sure it will take a little adjustment, but we will dearly miss our kids of the University 10th Ward. We have grown to love them all....those there now, and those who have moved on. We have enjoyed so much being with them and learning from them. They will never know how my testimony has grown from being with them, serving with them, and having fun with them. They are great kids with great testimonies. I served as the Temple Prep Teacher up there and enjoyed so much teaching and preparing these young people to go to the temple. Cliff will be lost for a while without having the association of these young people through the ward or the Institute anymore, but we are looking forward, and making new plans. Priest Lake, Florida, and Puerto Rico.......here we come!!

30th Anniversary

So Cliff and I went to Salt Lake to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary, which is March 14th. We had a great time. We went to Temple Square and out to eat at Iggy's. The picture below is taken because this is where Cliff gave me my engagement ring. Someone else was taking the picture for us and it is blurry, but who cares:)
The next day we went through an endowment session in the Salt Lake Temple. This is the first time that I have gone through the Salt Lake temple except for a wedding. Cliff has only gone once before he left on his mission. So it was wonderful. That temple is truly an amazing place. The inside is so beautiful. It amazes me that the pioneers could do all that with so little technology. Anyway, we had the blessing and opportunity of being asked to be the witness couple. It was awesome. Afterwards we ran into the man that asked us to be the witness couple and he showed us some places in the temple that not everybody gets to see. It was a wonderful day and a great experience. A perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.

Looking back on 30 years, we have so very much to be grateful for. Heavenly Father has truly blessed us. We have 4 beautiful, wonderful daughters, 4 great son-in-laws and 8 beautiful little granddaughters. Who could ask for more:) Linsey and Kelsey and their families are now living far away and that is hard for me, I am adjusting, but still miss them so very much.

I don't do very well keeping this blog up, but then I don't have a lot to put on here when alot of my family is not around. It was usually our family events that I posted on here. I will try and still put things, but Cliff and I are kinda boring if all you are reading about is us and the other girls all have their own blogs.

Need To Do Better

I know, I know, I really need to do better in keeping my blog up. However, half of my family has moved far away now and so not sure I will have a lot to report here on the blog. Most of what I have always had dealt with my grandkids. I still have 3 of the 8 here, but that will probably not last long. Katie and Cameron will probably be leaving within the year for places unknown.

So......to bring you up to date.....Morgan and Norman got married on December 11, 2010 and it was a wonderful day. Everything was perfect and we had the entire family together for probably the last time in who knows how long. So it was wonderful having all our girls and their spouses in the temple together. We got a great family picture together.

Linsey and Jarom moved to Tampa, Florida the week after the wedding. That's when my tears first started. Kelsey and Dan left a week ago tomorrow (on Valentine's Day) for Puerto Rico for 3 or 4 years. That brought more tears. I have to say, the hardest thing for me as a grandma is to get close to my grandchildren and then to have to say good-bye to them and watch them move so very far away. But life brings changes, I just don't always like those changes.

Katie and Cameron are looking into career changes and may be leaving us soon. I will keep you posted on that. Morgan and Norman are presently planning on staying here while they get their education. So we should have them around for a few years anyway.

I guess since I won't have much to blog about right now that this blog will start to be my travel blog. Cliff is on disability from work now and so this is our time to do some things together. We have lots of places that we would like to go and this past summer was really fun. We traveled to Priest Lake for our annual family vacation. Then we went to Nebraska for a family reunion on Cliff's side. While there we decided to be spontaineous again and instead of heading for home....we headed for Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of my goals or dreams or whatever you want to call it is to visit each state in the United States. However, I will probably not get Alaska. Anyway, so we went to Milwaukee and the saw the broadway musical "Wicked". I had already seen it twice (in Denver and in Omaha) but Cliff had not seen it. It was great....even the third time. We then drove from there to Minneapolis, Minnesota. We toured some of the places that our now new son-in-law (Norman) served his mission in. We even went to the mission home and visited the Sacrament Meeting of the ward he was attending when he left his mission for home. It was fun to meet the people and hear how much they loved Norman.

Then driving home we decided to take the back roads and not the Interstate. It was very fun and we enjoyed it alot.

Then in October we drove to Florida with our daughter, Linsey. She had to move to Florida ahead of the rest of the family to start her new job as a NICU nurse at the hospital there. We did not want her driving across the country alone, so Cliff and I drove with her and then flew home. We had a great time and enjoyed our time with Linsey.

So......I guess now we need to start planning our first trip to Florida (well that won't be our first, but first since Linsey's whole family has moved there) and Puerto Rico:)