Spencer Graduates from BYUI

Good morning, Oupa!

Getting ready to drive to WA.

Spencer's new toy from his brother, 7mm w/scope!

Avery did not have her blankey, but napped w/Grammie

It was a struggle to drive this beast, but someone had to do it!

3 degrees to show for the hard work and sacrifices. Proud day!

Happy Marecle family.

Taken at the gardens on campus in Rexburg.

In the main auditorium on campus.

Some photos from my trip up to see Spencer graduate and visit family.
Preparing to go into the main auditorium for commencement.

Trip to Missouri

Joseph and Emma are buried behind their home. This is just a memorial.

David is buried here.

Along with family.

Missouri Turkeys.

African trophys.

This guy is a serious hunter.

Not a part timer. 3 Boone & Crocket deer here.

Cape Buffalo.

Mark Johnson posing with a warthog mount.

Many African buck mounted on fireplace. This is at one of Leamon's friend's home.

Leamon and Terry Johnson's home in Richmond, MO.

The Missouri River above her banks.

Driving down to Lexington about to cross the river.

We recently took a road trip up to Richmond, MO to visit the Johnsons. We stopped in KC to have brunch with one of Stacey's classmates near downtown and toured his movie production company offices. He does war reenactments and history films. He lives in Liberty, MO and knows quite a bit about church history. I took a few photos that may be of interest.

Surprise Party - I would give it a 2 ;O)

Feb 27th is my sister in law Jessica's birthday. This year unbelieveably she is turning 40. She and my brother, her brother - who turned 50 on Feb 14th - and his fiance all went to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic to celebrate. It didn't dawn on me to throw a surprise party until Feb 19th! I was reminded that Jessica not only would be in town for her birthday but it fell during the weekend. I frantically started thinking of places to have the party and remembered my mother's new condo has a very nice club house (plus with her living there we would not have a cost to use it = bonus)...thus the scammin began...I had my mother send a email to jessica with our other friends email address attached and along with mine that said "my neighbor is having a jewelry party at the club house. I will receive credits along with the hostess will receive credit for people just showing. You don't need to buy anything just stay an hour or so..." Jessica was hooked. Thankfully because she was out of town, I was able to arrange everything (we work together and with her out of town it was easy to send out the evite and make calls and what not). Jessica and Brad got back into town on Wednesday Feb 24 - my brother took Feb 25th off - the party we had to have on Friday Feb 26th as mother was committed to another party on Feb 27th. I started calling my brother about 730 am - through out the day - he had turned off his phone so he would not receive any calls from his work. About 4pm that afternoon he was over at Jessica's parents house (they watch my niece Kayla everyday after school and live right next door) While talking to Phyllis he felt that Jessica had not told him the whole story about the jewelry party because Ms. Phyllis was acting weird when talking about the next evening. So what does he do...he calls JESSICA asking her if there is more tomorrow night then she has told him. (this was the fall of the surprise) I finally got a hold of my brother to tell him about the party but the cat was already out of the bag...although Jessica was a super good sport about it all! I had asked my brother to ask his daughter Kayla out for a date night and asked him not to mention anything to her about the party till they were on their way to my mom's. Kayla wanted for their date night to be them staying home playing play station. My brother - thankfully - is not a good liar -so he had to tell Kayla about mommy's surprise party but told her it was a surprise so we couldn't tell mommy. AS SOON as mommy got home from work Kayla says "daddy and I are going on a date night at IHOP and i wouldn't be smiling like this if i were lying" how cute is that??? So as far as a "surprise" this party was a 2. But the smile on Jessica's face all night long - to see all the friends that were able to gather at a very last minute was awesome! With my mad dash to get it all together - I forgot candles - never fear this it TEXAS - we just use d'em darn corn chips...it was kind of scary to know that corn chips are flamable - note to self...

VDay and DDay....

Valentine's Day has always been a very confusing holiday for me. Yes I love the hearts and candy and the romance of the holiday, however it also marks another year with the memory of riding with my sister and Dad in the hospital transportation van to Grapevine Medical Center so Dad may give up his earthly body and continue on up to the Lord. This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the day my Dad-Died.

My Dad was only 60 years old. I never really realized how young that really is...now that I am in my 40's (still so hard for me to think I am in my 40's and in a short while I will be saying my 50's)...60 doesn't seem so far away. He never got to walk me down the aisle, although my brother did a great job standing in...still it wasn't my "papa-san", never got to physically meet my "Prins", never to meet the children in my life, or the Grandchildren they have and will give us. He will have to wait to meet his grand children, and my mother will have to continue on her path alone. My boys (Ian, Hunter and toto) made a wonderful dinner Saturday night after seeing Avatar. What a great movie - i can truly see why it will win many awards. After many games of WII, off to bed to wake to praise God at our Church. Then we will go and wish Ian's mom a happy Valentines and give her the card and yummy chocolates.
Sunday we had my mother over for Valentine's day - we have tried to make it a tradition for her - give her something to look forward to...This Sunday we had steaks (in the shape of a heart) with shrimp and bake potato. Ian is so sweet and loves to share his love of cooking. It is so true that you really don't understand what you really miss till it is permanently gone from your life. I use to have dreams about Papa-San...still occasionally do - i wonder if I will this anniversay

I miss you my Pappa-San.

Is anyone interested??

Putting this out there to see if we get any comments on our blog...we are not very good at updating as we are usually on Facebook. If you do follow or notice our blog - let us know. We would love to hear from you. :o)

Anyone? Anyone????

I guess I am feeling a bit down...and hoping to reconnect with some.

Jamaica Mon...

We just got back from a great trip to the island of Jamaica. We stayed at the Iberostar Rose Hall Suites. Our room was large and great with a wonderful ocean "view". Hunter had the time of his life. Learning to snorkel, ziplining, walking up Dunn River Falls - which by the way was freezing at first. The boys also were able to play "football" on the beach. (Soccer to us Americans) Ian feeling like he was 27 instead of 47 ended up breaking a toe. I wish i could tell you it was because he was covered by 3 defenders and was making a break for the goal when another player slide tackled him, taking him down....alas, he was just running in the sand and tripped over his own toe - yes the one he broke! LOL! So for his birthday I pushed him around in a wheel chair for 2 days of our vacation. He became something of a legend at the hotel...ha! Seriously, all the employees had heard about the mon that broke his toe the day before his birthday. Most of the employees loved the Arsenal Soccer team so Hunter and Ian had tons of friends. The day Ian woke up with his broken toe we were suppose to go on a zipline tour. Ian couldn't make it but Hunter and I had a great time! Oh while we were snorkeling we saw a Lion fish, a puffer fish, starfish and many others. We had great weather until the last day. Aug 6th is Jamaica Independance Day - they had a great band, bar b q and fun activities.

Visit to meet Avery