Saying Goodbye

We had the most beautiful flowering crab apple tree in our front yard.

It had the most fragrant, lovely blossoms every spring.

It provided wonderful shade in the summer.

And in the winter, it was covered in tiny little crab apples that the birds would come and eat for dinner.

Well. The leaves on the tree started turning yellow earlier than they should.

The tree was iron deficient.

Boyd sprayed the tree with iron supplement and drilled holes in the trunk and popped iron plugs in the holes.

All to no avail.

And this spring when we discovered the tree was LEANING toward the house, we knew that her days were numbered.

We contacted Jon after the summer heat was through and asked him if he wanted to cut down our tree.

"What tree?", said Jon. "That's an over sized shrub!"

(Pretty big over sized shrub if you ask me.)

He came one afternoon and cut the top right off. (You can see how much it was leaning just looking at the stump.)



Then he loaded all the branches into the back of his truck.

Pretty soon, all that was left were a couple of branches and a lot of leaves.


It has taken us a while to get used to not having that lovely tree in our front yard. However, I would really rather not have it come crashing through my living room window.

So, in the spring, Boyd and I will be marching off to the nursery to find a new tree.

A Little Bite of Heaven

This past weekend we were up in Eden. Dave and Adele had their yearly time share available and invited us along.

It probably sounds repetitious from year to year, but we have such a great time.

We play games, we eat steaks barbequed on the grill and watch movies.

It is truly relaxing.

This year Adele brought us these:


Toll House cookies with mint chips.


They take chocolate chip cookies to the next level...

A level of bliss.

Grandpapa

Grandpapa, grandpapa, I love my grandpapa so,

Oh dee oh oh oh

Oh dee oh oh oh


When grandpa comes he will tease me, squeeze me, dance on his knees me

Grandpa's such fun!


Sometimes his whiskers are rough and tough and one love's enough and I jump down and run.

Oh dee oh oh oh

Oh dee oh oh oh


When my kids were little we had a tape of songs for children. These are the words to the song about grandpas.

How I wish that you could hear the melody as you read the words...

Boyd loves to spend time with Isaac but because his schedule is so hectic moments like this don't happen very often.

Which makes this post all the more precious.

Halloween Party

The Barrett's had a Halloween party in October.

My sisters spent so much time and effort planning and executing this evening for the family.

My sister, Rose, dressed up as a witch. She made this costume just a few days before the party.

She looked fabulous!


She had planned a cupcake walk for the younger children. I can't describe how she had those children wrapped around her finger. They obeyed every word she said. It was delightful to watch them walk around the circles and listen to the music.


The big event of the night was the bingo game. Heather was the number caller.


Mom got into the festivities as well. I snapped this photo as she was waiting for her number to be called.


The prizes were great! Maria won a brownie mix.


Tony won a brownie mix with a hot pad. I was only too happy to take the hot pad off his hands and use it for myself.


The whole crew.

It was a fun evening.

Boyd's Birthday

As you may or may not be aware, Boyd turned 50 this year.

50!

Half a century!

600 months!

18,250 days!

It's hard to believe that one can really be that old (I can say this because I'm knocking on the same door) because you still feel like you are 30 in your head.

But I digress.

Our kids did the greatest gift for Boyd.

They planned a special dinner for him at Benihana in Salt Lake.

Now THAT was a great time. Good food, good company, a good chef and a good show.

Our server even took a picture of the family (Kevin and Isaac went outside for a walk) and then gave it to us for the memory.


Boyd loved it so much. He said it was his favorite gift from the kids ever!

If any of you are reading this, keep that in mind...

It's a War Zone!

You have heard the saying: "When March Comes in Like a Lion, it Goes Out Like a Lamb".

What do you say when DECEMBER comes in like a LION?

The wind storms on the first of December were crazy!

Shingles were hitting our house so hard it sounded like we were in a war zone.

We lost sections of fence on both sides of our yard and several shingles.



There is a row of beautiful pine trees on Main street just north of Alyssa's high school. Over half of them blew down.



As I was driving around K-town to take photos, I spied this tree half uprooted. The owner of the house was outside trying to figure out what to do.


I love this photo. This is where Boyd used to have his office and still uses the basement for his office storage.


My personal favorite thing I saw. There was broken glass everywhere.


This tree just snapped 1/3 of the way up.


The road was comletely blocked by this tree. By the time I got home and picked up my camera, the tree had already been cut and the road was reopened.


Alyssa had a field trip on Thursday up to WSU. When she got to school, she found out that the field trip had been cancelled due to high winds. She asked if she should come home. I told her to stay at school because she was safe there.

About 2 hours later she called me and told me that school was cancelled. However, they wouldn't let any of the students leave because it just wasn't safe. Boyd and I decided to go and get her. In the meantime, Alyssa and Tony had left the school. They found a door that was unmanned by a teacher and ran to their cars. They got home safely and we returned shortly thereafter.

The best part of all? School was cancelled on Friday also.

But wait! There was something even better than school being cancelled. CHURCH WAS CANCELLED!!! WE WERE COUNSELED TO GET OUR OWN HOMES IN ORDER AND THEN HELP NEIGHBORS.
Since we were out of town all weekend we weren't able to get our fence situation under control. Not going to church allowed us to get it fixed. We put up some plastic webbing so that Yogi wouldn't terrorize the neighborhood. And thanks to the powers that be, we got it all done by early afternoon.

Now I guess we need to batten down the hatches for the windstorm tonight...

Mummy Cake Balls

This year, the Barrett's had a Halloween Party up in good old Cache Valley.

I was asked to do the invitations and assign out food.

I sent out the invites and didn't really pay attention to what I was supposed to bring. I looked at my invitation and found I had the privilege of bringing dessert.

Anyone that knows me, knows that Marciea + Dessert = Happiness

I watched Studio 5 one morning and they had a Halloween dessert suggestion of Mummy Cake Balls.

I was totally fascinated with the idea and decided that I would do those cake balls.

First of all you bake a cake mix into a 9 x 13 pan and then let it cool.

Then you break the cake up into pieces into a bowl and add 1/2 can of purchased frosting.

Next, you scoop out portions of cake mixture and form it into balls.

To make a good mummy, you need to flatten those balls out just a bit. They will look like this:


Pop 'em into the freezer for a while.

Melt some white chocolate. Get a pile of sucker sticks and get ready for the next step.

Dip the end of a sucker stick into the chocolate and then carefully insert the stick into the bottom of a cake ball.

Dip the ball into white chocolate and lightly tap off the excess.


Stand up into floral foam to harden.


Melt some more chocolate and then stick miniature m & m's on the front of cake ball with a tiny bit of chocolate.

Next, take a spoon and dip it into the chocolate and start flicking the chocolate sideways across the top of the mummy.

This gives it the "wrapped up in cloth" appearance.


Spray paint the floral foam whatever spooky color you would like and line up the cake balls.

Yes. Buy floral foam. Regular Styrofoam is too hard to push a sucker stick through.


Take them to your Halloween party and listen to the admiring ooooh's and aaaah's.

Just don't eat too many...

Homecoming Dance

So. Waaaaay back in October, the 8th to be exact, Alyssa was asked to her very first high school dance by her friend, Tony.

The Homecoming Dance.

She was so excited!

We began getting ready.

First of all, we needed to find a dress.

Can I just mention that it is extremely difficult to find a dress that is cute and modest all at the same time?

We found a gun metal gray dress that Alyssa was thrilled with. She wanted to accessorize with hot pink.

This is the result:


Tony bought the most beautiful wrist corsage I have ever seen. The bracelet was hot pink jewels and had hot pink roses.


Alyssa got Tony a hot pink corsage to match hers.


It was really hard to pin onto Tony's shirt. Boyd finally had to pin it on.


This is a picture of them together as they are getting ready to leave. Do you or do you not love those hot pink shoes?


Getting in the car ready to dance the night away!

Have a ton of fun, guys!

Halloween Dinner

We had the whole family over for a Halloween dinner on Sunday before Halloween.

We had orange and black tortilla chips, eyeballs,


Snakes dipped into vampire blood,


And other Halloween delights.

I found the cutest cupcakes at Sam's a couple of days before Halloween and bought them.

They were the perfect capper for a scary meal.

Kalie and Kevin brought Isaac's Halloween costume since we wouldn't see him on Halloween Day.

Isaac the Dragon.


The scary dragon being held by his kitty momma.


It was the scariest, spookiest meal ever! And a total blast!

Halloween Dance

The Halloween Dance at Alyssa's high school is girl's choice.

Alyssa decided to ask Tony to the Halloween dance.

All the kids in the group decided to dress as zombies. The girls were zombies in tutus. Coincidentally enough, just a month ago, Alyssa and I went through her closet and took her only tutu to the DI. So Alyssa found herself in need of a tutu.

She looked at Pinterest for a tutorial on tutus and showed me. There was a lovely tutorial explaining perfectly how to do a homemade tutu.

The next trick? Finding black netting. Alyssa wanted hot pink and black.

Just in case you are wondering, and I am sure you are, the supply of black netting at Halloween time is nonexistent. Zilch.

I had decided to leave the store and as I was walking away, my little eye spied some black zebra print netting. That was even better! Alyssa loves zebra patterned fabric!

I bought some. I cut that hot pink and zebra print netting into strips and proceeded to tie it onto elastic.

The result?

See for yourself:


Her tutu was the hit of the night!

And she had a blast at the Halloween Dance!

Will the Real Dave Please Stand UP?

We have done things for years with our friends the Stenquists.

We just click.

We all know that everyone has their own idiosyncrasies but it doesn't matter.

We get along anyway.

After Saturday night, I HAD to put this post together just for Dave.

Here are pictures of Dave over the years:

Formal night on the cruise


Going out to swim with the stingrays


Hanging out at Wolf Creek


Shooting on Labor Day


AND dressing up for Halloween.

My FAVORITE costume EVER!

I can't decide which I enjoyed more, the wig and makeup or the hair on the chest.




Here's to DAVE!

Gardenias

I have a fascination with flowers that grow in tropical settings.

I love hibiscus, gardenias, magnolias and any other tropical plant that DOESN'T do well in Utah.

I keep forgetting that I live in a desert with extreme temperature patterns.

One day Boyd and I were at Sam's and saw gardenia plants for sale.

I really, really wanted one.

After all, they wouldn't be selling them in Utah if they didn't do well here.

Right?

Well, I babied that little plant and almost gave up on it a few times.

In short, it hated the Utah climate.

It wanted warm, humid weather.

However, one bright day, I saw this:


The most beautiful, fragrant flower I have ever seen.

And I am happy.

Labor Day Picnic

Yes, I know. Labor Day was in September. But hey, I'm still catching up. Right?

We have a lovely park close to us that has a lazy river flowing through. Ducks abound on the shore by the river because...

People LOVE to come and throw bread to the ducks!!

We decided to join the masses Sunday afternoon and toss the ducks some bread.

This is how it goes:

You toss a few crumbs and a duck or two will wander over.

Then they tell two friends, and THEY tell two friends, and so on and so on...

Pretty soon you have a gaggle of geese and a deckload of ducks!


So here we are...feeding ducks.


Afterwards, we had a picnic along the river.

After all, what is going to the park and feeding ducks without a picnic and a bonafide roasted hot dog?

Those of you who don't know, I am sort of like Ben Matlock when it comes to hot dogs. I can eat them every day. But only if they are GOOD hot dogs. None of that wiener crap for me. Give me Nathans! Give me Hebrew Nationals! All beef!

But I digress.

Boyd got the briquets going in a grill by our picnic table. It was our intention to roast hot dogs with our hot dog roasting sticks. But it didn't work. Boyd just grabbed every one of those hot dogs and threw them on the grate and grilled 'em up.

Delicious!

We had salads, lemon and lime meringue cupcakes and, did I mention, hot dogs. It was so fun.

Even the flies enjoyed our meal.