Date Night

Uncle Jill pulled off the impossible tonight. She was able to arrange a quadrupled-doubled date for all of us tonight at the Prairie Schooner. It takes a small miracle to arrange a night on the town for this group, but some how she made it work. We were minus Jason and Sarah---I guess that means we will just have to try again--darn it!

Casuree and Nate managing the kid crew

The "grown-up table"

Our version of prom pictures:

Uncle Jill and Boyd

Shawn and Tiffany (what's that!!? I do believe that's an itty bitty smile on Buster's face)

Me and the Mr.

Yo Bob keeping Nate under control

And you know you can't get out of the Prairie Schooner with out a getting a couple of good shots of the decor

My dad and I have decided that we are taking this show on the road.......next dining destination: Utah Noodle!

Thanks for the great night Uncle Jill :)

Just sit right back and you'll hear the tale...

the tale of a fateful trip------

There's Gilligan (do-da-doo-tel-leet-do) the Skipper too.....(do-da-doo-a-doot-do)

The milllionaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrre and his wife.....

And oddly enough, Ozzie Osborn and a baby elephantAnd Officer Dangle from Reno 911 (the best costume EVER!)

This weekend, Napoleon Dynamite (my cousin Felicia) had the first annual family Halloween party (sorry Felicia---this was the best picture I had of you)

This is her partner in crime, Joe Dirt (a.k.a Felicia's husband Stewart).

Napoleon cooked up a pot of chili, some hotdogs and all the fixins for dinner. Her house was decorated so cute and she had lots of fun things for the kids to do.

The older kids tried to eat donuts off a string. Gilligan....

Napoleon's BFF, Deb (a.k.a. as Felicia's daughter Jade) seen here with Little Cindy-Lou-Who (Felicia's daughter Hannah)Gilligan taunting the Skipper with a Krispy Kreme (mmmmmm....Krispy Kremes---I wonder why Lovey Howell didn't get a turn with the Krispy Kremes)And a Witch's Stew game for the little girlsThe Skipper was able to sneak in a little "guy time" with Max (which is hard to do in a family chuck full of girls).

Ozzie and all his pretty ladies (all of his granddaughters in one place)

And then, the highlight of the night........

ROCK BAND!!

We've got Joe Dirt on drums, Gilligan on the guitar

Mario (a.k.a Ben Lane) got in on the guitar action

Deb (Jade) sang a little back-up

The crowd was captivate!

And then......welcome to the stage.....

THURSTON J. HOWELL THE THIRD!!

You read that right, Tim sang! And he wasn't even drinking! And he was good! It was a riot!!

My pictures are awful. My wig kept getting in front of the flash and half of the pics I took didn't even turn out. So I fully intend on stealing pictures off of Danielle, Malory and Lauren's blogs when they post. So look out girls :)

Thanks for a GREAT night Felicia and Stewart. We had a such a good time and I loved spending time with you all. I hope we have lots more family get togethers (without costumes).

That's all folks......

I'm a big fan of arranged marriages!

There is this super-mega-cosmic connection between me and my William's Circle Sister, Trinity.

Her girl and my boy attended their first homecomings this year. Unfortunately, while my Lydon was attending homecoming here in Morgan, Utah, USA, her daughter Hunter attended homecoming clear across the other side of the world in Japan. We'll just consider that a small technicality. Or maybe a practice run. Because next year.....

.....thanks to Trinity, homecoming 2009 is already on the calendar. We are polishing our camera lenses and scoping out the perfect sneaky picture-taking positions.

So what do you think Trin, should we start picking out dress colors and ordering corsages?

Bargain Shop-o-holic

Hi. I'm Stacy and I'm a bargain shop-o-holic.

Everyone in unison: "Hi Stacy"

It's an addiction. I can't help it. If it's cheap, I buy it. I clip coupons, sign up for freebies, shop clearance racks. I love all things yard sale, consignment shop and thrift store. Tim is annoyed with it. The boys are embarrassed by it (except when they were little and they referred to the sample ladies at Costco as the "lunch ladies).

Most of the time, I am so caught up in a bargain moment that I buy things I don't need. My basement, backyard and garage are filled with bargain moment cast-offs. I have black garbage bags (plural) full of clothes and/or shoes that I've bought me, Tim and the boys that don't fit, they didn't like or want.

However--every now and then I strike gold and just have to brag.

Today I will be bragging about this little beauty......

Many years ago I bought five little pots of flowers from WalMart for the smiley face, roll back price of $2 each. They were fall mum's and they were so cute that I decided to plant them in the flower bed next to my front porch for a little fall decoration. Heck, I thought it was quite the $10 flower bed seasonal deal. But that fall it snowed early and the flowers got buried. Imagine my surprise when the following spring five little bushels of green sprouted. By the following fall the little bushes bloomed.

That was about five years ago. Every fall I let them get buried in snow and every spring little bushes sprout and every fall they explode with flowers. Every year they double in size.

This is one of those little $2 WalMart smiley face, roll back specials now.
Back in the day I planted white, maroon, white, maroon, white. The white ones bloom first. The maroon ones bloom a little later.

This year the plants consumed my flower bed. They are busting out.

I can't wait to see how big they get next year.

And that is my first bargain shop-o-holic confession. Do they have sponsor's for my problem? Is that what the WalMart greeters really are? Shop-o-holic sponsors in disguise? Hmmmmm....

Do you see what I see

This............(snow in the mountains)

means that it tis the season for this........
I LUV-LUV-LUV This time of year!!!

Does this qualify as an unhealthy obsession?

Thank you WalMart and Coffee-mate! This ought to last me at least a week.

Just because

Because there's just not enough pictures of this dog on this blog.

Grandma's Services

For the California family or anyone who wasn't able to attend Grandma Billie's services this weekend.......

(Note to reader: Sorry for the non-scanned photos-I had to take pictures of everything in order to post them to the blog. Stacy wants a scanner for Christmas).

It was a beautiful day on Saturday. It somehow worked out that nobody had to work on Saturday so all of grandma's kids, kids-in-law, grandchildren and spouses were there. Even most of the great-grandchildren were there. The family met at the funeral home at 9:00 to have some alone time and to close the casket. Friends were welcome from10-11 and the service started at 11. The room was full and they even had to break out extra chairs.

Observations from Grandma's funeral:

• Granddaughters way out numbered the grandsons. Stacy, Felicia, Danielle, Malorie, Casuree and Lauren compared to Shawn and Jason. There's alot of estrogen in this family.


• All of Lyle's daughters have daughters. All of my mom's kids have sons. It's like a mini Grandma's great-grand-girls (Jade, Brooklyn, Hannah, Grace, Elli, Ryan, Kennadee, Karlee) vs. Grandma's great-grand-boy's (Lydon, Aaron, Brennon, Chaston). And then Danielle had Max and now none of that makes sense.


• Jill's friend, Ravonna, is heaven sent. I had offered to hold a luncheon at my house after the services. Ravonna caught wind of that idea and totally took charge. She made all of the arrangements for the luncheon and because of her we had a great meat and cheese tray, salads, chips, drinks and desserts waiting for us at my house when we left the cemetery. She took care of everything.


• Don Deardon (or Donny Dear as grandma called him) is also heaven sent. Whenever we called him, both with my mom and with grandma, he was right there without question, without hesitation. He gave them both blessings when we asked. He conducted at both of their funerals and he gave the perfect talk at grandma's funeral. She would have been thrilled with his talk. It was perfect.


• We have had way too many funerals in this family. Three in the last year and a half (Grandma Ruth, my mom and Grandma Billie). I now know way too much about funerals (which is saying alot for a girl who hasn't had to deal with this stuff before now). I think we have reached professional status when it comes to obituary writing, poster assembly, photo arranging, flower ordering......you name it!


• Jill is one tough cookie and she held up amazingly well. If anyone deserves a bucket full of Paxil and keg of beer to wash it down, it's Jill.


• My dad wore a khaki pants, a tie, and shoes with tassels and no one got a picture of it. DANG IT!


• All of the girls in this family are gorgeous! I believe now, more than ever, that they got all the family's pretty parts and pieces and I got all the left overs. (I totally stole this picture from Malorie's blog to prove my point).


• I can't look at Uncle Lyle too much because every now and then I look at him and he looks just like my mom and it freaks me out.
• Never hold a luncheon outside in the middle of the afternoon. It was way too hot and I sweated like a man.
• I forgot to get out my camera and didn't get any pictures from the day.


• It was good to have all the family together. I feel bad that we didn't get to spend more time catching up. I was suffering from a little case of anticipatory anxiety disorder which meant that I was so busy running around worrying about everything that I didn't relax and just hang out with the girls. I should have doubled up on the meds and taken advantage of everyone being in one place at one time. That might never, ever happen again.