Thanksgiving Broadbent Style-Part 2

A few more videos from our family gathering for Thanksgiving:

November = Birthdays

November is the month we get to celebrate both Sid & Amanda's birthdays! Since Sid's on his mission, we did our shopping for him early so that there would be time to ship his package. I've been adding last minute notes to Sid's envelopes lately. Well...his birthday package was no exception:

 

 

Amanda's birthday is a few weeks after Sid's. We were lucky enough to be able to be with her the night before and morning of her birthday this year. (So no boxes with messages all over for her.) We had a great visit and loved being able to stay and celebrate with her at her house.

 

 

Both were spoiled with things they needed and wanted. We are so lucky and blessed to have these two great children in our lives!

Thanksgiving Broadbent Style

My sister Ann and her children were going to be in Utah the week before Thanksgiving and requested a Thanksgiving gathering at Grandma (GaGa, Nama, or Noni-same person different names from the grandchildren) & Papa's house to celebrate together. Dan and I made arrangements to fly down (good thing see here). We arrived on Wednesday, November 17th...let me use Dan's summary to Sid since it's more concise and I'll add a slideshow of pictures to the end....

"Well, not to make you homesick or anything, but I am sitting at Amanda’s table typing this while Amanda and JaNae are making Sunday dinner. Now, you should know that the whole idea behind taking a Thanksgiving trip the week before Thanksgiving is to avoid the rushes and take time off when nobody else does. So, on Wednesday, at 1:00 p.m., JaNae and I flew to Salt Lake City where JaNae’s sister-in-law, Kelley, picked us up and took us to her and Kevin’s home in Syracuse, Utah. There, we spent the next couple of days. They gave us the use of one of their cars, which allowed us to do several things.

First, we visited JaNae’s grandpa in the Veteran’s home. He’s 94 years old and has lost his memory, so he never knows who we are, but he’s always glad for company, and you never know when the last time you visit him will be. Plus, there will come a day when his memories will be restored, and then he will know just how dedicated JaNae is to making him a part of her life!

Second, we picked up the last couple of presents for Amanda’s birthday, as well as a final gift for Kevin and Kelley, who we happen to have for Christmas. Thus, in our little jaunt to Utah, we got some family obligations taken care of (in a fun way, of course, because, after all, you know how much I love shopping!)

And thirdly, we went down to Lehi to see JaNae’s sister, Deborah, her husband Nic, and their two boys since Deborah is 8 months pregnant, and their family would not be making the trek to Cedar City for the big Thanksgiving celebration.

We traveled to Cedar City on Friday beginning at 2:00 p.m. when Kelley got off work. JaNae and I drove with her and their 6 year old son Cameron. Kevin and Nathan came later after a school dance.

Kelley travels in style. We had licorice, trail mix, and the new M&Ms, the inside of which are made of pretzels (not bad), and all of our munching was accompanied by the sounds of Elton John. (I know, not your idea of fun, but I was in heaven.)

The rest of Friday night and Saturday were spent with our pre-Thanksgiving preparations and eating them, plus a little football, a few games, and some conversation....

Sunday morning, we got up with every intention of attending at least Sacrament Meeting before heading back to Amanda’s. However, the weather report came, and there was supposed to be snow and ice all the way home. We changed plans, ate a quick breakfast at her parents’, and took off. Fortunately, the roads weren’t as bad as predicted. They even have some 80 miles per hour stretches in southern Utah, which we were able to take at full speed....

Now, Amanda has driven down the hill and picked us up in Syracuse to bring us to her home where we are spending the night and celebrating her quarter-century birthday. (See November = Birthdays.) She will be driving us to the Salt Lake airport early in the morning, and our vacation will be over.

The bottom line: It has been a great break, a great treat, a great reunion with the in-laws, and a great celebration with Amanda. Now, back to the grind!"

Whoops!

When your husband has only 1 pair of pants, 2 suits, and 2 white shirts left in his closet, ya think it's time to do laundry????

Working Hard for Our Money

A while ago I mentioned that I was working and was asked about my job. So I thought I'd do a general update on the four of us.

• DAN: He's busy working for Biomat USA. He is the facility manager for the center here. Since taking the position in January of this year he has had four audits! Thankfully they've done well with all four. He still has the theater itch and I suspect we'll be doing something again, however, he'll have to figure out how to work fewer hours so he can get involved with something like that again.
• JANAE: I work part-time at Knowledge Points. To get better involved with the community and make others more aware of Knowledge Points I was asked to help team teach an 8th grade class as part of the Junior Achievement program. (Oh, that reminds me I'd better get reading my lesson for tomorrow.) As if that isn't enough I also spend a few hours each week volunteering at Safe Harbor Crisis Nursery. I'm enjoying what I am doing and with my various activities I still have time to myself to do things I enjoy.
• AMANDA: She is one busy woman! Amanda is working as the Morgan County Extension Agent for Utah State University's Extension office in Morgan, Utah. She is involved with the 4-H program and teaching Family and Consumer Science classes. Additionally she is over the County Fair. When not swamped with fair season she is traveling to various locations (i.e. Maine, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii) to attend and/or present at conferences related to her field and degree.
• Sid: He is faithfully serving his two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the South Dakota Rapid City Mission. January will be his year mark! He is loving the work and the people (but I think he can do without the piles of snow and frigid temperatures). We anxiously await each Monday's email, love seeing the pictures he occasionally send home, and can't wait to visit with him on the phone sometime on Christmas Day!

Well, that's a brief update but it gives you a glimpse into our day-to-day lives.

OCD???

I've learned something since living in the Tri-Cities...Mother Nature has OCD

Look how neatly she lined up the leaves.

(These three pictures were only a few hours apart!)

 

These three pictures were taken the next morning. The trees had no leaves, they were all piled against our door!

An Attempt

The laptop flies out of town for the week with Dan. Not a huge deal except I just finished downloading pictures for a few posts onto the laptop and the ideas are fresh and ready to be shared. So....I am going to attempt to get multiple posts done before they leave. I ask now that you excuse the typos and spacing issues that are likely to appear. The priority will be quantity so the quality will have to take a back seat for now.

Winter...BLECH!

This is what our area looked like when we flew out on November 17, 2010:

All images found via: Picking up where we left off...

This is what our area looked like when we flew home on November 22, 2010:

(These are mine, all mine.)

Now, I know many of you are all thinking, "Big deal. We get that much snow in a hour around here and everything's just fine." Well you are fully justified in that thinking. We've both dealt with much worse conditions; however, most of the residents of the Tri-Cities have never seen it snow more than a skiff. The storm is unheard for this area and snow usually doesn't show up until January.

Due to the skiff of snow in January, we have also had the issue of few snow plows and non-existent salt (or other mixtures) on the roads. They just aren't prepared or equipped for storms and 20° temperatures here. Everyone kept telling us the snow only lasted for a few days....I'd like to have a word or two with everyone who informed us of that fact as it's been a week since the storm and the views from our windows haven't changed much, except that the snow kept coming. Thankfully the last couple days have been warmer so the the roads are beginning to get slushy and dry in some areas. I'll be very happy when the temperatures return to normal so I can thaw out.

(No I didn't overlook it...More will be coming regarding our above mentioned flight....)

Our 3 Hour Tour

Prior to our 2nd anniversary we found out the Portland Spirit would be in the Tri-Cities doing cruises along the Columbia River. After talking about our options (which were basically nonexistent) we settled on the idea of doing a dinner cruise the day after our official day.

We headed over to Clover Island to board our our ship:

 

As we enjoyed our meal we looked at the map, learned more about the area, and tried to orient ourselves along the way.

Since we were doing the dinner cruise we kept our eyes on the sunset. We headed up to the top deck so that we could enjoy the sunset and hopefully capture some good pictures; even managing a half-way decent self-portrait!

 

 

Due to it being our anniversary I decided to let Dan order the dessert of his choice (as long as it was the one that came with our meal...)

Once dinner and dessert were over Dan just sat back and made himself right at home:

We kept leaving our table to go onto the top deck so we could watch the scenery go by and visit the wheel house. I tried some to capture some night images...my outdated little point & shoot didn't do what I wanted but some of the images were still kinda cool:

 

After our 2 ½ tour (to be more exact) we were back at the starting point...

So we disembarked...

...then returned home commenting on how much we enjoyed our evening and that we were glad the dinner cruise was how we celebrated our anniversary this year.

Another Looking Glass

Do these two remind you of anyone?

JaNae & Lynette - circa 1974

  What about these two?

Shayla & Cambree-2010 via

 Sometimes watching my nieces and nephews I see images of their parents and me when we were little (though the 2nd generation seems to ham it for the camera a bit more).

It's Only Fair

The other morning Dan was in the bathroom getting ready for the day while I was still in bed sleeping.


The next thing I knew he was at the door saying, "Good-bye. I love you."I called out, "I love you too."


From the bathroom I hear, "Honey I haven't left yet."


I thought it was odd that he was leaving without saying prayers together or kissing me good-bye since he always does that, except in my dream that morning.

September Seattle Trip #2

Greetings from the slacker blogger. Lately it seems that someone’s (not exactly sure whose but someone’s) expectations of my life have gotten in the way of my expectations of my life. Thankfully everything seems to be slowly returning to normal so maybe I’ll be able to do a better job of getting things caught up in the blogging world. Here's hoping.

So, a couple weeks after this trip it was necessary to return to Seattle for a quick, overnighter. I contacted Kara and she was thrilled to have me stay again, especially so soon. And I was just as thrilled. So I put Dan on a plane to Phoenix for a week of trainings for work, went to work myself for a couple hours (I'll be doing a general update and talk more about this then), and when that was finished I was began driving off into the sunset.

Thankfully the sunset was gorgeous. So beautiful I just had to stop at a rest stop just west of Yakima and snap a few pictures (which don't really do it justice of course).

You can't see it because of the cloud cover but when we drove through this time we could clearly see Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood on each side of us from this same spot.

I arrived at Kara's and we visited late into the night. Poor Dan had fallen completely asleep in his hotel room waiting for me to call him for our scripture reading and nightly prayers. Quick reading and prayers for us that night.

The next morning I had a few minutes to kill and chose to do so here...

 This was just the parking lot!!! Complete with....

This....

...felt forever away.

I had only 10 minutes to wander through the store. Though I can do lots of damage with only 10 minutes in IKEA, I didn't spend any $$$ but did find a headboard/footboard I loved as well as a couch, both of which were on SALE!!!! Neither of which have been, nor will be, purchased anytime soon. :'(

After IKEA I headed into downtown Seattle. I had directions (thank you Google Maps!) and finally made it only a little turned around and few minutes late (thank you Google Maps!).

When the appointment, which brought me to Seattle in the first place, was completed, I wanted to meander to (can you meander in a car???).... 

Ultimately for a stop here...

While trying to find my way to Pike Place Market I was driving down a street I looked up to see...

  

Since I was going to be only a few minutes, I thought I'd look for a parking spot on the street. After only a couple trips around the block I parked by this...

I fed the meter with all my change which gave me 20 minutes to trek the round trip from the Seattle Art Museum to Pike Place Market. I booked it as fast as my little legs could go! As I was briskly walking I kept crossing my fingers that Le Painer had short lines. Well.....

SUCCESS!!!!!!

(My mouth is watering right now just thinking about the yummies I bought.)

For good or bad I purchased two pastries one for the drive home and one for the next day. I also learned, for good or bad, that they ship...no orders placed just yet but you never know....maybe it could be a fun treat to send to Amanda or Sid...or me...

With pastries in hand and after taking a picture for a couple women, one or two of my own, and buying a few postcards, I raced back to the car hoping the meter-maid (or whatever they are called) wasn't anywhere near. By my calculations it was a race between me and a ticket. However, when I got there I saw....

Time to spare, are you KIDDING ME?!?!?! Those 5 extra minutes would have been so well used shopping/taking pictures/eating/shopping/walking/shopping...if only I had known!

Despite the parking "issue" it was another beautiful, clear, sunny, and warm day in Seattle. The only bummer was the construction in the middle of Pike Market:

At least they were smart enough NOT to have this going on two weeks earlier.

While getting back into my car a duck drove by. Someday I want to take a tour in/on one of these.

The drive home was beautiful as well. I took a few shots of the gorgeous scenery trying to capture the last of the summer colors and warmth before rain, snow, and cold settle in...

I stopped for dinner and discovered this...

Such a super yummy salad! I had to take a picture so that I could try and recreate it at home (which I haven't done yet!). It was absolutely delicious. Amazingly enough here's where I bought it....

Definitely a quick trip but I managed to pack in some fun after business was taken care of and still made it home with time to spare before heading off to the Relief Society Evening Activity.

Thanks again Kara!!! So sad trip #3 has been so long in coming. The offer is open for whenever you want to come over to our side of the mountain.