Thanksgiving 2014

We weren't sure how Thanksgiving would turn out this year. My Dad was recovering from open heart surgery and Ryan and Molly had a newborn. My brother Scott invited everyone to his house for the holiday and it turned out that all of my siblings were able to make it. It was wonderful to have everyone together!

Here is the whole gang. My Dad and his wife Carolyn, plus all of my siblings and our families. The only person not pictured is my brother David's wife Annie. She had a hard week at work and was resting at their hotel.

 Here we are letting loose. This is probably my favorite picture of the whole weekend! I made magnets from it and sent them to everyone for Christmas.

My nephew Cole was very popular with the ladies.

With Jenna

With Marianne

With Carolyn

Jumping and fighting over water bottles with Lavender and Leighton

Our grandson Carrington Vaughn also received a name and a  priesthood blessing. He was blessed by his father, Ryan (holding him) and (from left) his Great Uncle Scott, Cousin Ammon, Great Uncle David, Great Uncle Jason, Great Grandpa Bob, Papa John, Uncle Aaron and Great Uncle Brian.

Cary with his dad Ryan and his mom Molly

Our oldest son and his oldest son.

Later we took a walk to the park to work off some of our delicious dinner! Me and my siblings (birth order listed in parentheses): Jason (4), Scott (2), Jenny (3), Me (1) and David (5).

Birthday twins Heath and Marianne. I should have gotten a picture of Scott and Aaron who are also birthday twins!

Brooke and Lavender had a good time together. Brooke gave Lavender a doll just like she has. She said it was "baby girl Jesus" and Lavender promptly named her baby the same thing!

The next day the guys went for a hike together.

Meanwhile the girls went to the Reagan Library and saw the California Christmas tree display.

It was a great Thanksgiving and it was wonderful to be together!

Our Little Kitten

Lavender is such a busy girl that it wasn't until very recently that she would sit down and watch a whole movie. Two year olds tend to obsess over their favorite movie and Lavender is no different. We are just grateful that Evan introduced her to a movie that we all like.  We don't mind hearing the theme song over and over.  Lavender is in love with "The Aristocats."  She wants to watch it nearly every day and she loves to sing "Everybody wants to be a Cat."  Now she has involved the whole family in her play. She assigns each of us a role.

"You be Roquefort the mouse and you be Toulouse" she'll say.

She always gets to be Marie and I am usually Duchess, Marie's mother.  Fortunately, I have Duchess's accent down pat.

She plays her role well.  Yesterday I asked her to hold out her hands so I could wash them.  "Marie has paws," she gently corrected.

Evan or Aaron is usually assigned to play Edgar, the butler turned bad guy.

"You be Edgar the bad guy" she'll say.  "Try to get me!" she squeals as she runs off.  "Save me Duchess! Edgar is sending me to Timbuktu!"

When we get her a drink of almond milk she even tells us that it tastes like "Creme de la creme a la Edgar."  Then she yawns and says she's getting sleepy.  If only we had the recipe that Edgar spiked with sleeping pills.  It sure would come in handy at bedtime!"

"Marie" was not very cooperative when I asked for a picture.
"You don't need to see my eyes," she explained.

"Here's Edgar the bad guy, right here."

And yes, she watches the VHS tape in our DVD/VCR combo.
We're totally vintage.

My Grandma - Part 2

See Part 1 HERE

After spending the summer with my grandparents, our family moved to southern California. Now were able to see Grandma and Grandpa several times a year. I learned that grandma was always busy with something! She loved to play card games like solitaire and she also played polkas on the little organ in her family room. She and grandpa took trips to faraway lands, and brought back wonderful souvenirs for their grandchildren. I loved it when she brought back dolls, but I was especially impressed with a koala bear puppet made with kangaroo fur. One year she brought my mom handmade fabric Christmas ornaments from the Philippines. (After Mom passed away, we all got a few of them. It just isn't Christmas without those sequined Santas from Grandma!)

I was amazed at everything Grandma did.  She seemed to know lots of people and be involved with all sorts of community and civic organizations. I knew that Grandma had been named Nevada's Mother of the Year after my mom submitted an article about her to the newspaper. Grandma even had her own little business selling pantyhose to local boutiques. Sometimes I got to help her put the "Zo-Ra" label on the packages. It wasn't exactly a brand name that rolled off your tongue, but it was derived from her married and maiden names. And really, that summed up Grandma. She was devoted to her family!

Grandma loved to tell us stories about our ancestors and she had a huge book of remembrance full of family history.  In that pre-computer era, she had paid a professional genealogist to trace our family tree nearly back to Adam! She loved telling about all the famous people who were somehow our relatives!

But Grandma loved looking to the future as well. She had six children and (eventually) thirty-four grandchildren. The summer we lived in Las Vegas was the same year that her first great granddaughter was born. Grandma was fiercely proud of her posterity. She kept a careful count of her grandchildren, great grandchildren (now 110) and great, great grands (now 46) and could always tell you when the newest addition was expected!

As much as Grandma loved her family, we also knew she loved the gospel of Jesus Christ. She and Grandpa were not active in the LDS church for most of the time they were raising a family, but they later made up for lost time!  I remember my grandparents making the trip to St. George every week to work in the temple for a couple of days. When the Las Vegas temple finally opened, their trip was shorter, but their dedication increased. In 1981, they took an even longer trip and served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints working in the Laie, Hawaii temple visitor's center. Grandma and Grandpa were at the Los Angeles Temple the day John and I were married in 1987. We stayed in the condo they owned in Kona during our honeymoon. A few years later, they came for the blessings of our babies at church.

Grandma's home was always open to us. No trip to Utah was complete without a stop in Las Vegas. As a BYU student traveling home at the holidays or as a young family visiting John's parents, we usually spent the night at Grandma's house.  She always had clean sheets on the bed, something for us to eat and a listening ear ready for an update on our lives.

Mom and Grandma in Hawaii during my grandparents' mission.
Mom is wearing a blouse grandma bought in the Philippines.

Dad's Heart

About ten days ago my Dad went in to have his hearing aid adjusted and he experienced some chest pain. It wasn't too severe, but they offered to call an ambulance and he agreed. He spent several days in the hospital while they did various tests. His blood pressure was unstable, but they couldn't really find anything wrong. One doctor even suggested that he'd just eaten too many tomato products and wanted to send him home. Given his family history, that was just ridiculous! Fortunately, Carolyn insisted they get to the bottom of it!

Last Monday they did an angiogram and anticipated doing angioplasty. Instead, they found serious blockage in multiple places. Dad had bypass surgery on Wednesday and they found another surprise. In addition to the five bypasses, they needed to take care of a two inch aneurysm on his aorta! He spent the rest of the week in ICU and was just transferred to a regular room.

It is not easy to recover from such a major surgery, but Dad is working hard. I am grateful he went to the hospital when he had chest pain even though he felt like it wasn't really necessary. I am so grateful that Carolyn was his advocate and kept pressing for answers. I am grateful the surgeon was able to take care of the bypasses and that aneurysm before disaster struck.

I am grateful my Dad is on the (rough and bumpy) road to recovery. Love you Dad!

My Grandma - Part 1

My Dad's mother passed away when he was just fourteen.  Although I am named after my maternal grandmother, I was never able to meet her.  Fortunately, my Mom's mother lived a long life and I was blessed to feel her love and influence throughout my life. When I was very young we lived in the Midwest, far from my grandparents' home in Las Vegas. We didn't see them often, but I remember one trip to Las Vegas for my Aunt Muff's wedding and a couple of visits from them.

The summer I turned eleven, my father took a sabbatical from Drake University and we headed west. We were moving to California, but first we stopped in Las Vegas.  My mother, my brother Scott, my sister Jenny and I spent the summer at my grandparent's home. My dad traveled back and forth to southern California searching for the right business to buy. I loved that summer full of new experiences. My grandparents had a brand new home, so new that model homes lined their street. My brother and I toured them repeatedly. Their house had fancy flocked wallpaper, treasures from their trips around the world and a swimming pool! It was also filled with forbidden pleasures like Hostess products (for breakfast!), a TV in our bedroom, and stacks of "The National Enquirer."  My mother struggled to keep us clear of the excesses of sugar, cartoons and tabloids, but I enjoyed every minute. I also loved spending time with my many cousins who lived nearby.

That summer was a turning point for me in many ways. I began shaving and wearing a bra. When we arrived in California we moved next door to a gay couple and a girl who bullied me. My mother had a full time job for the first (and last) time in my life. But it was also the beginning of a relationship with my grandma.

My family that summer, in front of Grandma's fancy drapes and blue and gold flocked wallpaper.

Grandma in her kitchen serving cake, probably for breakfast with a Coke to wash it down!

                           

Baby Cary

I just realized that I need to give you an update on our precious grandson!  He is 2 1/2 weeks old now. He is not quite an tiny as we originally thought. He weighed 6 lbs 1 oz, not 5 lbs 6 oz as the nurse originally told us. He is still a little guy, but he has a big name to grow into:  Carrington Vaughn.  For now, we are calling him baby Cary. He is adored by everyone and gets lots of attention, although mama is still his favorite. He is a sweet boy and we are excited to have him in our family. He looks very much like his Daddy did as a newborn.

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Today's the Day!

We voted! Did you?

Note:  When we got to the polling place, Lavender kept looking around.  Finally, she said, "I don't see a boat. Where's the boat?!" She was disappointed and confused when we tried to explain the difference between a boat and a vote.  She did enjoy the stickers though!  She promptly stuck them to her forehead when the precinct worked suggested she put them on her head (?)

More Scenes of Halloween

In case you were wondering . . .

Lavender is holding sprigs of lavender that she got while trick-or-treating. A neighbor insisted on cutting some for her after she learned her name. I'm willing to bet she's the only child who brought lavender home along with her candy. She was still enjoying them the next morning when I took this picture.

Evan can show you exactly what 9.5 pounds of candy looks like. I think his older brothers beat him by a pound or two in years past, but it is still pretty impressive. I can only imagine how many pounds he's consumed so far.

About ten days before Halloween our next door neighbors put up an inflatable dragon complete with a glowing belly and fiery eyes. Lavender fell in love with him and insisted on going over to say hi and pat him every night.

Finally, some trick-or-treaters got tangled up in the spider web on our front porch. I don't have a picture, but it was one of my favorite Halloween moments. Is that wrong of me?!

All in all, I declare Halloween 2014 a success!