random june happenings

June is nearing an end. Here are a few highlights:

Alan at the Cedar Hill

Matchy Matchy Alan squared

Audrey and Wyatt

Mom "teaching" a class at the Panguitch Quilt Walk Festival

We saw a beautiful double rainbow on our way home from Panguitch. I stopped at the reservoir and took a picture.

Another trip to the Cedar Hill where we got rained out!

I met up with my "roomies" from USU. We went to brunch, caught up, laughed a lot, and took SWEET self-portraits!

Princess Ama and me being bored in Wal Mart. We sat on Holly's chairs in the Junior's department and waited for her. We got some strange looks...

Girls Camp! We took the Youth Leaders up the night before and had a blast with them! Katrina Wheeler came and spoke to them and did an excellent job.

My friend, Justin, came up as a special guest speaker on Wednesday night. They loved it! He did a great job.

A highlight of camp was our super cool Moroni ballet water battle.

summer fun

Summer Fun always includes stalking celebrities...doesn't it?
Actually, stalking is good clean fun for any season of the year, especially when it's done with the Bailey girls. Just so you don't think that stalking is my only form of entertainment, I have included pictures of other activities that I attended this weekend (even though I'm not in any of them because I'm the one that took them...hmm.)

Friday was spent shopping for fabric...imagine...and setting up sweet business deals with a fabric company. Sarah was my partner in crime, but to show our righteous side, we stopped by the Draper temple and snapped a couple of pictures. (Sarah took one of me, too, but come to find out she didn't press the shutter for long enough.)



Sarah at the Draper Temple



We got done with the temple visit just in time to meet Holly, Chavonne, Cori and gang at Applebee's for dinner. (The rabbit ears are courtesy of Hailee)



Cori, Hailee and Sarah. Serves Hailee right that I got her blinking for doing rabbit ears in my picture.



Chev, Holly and Bruce



I got THE best pictures of Audrey that night...



Then we headed to the Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband concert at the Sandy amphitheatre. Their opening show was Cary Judd who is a friend of Holly's friend...thus the big head picture. (Cary's the one on the stage...can you see him??)



Like I said...the best pictures of Audrey.




Waiting for the show to start.



Chavonne and I played Egyptian somethingorother while we were waiting. I think I got beat.



After the show, the gals talked me into waiting in line to meet the band. Here's where the stalking turned pretty serious. We met all of them and they were so sweet to sign the little girls' programs and talk with them. I had a plan this time (refer to one of my previous posts about meeting Ryan and Craig unexpectedly at Maverik) and I even carried it out, but it just didn't go as I pictured it in my mind. I said "You are...my biggest fan." to him and he just looked at me kinda strange and said, "Yes...I am." He didn't even chuckle. Doesn't he quote "That Thing You Do" religiously like me? Hmm, I may have to rethink this crush...



Holly's got her Betty Boop going on and Chavonne's getting some serious action with the rest of the band. Cori, unfortunately, was cut out of the picture...



Here's just a sampling of the band and us screaming for Craig Miner...

After a sleepover with Sarah at Shannon's house, we pulled our eyelids open and headed to the Cox family reunion. I was late, but I wasn't really late, because you're not really late unless you show up after the food, right? Well, there was apparently a bad accident that had everybody stopped in traffic, which worked out great for me, because they were later than me. Ma ha.



I had a better picture of Jon, but decided to post this one instead...Abby looks on beautifully...



Jesse & McKay...darlings.



Wyatt kept coming over and drinking my Dr. Pepper and leaving little floaties in my drink, so I finally gave it to him and this was my thanks...



Here's a classic. I took this from the driver's seat at a stoplight on my way back to Shannon's. I turned the camera around and looked in the rear view mirror to aim. Holly is behind me with her crew and Shannon is right next to her in the red van...I know, I'm awesome!

And that concludes my weekend stalking session.

hills, horses and 'dogs

The Bailey family need not spend a lot of money to have a good time. We went to the Cedar Hill last night for FHE. I just can't ever get sick of riding out there and enjoying family, friends and nature.



Papa has everything ready to go. Notice all of the cars at the park. Holly's family wasn't able to come because of ball games.



We picked up a few stray kids on the side of the road. Hailei Bailey (Robert's daughter) hadn't ever been on a horse before.



Wyatt didn't want to get off.



We didn't all fit on the wagon, so a few of us rode out. I got to ride Dewey's gelding, Waylon.
Ross rode the colt, Sunday, Chev rode Probert's Roan and Dewey rode his mare.



Misty and Chev enjoying their dinner.



Typical Wyatt look.

You think we should actually build a fire pit one day?

Chavonne's parents with Misty.

Papa roasting a 'dog!

We enjoyed some cowboy poetry from Ross and Papa. I only got the end of this one. Notice the siamese twins in the background trying to jump off of the wagon.

Hitchin' up and getting ready to head back to town.

Day 10

Day 10 - January 9, 2009

I knew my time was winding down in the wonderful land of New England, so I tried to enjoy this day to its fullest!
I had to turn in my rental car on day 10 - so Heather and I loaded the kids into her car and headed east across Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
I wanted to visit Rhode Island and Massachusetts because my dad served his mission in New England and served in both RI and Mass.

We didn't ever actually stop in R.I., but I could definitely spend a lot of time there. It is beautiful and I'm a complete sucker for bridges.


Here is one of the many bridges that we crossed during the day

Wes and Kate in New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford is a cool old whaling town. It has cobblestone streets downtown and lots of fishing boats in the harbor. We stopped at the visitor's center there and learned a little about whaling.

We were in the car for a long time, and Sophie was getting antsy. Kate sang her a song to comfort her. I captured it. Um, yes, she's picking her toes...

I was most excited to see Cape Cod

By this time, we didn't want to spend much time enjoying the view because the wind was SO cold that it felt like it was going right through you. It was pretty cool to stand on the shore and see lights of towns to the west and the east and the light from a lighthouse almost directly in front of you (on the tip of the cape).

Sunset on Cape Cod

I ventured out to get Laurel some sand (in an empty Chex Mix bag...who knows how much of it was really sand and how much was leftover Chex Mix...). She likes to get soil from different places, but I didn't get very much before I hurried back to the car because of the frigidness.

While we were on our way back home to Connecticut, I got phone call - that Imissed. Then Laurel called me and I thought maybe she knew that I'd messed up her sand with Chex Mix...

She told me that Delta had called and needed to talk to me because they were canceling my flight! Yikes! I called them back and it turns out that they were expecting a big storm during the day right when my flight was supposed to leave from JFK. So, they had to change my flight to either 9:00 a.m. or 7:30 p.m. I told them I'd need to talk to a couple of people before I knew which one would work better. After we returned to Matt and Heather's and I had to talked to those who were to take me to the train station and pick me up from the airport, I called Delta back. I told them the 9:00 a.m. flight would work better for me. The nice boy informed me that all of the seats were taken in coach and they'd have to put me in first class....um okay!

Day 9

Day 9 - January 8, 2009

The highlight of Day 9 was that I got to find out how Mr. Thornton's and Miss Hale's story turns out. (North and South). If you haven't seen it and like BBC miniseries, I asked for it for my birthday and now have a copy that I can share with EVERYONE! I lent it to Holly, though, and she lent it to someone else, so there is a waiting list...

We kind of took it easy on Day 9. I borrowed Heather's Garmin and visited a couple of quilt shops in Hartford and Wethersfield. It was fun to talk to the shop owners about our new book and to give them my business card. I felt so official. One of the shop owners had a quilt in the back that she made. She let me take a picture of it. The quilt is inspired by some lady named Jane who made very intricate, teeny weeny 4" blocks. There's a whole book about it, but I don't have the book, so I don't know the whole story. All I know is that these quilts are all the rage for super crazy quilters who have nothing better to do (I guess).

Am I ever going to make a quilt like this, you ask? Um...doubtful.

Day 8

Day 8 - January 7, 2009
Palmyra

Day 8 was probably one of my most favorite days of my trip. I took lots of pictures to share my experience with you.

We first went to the Hill Cumorah. We went to the Visitor's Center there, but did not attempt the actual hill because of the snow. There is a beautiful statue of Moroni at the top.

We then headed to see the Palmyra Temple. The gates were locked, so I didn't get a very good picture.


Palmyra Temple


Heather and Sophia
The temple is located very close to the Smith Family log cabin and home.




Matt, Wes, Kate in upstairs of Smith log home

Bonnie and Kate outside of log home (visitor's center in background)

The Smith family frame home is just up the road a little from the log home. Alvin started the construction of this home before he died (for his parents).



Matt and Heather's family in the Sacred Grove

I have to admit that the Sacred Grove was very special. It was all sorts of reverent, since nobody else was there except for us. We didn't spend a lot of time there because the kids were tired and we ended up carrying all of them.

Wes liked the barn

Kate did not

We then headed to the E.B. Grandin building where the Book of Mormon was first printed. This was one of my favorite places that we visited. Some of the original paintings that are found in the Book of Mormon were there.

Wes and Bonnie in E.B. Grandin building

Sophia pictured with E.B. Grandin because they have the same birthday

Whitmer farmhouse (where church was organized)

We didn't realize that there was so much to see in Palmyra (and surrounding sites) and arrived at the Whitmer farm after visiting hours. I definitely could have spent another day in Palmyra.

We then drove home (quite a long drive). Matt came with me and we talked about all sorts of stuff. He started talking about kissing and how many people each of those in our family had kissed. We speculated about Chavonne (because we'd never actually asked her). Matt called her and had a lengthy conversation about kissing with her. Hmm. The things we talk about...