Gold Mine

I’ll bet you don’t know anybody that actually has a gold mine…But I do. 😀

Grandma Shirley has been decluttering, and giving some of her stuff away. She offered me her cedar ‘hope chest’ AND all the contents therein. YAY! Of course for now I don’t have a way to get the hope chest to Utah, and she wanted to hang onto it for a bit longer (which is fine with me of course). But since Kyle and I were in California I got to bring home a whole box, overflowing with old pictures. A stack of photo albums, AND 4 more bags of pictures! Yes I do believe I have a real gold mine. 😉 My heart just rejoices to have these pictures in my possession. I have been working on scanning pictures for years, and I just hit the jackpot and have LOTS of work ahead of me.

I love looking through the pictures, and seeing the people and thinking ‘hey they are related to me’ and wondering what they were like.

Here is a picture of me in the dutch girl costume (looks like I’ve got some licorice hanging out of my mouth too), Jenny in a Friend bear costume, and Patsy in the 8 ball costume. 🙂

cropped00000002

My parents at some dinner party (I have no idea when, maybe when they were first married, or engaged?)

cropped00000003

I love this picture of my uncle Frank. He died in 1993 about a year before Timothy died. But I love his face in this picture (he’s the one on the left). He was such a fun guy:

cropped00000005

Aw! A family picture of my grandparents, aunt Glenda and my dad as a little boy:

cropped00000008

I just love this picture of my grandpa Denzel admiring my grandma Shirley, they eloped when they were almost 25 and almost 19.

cropped00000006

Here’s a picture of Great Grandma Zoe holding Grandpa Denzel as a baby

cropped00000004

And a picture of Grandma Zoe when she was younger:

cropped00000011

And this is a picture of Grandma Shirley’s birth mother Willa Tevis Ballard, as a child, with her brother, Wilbur Harve Ballard

cropped00000009

Oh I am so excited. These pictures here aren’t even a tip in the ice burg. They’re more like a shaving of the ice burg. 😉 Yes I have a real gold mine.

Pumpkin Patch

Dad decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch tonight to get them out of everyone else’s hair until dinner time. And Jenny went with for kid control (at least she got lots of pictures. 😉 )

The got to go on bouncy slides:

100_1945

And Dinah is just too fast for the camera:

100_1947

They got to ride ponies:

100_2001

They got to sit on pumpkins:

100_2027

They got to pet goats:

100_2054

100_2060

And they got to spend some time having fun with their cousins, and they each got to pick a small pumpkin. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of them with their pumpkins and they have since scribbled on them. 🙁 But be sure to check out the photo gallery for lots more pictures at the pumpkin patch.

Redlands California Temple

Since the Redlands California Temple is on the way back to the freeway from Apple Country, we stopped by so the kids could see it. The last time that Kyle and I had been there was before Kyle’s dad died, but I kind of don’t think it was finished then…..

So we took the kids to see it. Unfortunately the gates were locked so we couldn’t get out and walk around the temple grounds. 🙁 But I still got a picture. 😀

CIMG2659

Apple Country

Since we are in California, I really wanted to take the kids to Apple Country, in Oak Glen. The last time Kyle and I had been there we went with Kyle’s family, I was pregnant with Ethan, and Kyle’s dad was in a wheel chair. And since apples usually ripen in the fall I thought it was just the perfect time to go. The kids had a blast.

We wore our new M&M shirts, which was awesome, because all I had to do was look at the colors around me and when one color was out of my sight, I knew who was gone. 😉 And everyone there thought it was totally cute that we were all M&M’s. (Too bad I didn’t get a picture of the family.)

We stopped off at a playground, by the Oak Glen school, first to give the kids a chance to get their wiggles out after the car ride. Then we went to go ranch hopping. The first two were so packed there was nowhere to park, so we went to the third and we got lucky. Just as we were deciding to leave and check out the next ranch, we saw a parking spot. 😀

We went inside and got to taste all kinds of apples, some of which I had never even heard of. We picked out a kind that we all liked the best, and got to buy some. And we got to taste some fresh apple cider. Then we went back to the car and Kyle headed back to go buy some apple cider donuts. MMMM I remember those from the last time Kyle and I went. The line was outrageous though. I sat with the kids in the car, and gave Chloe a bottle and he was STILL waiting in line by the time she finished. So I took the kids to go sit at a table in some shade.

CIMG2644

And Kyle’s still in line:

CIMG2642

When he finally rounded the corner to get into the building I took the kids down to go wait in line with him. So we got to see them make the donuts.

CIMG2650

Oh the wait was so worth it. The donuts were yummy. 😀

Then we finished off our trip to apple country by stopping off at one more apple stand. And they had winter banana apples. Kyle had told the kids about trying winter banana apples in apple country many years ago. So we finished off the day sampling the infamous winter banana apples.

(There are oodles more pictures in the photo gallery)