It Rocks to be seven - Joshua's birthday party

Joshua turned SEVEN and we celebrated in true kid style at Boondocks.

I have to digress here . . . Don't cha' just love those blonde curls?

Joshua counting his tickets for the games at Boondocks

Joshua lived with us (Grandma and Grandpa) for several years and Jim used to relentlessly tease him that he took 'curly hair pills' every day. Josh used to just go right along with the silliness and tell us that he did in fact, take 'curly hair pills'.

I am so jealous. How can I get my hands on some of those pills? Josh rightly get his blonde curls naturally - They're just like his Momma's . . .

Holly and Matt

. . . only Holly straightens out her curls. How come I want curls like Holly and Joshua, and yet Holly goes to great lengths to make her hair straight like mine? Issabelle (below)

Isabelle, Becca and Margaret

has curls too, (Holly's daughter sitting on Becca's shoulders - see her cute locks?) which reminds me, Becca's hair will curl too if she lets it. BUT she brushes HERS out straight too!

Don't we always want what we don't have? Or is it just me? In my 'old age' I finally decided to leave my hair straight and quit fighting it. Well, except for the gray - I'm fighting that still. Yeah! I'm fighting that big time!

Sooooo - back to the topic at hand. Joshua's party was held at BOONDOCKS - a kids haven - Whew!

Boondocks is like a giant pin ball parlor - only, I don't even know if they make pin ball games anymore? You can see some of their wares in back of us in this photo, and though you can't really tell here, the place is huge - very annoying, flashing lights, noisy, hyper and . . . did I mention annoying? However, the look on the kids faces ? look below . . . now that is precious.

I don't actually know this child, she just looked really awed
by the goings on and it made me laugh!



Isabelle was just happy to be there.

Joshua and his birthday friends - goofing off!

I don't know the two kids on the right but they are part of the party goers


Jason's boys - Justice, Carter, and T.J.

Oh, Jason's number 4 - Derrick was there too - sort of. He didn't much care for the hoopla going on around him as evidenced by the photo below:

Derrick


Jason Counting his tickets. He's just a big kid too!

And the next bunch of photos - all part of Josh's family.

Oh, notice that ball on the wall. It looks like it's gonna' take Jim's scalp off at the top

Isabelle being held by her two grandpas


Holly's Uncle Mark (right) and his two kids


Jeremy, Ammon and Marnee


Grandpa and Grandma Milligan, Holly and baby Gabrielle



Dianne holding Gabrielle and Jim holding Isabelle



So, we wish you the best year yet Josh -
your Eighth trip around the sun.

Love You so Much!

Our First Annual 'Old-Home Lynne' Party

COWLEY, WYOMING

Looking up Airport Road or "Division Street"
long before I came along.

For those of you who don't know the story, (and frankly, most anyone reading this does) when I was a kid, elementary through High school in my hometown consisted of the same bunch of . . . well . . . 'extended family' really.

let me explain in a nutshell. The town was founded by LDS Church pioneers (including my great grandparents) who were called to settle the area after Buffalo Bill convinced the church it was a great place, and he'd give them the land and some water if they'd come and build the canal. I don't know if Bill mentioned that it is 50 below zero at some point every winter, and trees were hard to come by, but alkali plentiful.

Simplistic explanation, but that's the gist of it. Our grandparents came and begot, and the town blossomed - sort of. We were actually not that plentiful up there by the time I was born! The harsh conditions sent many packing after their initial mission was complete. Thus we had less that 70 students in the entire K-12 when I was there. The town itself had only 365 people in it. It has grown since I left.

Cowley's Population in 1990

Needless to say, we all knew each other really well. Some of us were literally babies in the same hospital wing (as were Lynne and I), or toddlers in the same church nursery together. We played on the same school grounds, ate at the same school lunch room, rode bikes, drove beet trucks, swam in the same canal, and just plain grew up together. We were well versed on each others laundry hanging out to dry, dogs, cows, idiosyncrasies, etc. Everybody knew your name (that's nice) and your business (generally not the greatest thing).

The greatest High School building in the world
(I still have dreams about this place)

This was life in my home town that I still love so much. As for my specific peer group, Lynne's house was often 'the' meeting place. Lynne was one of my best friends of my youth and my second cousin. Anyway, (I know this is getting long) we often used to gather at Ivy's corner on Main Street and Division Street to socialize. The streets didn't actually have any road signs to tell us their real names, we just knew main street and airport road, which was the north part of the Dividing street between the east side of Cowley and the West side of Cowley. TA DA! Division Street was born.

You could easily walk the whole town in an hour, and that was if you stopped to swim in the canal while on your way. Main street and Airport road were also the only two roads that were paved at the time.

So, back to our social networking - we did it in person. If it is was cold, however we most usually went to Lynne's house (next to Ivy's corner as I mentioned) as both were centrally located in the middle of town. Oh Yes! they were fun times (I have forgotten any bad memories as nostalgia waxes strong).

Speaking of cousins, (Yes I was a moment ago) many of us were related to each other, one way or another.

Ed and Lynne - both cousins of mine

First cousins, second cousins, second cousins once removed, or cousin's in law or second cousin's in law . . . one way or another, we might end up at the same family reunion. For instance, Ed (pictured above with Lynne) is my first cousin. Lynne, as I said, is my second cousin, and also she is Ed's second cousin.

Malcolm and Ed were close friends growing up

I don't think Ed is actually thumbing his nose at us!

To further illustrate the cousin thing, note that Malcolm's first cousin, Dave Welch (Second from the right) is also my second cousin, and Ed's, as well - but not Lynne's in this case.

Joe, Dave, Malcolm, Ed

Another, for instance: Frank Hinckley (not pictured) is my second cousin, and Ed's second cousin, and he is also Malcolm's second cousin, but from a different line. Dave and Frank are second cousins to each other, and they are related to . . . Lynne?

Oh, I don't know on that one, but you get the drift? Oh yeah! - I don't know if any of us play a banjo, but we still came out Smart'n all that! Perty too! Alas, we grew up, graduated from high school, and most of us had to move away from Cowley for higher education, marriage, and/or jobs.

My High School graduation class fits entirely into this photo.

Now 35 or so years later, a mere 500 miles from our home town (many of us actually living on the Wasatch Front in Utah) recently had a small version of "our gang's social" once again . . . AND . . . we met at LYNNE's House - just like old times because she is Centrally located!

Lynne And her husband Kevin



Malcolm and his wife Jude

Jude , Lynne, and yours truly

Our spouses, Jim, Kevin and Jude
seemed to survive our Cowley memories with good cheer.

(Note: Ed's wife missed the fun this time)

Jim said he had a really good time,
Can't tell it by this picture though!

Next time, this semi-annual gathering is going to be huge! Or maybe not, but it will still be a lot of fun. Thanks for the memories my dear friends and cousins.
HUGS EVERYONE!

I'm 'IT'

This was my 6th photo in my 6th picture file:

1960 Cowley High
Junior Prom Royalty and crown bearers.

This is a tagged blog response to my sister Joan - I guess what 'tag' means is sort of like that old game - you know, when you got touched by the 'it' person, you became 'it' and you had to run and chase people until you caught them, and then they became 'it' again . . . Isn't that the way it worked? Anyway, this is a tag, as I said, from my sister who was tagged by . . . .

. . . As I was saying, you are supposed to go to your picture file on your computer - go to the 6th folder - to the 6th picture, blog it and then tell something about the picture.

My photo (left to right) is Ed Willis, Rue Liggett (he went by Rue Willis at the time) Dianne Stevens and yours truly on the end at the 1960 Junior Prom. Back in those days, children carried the crown on silk pillows for the - well I guess the coronation??? I don't know - kind of like the ring-bearers at weddings, I guess, only with crowns.

Amazingly, I remember this occasion. I loved that wonderful dress. The black top was velvet and the white skirt was layers of -hmmm - I don't know, but I thought it was beautiful. I wore a white full ruffly slip underneath it. I remember the silk pillow too. This was taken in about May of 1960 which means I was not even three years old at the time. Ed was three. Interestingly, Ed and Rue are both my first cousins, and Dianne is some distant relative (I don't know the connection) but she chose me to be her crown bearer. I don't think I really knew her at the time, or I don't remember knowing her. But then, I was two.

I also remember Ed being there with me at the prom. You see, I knew him already because his mom (my Aunt) used to babysit me every now and then, and she'd stick us in the bathtub together (probably easier to keep track of us, or maybe we were just inordinately messy children). It's easier to remember someone you bathed with, I guess. That was one HUGE old bathtub - or maybe it just seemed huge because I was really small, I don't know. I just remember sitting in the big tub with Ed.

I can't remember much else about this photo really. I don't remember the pomp or if the 'bearing' went well or not, or if I made any mistakes . . . if I did, no one mentioned it to me. So, there you have my sixth photo in my sixth album.

I suppose is would be not very useful to say "TAG - YOUR IT" to anyone reading my blog, cause almost everyone reading this has already been 'tagged' by my sister . . . (chuckle) . . . I just don't have that big of a following, don't 'cha know! However, this was fun. Soooooo, just in case you didn't get the tag from Joan, you are tagged.

As I said before, this is how you do it:

1. Go to your documents/pictures file

.2. Go to your 6th file folder.

3. Go to your 6th picture.

4. Post and blog about it.

5. Tag 6 people to do the same

Then please let me know so I don't have to be ' IT ' forever and ever!

The Wall! (or) Learning the Hard Way to Faux Paint

You, know, I have had so many plans to get my grand children's photos on my blog, all my kids birthdays up to date with sweet loving sugar hugs to my loved ones, including my darling Mom's birthday and my parents 60th ANNIVERSARY - WOW! What Cool stuff is that? (Love you guys so much)!

Instead of doing those great things, I have been trying to make a faux plaster old world thing kind of wall in my living room which has taken all my spare time.

I read my sisters blog, a few weeks ago -
her walls were done in a day -
handy husband, painting perfectly,
walls perfect,
beautiful home in order
as all things should be in order.

Her new walls look wonderful (I went and saw them) and all put together. I actually started my project BEFORE she did and . . . (chuckle) . . . I'm just jealous! I actually didn't know before I saw my sister's blog that we were working on a wall at the same time. However, hers was done a long time ago).

But I digress . . . where was I? Oh . . .

I wanted my walls to look - well - like venetian plaster, or old world sort of thing. I have wanted that since I moved to Eagle Mountain, only that was 9 years ago! O.K. so I'm not exactly on schedule. However, I decided to try ONE wall, a very small wall in case it did not turn out well. Then, I supposed I could move on to bigger and better things - like my family room??? That's another story (my family room is currently a very large storage room. how SAD!!!)

Anyway, so here I go. I wanted texture on the wall. I needed to know how, so I went to the 'world wide web' first where I read about three million ways to do this type of project. I downloaded page after page of stuff.

I studied the painting department brochures at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. for hours on hours (ask my sister about my 'indecisive' problem when trying to buy something . . . or no - maybe don't ask her - I won't come out looking so wonderfully on that one).

I read painting books in the book stores. What did I discover? There must be three million ways to do textures of all kinds and painting techniques of all kinds. How can it be so different from one site to the next. TOO MUCH INFORMATION is not better for someone with indecision issues.

I finally decided on a method I thought seemed most comfortable for me - after all I used to antique my ceramic projects - I can do it that way - how different can it be? LoL - well . . .

This is my small wall - newly patched, ready to begin
(Actually, just my stair well wall - how hard can THAT be?)

I decided to use just plain old pre-mixed wall plaster. I decided on that only after I visited my friend Lynne's house. Her husband told me what he used. Whew! That took a difficult decision out of my hands - I'll just copy Kevin - sort of . . .

I put on one layer of plaster - it looked good

My first coat of 'Texture'

. . . and no - I am not expecting - I am wearing an ugly bulky apron underneath Ammon's shirt. I threw this shirt on just before Jim snapped the photo 'cause I was only wearing the ugly bulky apron for a shirt and this is a G-rated blog - besides I looked just a little scary.

Jim does not look amused as he watches -
Actually I think he was VERY amused -
but notice HE is not wearing painting clothes!!!

PROBLEM - I had it in the back of my head somewhere, the directions for "Venetian Plaster" which calls for a LOT of sanding between coats.

So I sanded . . .

but I didn't really get it for a while - I was not putting on Venetian Plaster . In fact I put on THREE dang layers of mud cause I sanded it down TWICE before I figured out I really didn't need to do that.

I finally quit sanding it down . . . duh!

This is no longer a day job. Nor a WEEK job - Oh my goodness, this became a WEEKS and WEEKS job (since I work all day doing other things besides paint a small, small wall) . . . My living room is a mess.

Next comes the paint. I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to pick out paint colors. Nor am I going to tell you I am satisfied with it, because part of the problem with being indecisivie is that the indecisive one also tends to have buyers remorse all the time (exception - my lamps from the Lamp Blog).

I used a primer (cause someone told me too) then a base coat. The base coat looked exactly the color of my makeup. I was very, very concerned. I absolutely did not want a wall the color of Caucasian flesh . . . I had to look at that wall for a week before I could get to the next phase.

Next phase, add the 'antiquing' Whew! The color is a little Better.

It is hard to see the texture from this photo.
It actually looks better that this - I promise!

HOWEVER, I have to wonder . . . now what? - It looks WAY out of place and I don't like the white trim anymore. I also realize just how badly the rest of my house needs a coat of paint.

Back to the store. I bought some matching paint for the rest of my house and started doing touch ups on the rest of my walls - kitchen, dining room, hallway . . . etc. Another week goes by . . . My house is still in chaos! This is one, dumb, tiny piece of my living room - Good Grief!

I decided to go buy paint to paint the trim - NOT white - dark brown I think . . . well maybe. Maybe not - Maybe - Maybe not -- JOAN !!! Help me!!!! What should I do????

I Paint it dark brown.

I like it with the wall a lot better I think . . .
but guess what?

It looks WORSE with the rest of my now very white walls in the rest of my white house . . .

. . . and what about that red railing?
Now I've got to buy some stain for the railing to match the wall . . .
and I can't leave the walls white with this brown trim sticking out like that.
I guess I need new carpet too, and furniture . . .

Ugh! I like the WALL - but boy is it out of place! I decide to sleep on it.

I'm so tired, I have no idea I'm sleeping
with every animal in the world . . .
. . . o.k. just Daisy and Skweek,
but thanks Jim for taking THIS photo!!!

"I know what I'll do", I think to myself . . . so I went to home depot and priced the faux rock stuff. I decided that I would make an arch into my dining room - this would make a smaller entry, and the rock would be a nice transition from THE WALL.

Another $200.00??? SOOOOoooo, that means I'll have to build another wall before I can go on - and I also need to learn to be a brick layer. Does this project resemble a squid when you chew it? It never goes away, it just grows bigger as you chew it? Yeah! My Squid Project - It is growing - bigger and bigger and BIGGER - I guess I could always paint the wall back the way it was and call it good!

For now, I am just going to leave it like this - for a week or two!