Family is Everything!

Greg Hicken is 50 today!

When you look this good, no one cares how old you are! Wishing you 50 more years of attractiveness and awesomeness!

That is what it says on page A2 of The Herald Journal (Logan's local newspaper) today (with photo included)!  Bwuahahahahahahaha!

Happy birthday to the love of my life!

Jaycee Dugard found alive after being abducted 18 years ago!

In January of 1993 our family moved to South Lake Tahoe, California for a six month sports medicine fellowship.  We rented a furnished home in a lovely neighborhood.  The bus stop was about 1/4 mile from our home, but we soon discovered that due to a kidnapping of a neighbor, Jaycee Dugard, none of the parents let their kids walk to the stop. Each day as we drove up the pine tree lined street to the bus stop, we passed the Dugard home where every branch of every tree in their yard was covered with yellow ribbons. Each parent in the neighborhood would drive to the bus stop and we would then park along the side of the road and watch until every child was safely on the bus.  We repeated the drill in the afternoon as they got off the bus at the end of the school day.  Some of us did this three times a day if we had a kindergartner, which we did.  Yesterday, 18 years later, Jaycee Dugard was found alive, but not well. She had been kept as a sex slave for all of these years.  You can read the story  here.  

Funny, not funny ha ha, but funny odd - that I thought of this experience two days ago as I read a friend's blog post about helping a little boy that was walking home from his first day of school and got lost. So grateful that his story turned out differently than Jaycee's.

A Dozen Days in 19 pictures!

August 15th - Shaela's first born, Matt, is baptised.

 

Our nephew, Derek, who is also Matt's uncle and my children's cousin and Shaela's brother, comes for the baptism.  My children adore their cousin :)  A lot of other people come for the baptism, two of whom are Matt and Dana.

During the after baptism festivities, the cousins make a back massage train.  And I finish my quilting sampler project from my quilt class.  I am still working on repenting from my prideful feelings over the completion of this project.

August 16th - Dana and I head to BYU Education Week where we are educated!

August 18th - Dana and I spend three whole hours in the recording studio of Hilary Weeks while she records a song for her new Christmas album!!!!!!  That deserves a few more exclamation points!!!!! (The photo proof of me in the studio is on Hilary's engineer's camera -- really!!)

August 19th - Melanie and Matt get food poisoning from our local Taco Bell.  Matt is taken to the hospital.  Melanie is not.  Neither will be eating there again soon.  Neither will I.

August 22nd - Greg and I celebrate 28 years of wedded bliss (see previous post).

August 24th - I celebrate 47 years of life!  Greg gives me a new fairway rescue club.  Oooooohh! My darling daughters sing the "happy birthday" song to me -- complete with actions.

  I think it will take more than this to rescue me from most of my shots on the golf course:)

Chelsea, Brigham, and Melanie provide lovely sidewalk art in honor of my birthday -- and are looking forward to Greg's BIG day (it's tomorrow!).

Chase sends home photos of a pig-rat thing he "met" on his mission. Gross!

August 25th - Melanie and Dustin's first day of school, Junior year and Sophomore year, respectively.

August 27th - In preparation for Greg's BIG day tomorrow, we hang a banner announcing his BIG day while he is away at choir practice :)  We're thinking he won't see it when he gets home tonight because it will be dark and he won't be entering through the front door and at his advanced age his eyes are going! Hee hee!

Happy Anniversary!

To me and the love of my life!

Twenty-eight years!

 

Twenty-eight years = five delightfully brilliant children, two handsome sons-in-law, three dogs, five states, two apartments, one rental house, five homes, nineteen vehicles?, three motorcycles, two weddings, one trip to the MTC, twenty-two proms (or homecomings, etc.), five sets of braces, Hawaii, New York, Nauvoo, Mexico, Peru, Hill Cumorah, Disneyland, Disneyworld, Washington DC, Spain, three sets of tonsils, three sets of wisdom teeth, eight? knee surgeries (two on Nicole, six on Greg), and a gazillion laughs, smiles, and memories! 

I think I'm up for another 28!

P.S.  Check out this little bauble that was delicately wrapped in gold paper with a card to ... ME!

 It is called the "journey" pendant.  

Remember, life is a journey, not a destination!

Something to smile about:)

More photos from my missionary son!  Need I say more?

Elder Hicken with Heiner and Carlos and Elder Gledhill.

I crack myself up!

"He who can laugh at himself will never cease to be amused!"

I thought this morning that I should have named the "swing set" post:  "If you build it, they will come!"  

With the purchase of the swing set parts and components, we also purchased a baby swing.  One day we will have grandchildren that will need that baby swing.  Hence the reason the title should have been, "If you build it, they will come!" 

So we built it.

Now where are the grandchildren?

Up, up, and away!

In our beautiful, our beautiful ... swing!  Put together by Greg, Dustin, Scot (Dustin's friend and our neighbor), Shaela, and Talon.  I only helped with the platform and roof lifting. Someone has to do the laundry and take pictures!

Nicole made sure it was sturdy enough to climb on - and then told the kids not to climb on the top until they were adults :)  She looks about 10 years old up there!

New sand.

New swing set.

Come and play!

 

A friend to touch my heart!

Received a text from my sweet Debbie friend.  "Want to meet for lunch at the Gateway Mall tomorrow at 12:30pm?"

She had made a spontaneous trip to Utah with her girls to go to the Ochre Mountain Temple open house. My answer - "Yes!"

Debbie had Gillian with her, so I took Nicole.  These two were best of buds during our Albuquerque days. It was so super fun to be with Debbie and Gillian for a few hours! Debbie's health is improving and we are hopeful that she will remain cancer free - that is my sincere prayer. Love, love, love these two Chavez women!

What does 100 lbs. of chicken look like?

Provident living - food storage style!

Spent the day at the Preston, Idaho cannery with about 20 other Relief Society sisters.

My 100 pounds of chicken is now 116 cans, which are now securely stacked in the cold storage room. Woot!  Woot!