March Family Photos

We are preserving memories and these are our favorites for March and a little into April.

It's good to see Cameron and Taylor reading our family Christmas book of their 4-generations.  How proud we are that they could put their phone down and look at a physical book.  This picture is a storage room cement wall art that Taylor did.  Pretty cool.

Here are four great kids all dressed up in their Easter best.  Brittney and Marc are always on top of the holidays and make it special for these four.

This is a picture that we need to preserve.  It's all of Theron's siblings with their father.  Of course it's in their younger years, but it's the only one that was ever taken.

March Madness

We knew that the domino effect would take place as soon as Curt and Melanee bought a house, well, March happened -- The new house for them is in South Jordan, our house is being cleaned and polished for selling, the pool in St. George was dug and filled with gunnite. 

Curt and Melanee's Move
The new house is at 11467 S Country Knoll Road in South Jordan.  With a new house, the kids learned new tricks like climbing out of their cribs.  So, no walls and no tables and furniture at the old house.

Some
times you just wonder what everyone is thinking.

The move went as expected.  Theron spent a lot of time up North and I had to travel back on the shuttle.  Adrian just dropped me off at the shuttle stop and I had to sit on my suitcase, so no one would steal it, until the shuttle bus came.  It was an interesting time watching others around me like the begger guy who would walk back and forth with his sign.  Pack his stuff away and go to McDonald's to get a cup of coffee.  Like I wanted his stuff?!

We threw away a lot of things (stuff) and each time I looked at this and thought that our friends in Jamaica would have loved all of this and would need all the things we donated and threw away.  We have so much and waste so much.  Am I going to change, probably not.  Okay, I'm a paint hoarder.







The Pool
Our paradise backyard is being to take shape.  The pool was dug, the rebar was shaped, the gunnite was sprayed, the block wall was built and now it sits until the faux rock feature is finished.  These are the pictures of the progress.

Can't wait for water.

February is our Month of Birthdays

February starts out with Taylor's birthday - it's his 14th this year and he was ordained a teacher.  What can we say other than Taylor now has the rubber chicken.

Brittney's birthday is just before Valentine's Day.

Ali Jo and Tyce will always be together even though they are years apart.

Tyce is Captain America this year.

And all Ali wants is her two front teeth.  So cute with a toothless smile.















Melanee rounds out the February cluster of birthdays.  She got a new house this year and they came to St. George to visit to celebrate this year.

Happy Birthday to all.

Curt - 40th Birthday -- Seems like only 27 years ago:)

January 11, 2018 is a special day in our family, Curt turned 40 years old.  We were in St. George, Marc was busy, Adrian had other plans and Melanee was tending the kids and going crazy - no one noticed (so Curt thought).

Actually Melanee planned a huge birthday party for him on the Saturday after his birthday.  We made a surprise appearance and so did many others.  Here's a few of the pictures of those who attended.  Curt you have lots of friends and family who love you and lots of well wishes for lots of coming years.

Happy Birthday!!!

 Can't have a party without Cleadus.

 Even Gregor was there.

 John and Rachel and smiling Melanee.

 Jesse couldn't figure out what was going on.

 Come on Curt -- blow ---------

Marc, you will get there one of these years, also.

And, we can't forget Aunt Neala and Uncle Louis.  This may be their last Utah party.  We'll have to go to Texas and celebrate.

Starting 2018 A Bit Late - January

Okay, sometimes you just can't get everything done and sometimes you are just behind.  Well, 2018 is a little of both.  We were called the end of December to serve as assistant coordinators of the FamilySearch Center.  It has been a challenge to learn our new responsibilities - Shanna is in charge of scheduling missionaries for the evening groups and keeping the WIKI up-to-date.  Theron is in charge of keeping all the equipment and computers going.  So, this is our excuse for being behind.

We are just now getting caught up.  In addition, they have started our pool and we are trying to coordinate the building of the block walls and Theron and Craig will be plumbing the gas lines.

Then, Curt and Melanee found a home and moved the first part of March which means we are getting our home in NSL ready to sell.  Add to this, Theron is helping Neala and Louis pack for their big move to Texas on March 30.

Okay, enough excuses.  Taking a few minutes each week to write down some memories should be easy to do and we just need to keep a half-hour set aside for this.  Memories are so important at our age ... now what was I writing about?

January 2018
The first of January brought a great visit from our Samoan friends, Rusty and Cindy Gillette.  They live in Idaho and we traveling to California.  It was so fun to be with them again.

Thinking that we could help build the faux rock feature for the swimming pool, Theron bought a welder and Rusty gave him a few lessons.  Well, the faux rock feature is going to be so much more complex and bigger than we can handle, Theron may never use the welder.  Still, it was so fun to have a lesson from our expert.  They are a delight to be with.

New Year's Eve - the end of 2017

New Year's Eve was on Sunday this year and the couple who lived next door to us in Samoa, Kathy and Cliff Vellingas gave their homecoming talks in Las Vegas.  Theron and I and Callahans went to Vegas and stayed with Ellsworths overnight and attended Church to hear Vellingas and meet them again.

We left shortly afterward and drove to St. George where we had another rousing party with our friends - Duerdens, Christensens, and Woods.  Eat, cards and put on a silly hat for a picture.  We made it to midnight.  Another year finished; they are going by too fast.

Christmas 2017

It was north for Christmas.  We stayed at Adrian's - this is such a nice basement and comfortable bedroom; just don't tell anyone else (Larue) family joke.

It was our Spendlove family party on December 16 and we took several family and sibling pictures.  It's good to keep up on how much we change from year to year.  It is so difficult to get all of us to stand together.  This is the best we could come up with.  Linda was in charge and planned a brunch - this was a great idea.  All the kids loved the waffles, strawberries and whipped cream.  I liked having it early in the day so we could travel in the light.  Maybe a new tradition has been born.

Theron did a family history book for our family and one of the stories was about my mom playing softball.  She found her uniform, which none of us had ever seen, and modeled it for us.  The Henefer Shmoos!

 

Lisa, Christian, Thomas and Heather were down from Washington and it was so good to see them again.  With Lisa here, it was time to talk with mom about sealing Inez and Herschel.  I know she told us all not to do this, but she needs these blessings and I know that the atonement will make everything work out right.  So, on December 20, Lisa, mom, Theron, Adrian and I met at the Ogden Temple and did an endowment session.  Dawain met us around 1:00 for lunch at the Temple and at 2:00 we went to the sealing room.  Dawain and I were proxies for Inez and Herschel.  Mom was then sealed to her parents and Lisa was the proxy for Freida.  It was peaceful and was the right thing to do.

It wasn't just three days later that I started bleeding in my bowels and had to go to the hospital for bleeding ulcers.  I went to the U of U emergency center near Adrian's.  They transported me by ambulance to the U of U Hospital.  I stayed over night and the next morning had a scope - yup two bleeding ulcers.  The drugs they had given me stopped the bleeding.  After talking with the doctor on Christmas eve, he let me go home.  We stopped at Marc's to tell him Happy Birthday and then spent Christmas Day just lounging around at Adrian's.

All the kids came and visited - I love my family!  It was so fun to see Lauren, Brookie and Jesse open presents.  The train set was the hit as were the new earbuds we gave to Cameron and Taylor.

 Adrian and Todd enjoyed the boys earbuds.