Trip to Newport Beach

We took a short vacation to Newport Beach with our St George friends. John and Nicholle Alexander, a great time was had by all. One day was spent at the treasure island section of Laugna Beach. The section of beach is exceptional, with huge waves that were curling over causing a pipe before crashing onto the beach.

The area is heavily eroded with arches and other cool features along the shore. The State has made the area very nice by placing seats on the top of the bluffs, and wonderful landscaping with many trails and lots of flowers.

The Newport Beach Temple is very unusual in that it looks like a old Spanish Mission with a Angel Moroni on the Top.

We spent a day at Knots Berry Farm Amusement Park. It has been a long time since we were there and the admission was really inexpensive $ 24.00 for kids and seniors. We have been to Micky Mouse land so many times that it was nice to go somewhere different.

There is a kind of Ghost Town Theme in the Park. Mom was bad so She was put in Jail. There is some kind of show to see every hour. We went to the Snoopy Show and then Western Shootout, that had lots and lots of gun battles and fist fights.

There are lots of roller coasters that are really cool. John and I went on Montezuma's Revenge, Accelerator, Silver Bullet and the Horse Rider. Marlene liked the log flume she went several times. Old women are not brave enough to go on any good rides. We all had a good time but is is sure nice to be home here in St George

Fifty Years

My wife and I celebrated fifty years of marriage last week. It was wonderful to have all of our children, their spouses and almost all of our grandchildren here in St George. Cody is away to school in Northern Idaho. We did some very special things. We all went to the St George Temple to remember that day many years ago when Marlene and I made those covenants with The Lord that started our life together a husband and wife. That evening there was a Open House where we visited with many of our friends.

Our Children were wonderful, they did so much for us. Angel made a very special Wedding Cake. Todd took pictures of the family and at the open house. It has been many years since We were able to be all together to have a family picture. Melody and Tara did the decorations of the Club House for the Reception and everyone helped with a family dinner that we had prior the the Open House.

We are so blessed to have our special Family, and that we were all able to get together and enjoy each others company at this time. There is a lot of love in our homes.

This and That

Saturday there was some big doings at Hurricane. They celebrate their annual Peach Days. When the Pioneers first settled the area they planted many peaches here. The Church Welfare Program now has a huge orchard there. Peach Days is the biggest event of the year for the folks there.

Mom normally doesn't like country music but the was enthralled by a band that was playing. They were called the Country Classic band. She sat for almost the whole program with a smile on Her face not saying anything, for Her that is amazing. The group was really good, mild classic music.

I think the reason that she is starting to enjoy this kind of music is because of the style of LOUD screaming music that is popular today. Two weeks ago we went to a concert at Dixie State College The band was outside but We had to leave right after we got there because the music was so loud and that I was starting to get dizzy.

We were walking around when we say a large group of people and what sounded like a whole lot of Crickets. It was very strange, as We went over we came across many Kids with hammers pounding nails. They were building wooden boats and periscope boxes. The folks from Home Depot was sponsoring a program for the kids. There must have been one hundred plus of little kids in Home Depot aprons having the time of their lives pounding nails.

Our garden is producing many many tomatoes much more than we can eat. I put on my apron to make "Salsa" I put in tomatoes, green peppers, jalapenos peppers, onions, ect. We lovingly put it all in pint jars and canned it. We opened the first bottle the next morning for breakfast thinking how good it would be. It tasted like tomato sauce. I thought there must be some way to fix up so I put some cinnamon, cloves and sugar in the bottle of supposed salsa. It still didn't taste like salsa but it was good. I guess it is true that a spoon full of sugar does make the medicine go down.