2015 ... time flies when we're having FUN!

In the last 2 years we have had so much to be busy at... and so very Thankful for everything the Lord has blessed us with. How to begin? We have watched and prayed from deep in our hearts for our grandson Austin on his mission in Idaho Pocatello  Mission. Our hearts swell with pride and love for him as we become weekly aware of his growth and hard work for our Savior and the Gospel.  He will be home in July of 2016.
We have been blessed this year with the birth of a new grand daughter born to Ashley and Sam on September  29. Skylar Jo Simons. Brad and Tiffany will celebrate birthday #2 with Adam in December.
We will be in our new home a year on December  19th. We have really enjoyed our home. 
Allen is happy with work at Redhawk. I have just been asked to come back part time at the Real Estate office.
We just celebrated our 40 th anniversary  by taking a British Isles Vacation. We loved it!
I will post pictures when I have got back home. We are in Las Vegas for the Rock n Roll half marathon 2015 .with Kourtney and the girls. This is Allen's 3rd run in Vegas. 

Hello to new "Adventures"

Allen has received a promotion, which brings us new beginnings and adventures in our life. He will be the Plant Manager at Red Hawk a gas and oil plant located near the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant. We have rented a home in the "Active Adult" community of Sundance which is located in Buckeye AZ. Allen started work on   Monday the 7th of October. We are sad to say good-bye to our beautiful Joseph City but hope to be back someday. We strongly feel that we have been sent here and will work hard to do what is required to serve here, and we know we and our family will be blessed for following the promptings of the Savior.

Our latest trip to Logan

Last Friday Allen and I went to Logan Utah to visit Blaine, Amy and Logan. It is an 11 hour drive and Allen had a eye dr. appt. at 7:45 so by 9:30 we were on our way. You loose an hour because they are on Day-light-savings-time, but you get it back on the drive home. We had missed a trip to Logan for the "Handcart Days" half- marathon because of the second surgery on Allen's eye and I had told Blaine we wanted to come to see the Brigham City Temple with them. we got our tickets for Saturday afternoon and saw such a pretty temple. It was about a two hour wait which was long for all the little kids waiting. Logan did remarkably well compared to others, and with the cookies at the end and a ride on the big bus he was content. When we got to the end I asked the man counting "How Many"? He told me I was number 10,032 and it was 4pm in the afternoon, WOW!

It seems to rain every time we go to Logan. And it was raining most of the whole weekend. Sunday we went to church, they have a very friendly ward. How about the picture of nap time for Allen and Blaine?

Amy is such a great cook and she always takes good care of us when were there. Sunday afternoon we drove on up to Kemmerer Wyoming , mostly to say we had been to Wyoming. Stopped at Bear lake on the way home for AWESOME Raspberry Shakes and good pizza. The canyon from Logan to Bear lake is so beautiful and because it was Labor day Weekend there was more traffic through it than when we drove through to Idaho the last time we went to visit. Logan is one of the prettiest places to go too! I envy Blaine and Amy living in such a beautiful place. We just wish it wasn't so far away.

Allen's two eye surgeries

Allen was suppose to have had routine cataract removal surgery in July (I know I'm a slow blogger) and by the next day his vision was 20/20. This was a Wednesday he was doing well and felt pretty good, so by Saturday morning he was ready to run, he ran about 7 miles that morning. By Tuesday of the next week he had a cloudy spot in his eye and black spots also. We back to the Dr. and they informed him he had detached his retna in his eye, and would have to have emergency surgery but we would have to to Mesa for this surgery. We went on Wednesday morning to Mesa and he had an exam by Dr. Graff. Yes he had a detached retna and they would do surgery the following morning. Because we live at a high elevation his option was to have oil put in his eye till it was healed and then another surgery to remove the oil in a few months. The worse part about this surgery is you have to hold your head down (as if saying prayers) for 24 hrs following , sleep on your stomach . This was very uncomfortable for him, but he's a trooper and kept that head bowed. Needless to say he had quite a neck ache after that 24 hr period. Also he wouldn't have hardly any vision through that eye till the oil was removed. Dr. Graff said it's like looking through a jar of salad oil. His vision was 400/20 at his post op. appointment. He will have the Oil removed the first week of October. Then they will remove the cataract in his left eye. And he won't run till they tell him he can this time.

Our life has been busy since we moved back home. We recently went on vacation to San Diego with Kourtney, Zach, Brigette,Tera, Sam, Ashley, and Austin.Allen and Kourtney were running the rock and roll half marathon. We went to Coronado Island to see the ocean, had a hard time finding it from where we were staying, Austin made the comment "why it was so hard to find something so big", Sam looked it up on his I-Phone and we were soon enjoying the beautiful pacific ocean and then on to the San Diego Petco park to watch them play the D-backs, we won 6-0 and had a great time. The next morning we went to the San Diego temple and could have stayed ALL day it is the prettiest temple we have been too, the second time we went to a Spanish session, Sam enjoyed that!

twice while driving to our destinations Allen turned into the MCRD they took his DL till he made his u-turn to get out. brought back amazing memories to tell Austin, (Austin wanted to take his picture on the lawn emblem in front but we didn't want the Marine's  to haul us all to the "brigade").She said his foot prints would cover the yellow ones that Jennifer held him on top of  over 15 years ago. We ate dinner that night in a little Italian restaurant, and invited a marine to eat dinner with us, and bragged on Austins dad and he also being a Marine.

Allen and Kourtney did good on their half-marathon and will receive an  additional medal for running three Rock and Roll half-marathons in a calender year, cool huh!!

There's no place like home...

We have been "transferred"!

Allen has received a job promotion to Production Manager and will be back at Cholla power plant. We are very excited to be going home, we love Joseph City and the great little town it is! When we drove down main street on Tuesday evening I wanted to honk the horn I was so happy to be home.

There are good memories to reflect upon from the 7 months we stayed in Mesa, Our time together was ours I didn't have to share Allen with cows or hay or the APS cell phone.

Along with Allen my friendship and love grew with the awesome time spent with my sister Diana, she is amazing, she helped find me a job came and supported me when I gave my lessons in Sunday school Gospel Principles and the time we spent going to Sonic oh the fun we had!! I will miss her the most when I reflect upon my time there. For I have followed my sweet husband home and I will follow him to the ends of the world.

Another sadness is we are far away from our Ashley and Sam, it was so nice to be two hours from them.

We also got to spend time with Blaine when he made a run to Phx. that was great!!

We were in a really great ward the Center Park Ward, everyone welcomed us with open arms and we enjoyed our time spent there.

We have seen many rainbows and our lives have been blessed abundantly while we were there. And we never know what the future holds for all of us.