Easter in St. Louis

For spring break this year we decided to do a church history trip and  visit some of the places that we have heard about for years.   Although there wasn't much church history there, we started in St. Louis because it was a central point that was easy to get to and relatively inexpensive.  We left at 5 o'clock on Easter morning because our assigned seats on American Airlines suddenly became unassigned.  Luckily we didn't have an issue getting seats all together as we flew first to Dallas-Forth Worth than on to St. Louis.  In the Dallas airport, Mckay wanted something to reminder of Texas so she bought some dill pickle seasoned potato chips.  So for now on Texas will always be forever known as the dill pickle state (at least in our family).   When we arrived in St. Louis we picked up our rental car and headed off to the Union Station Hotel which proved to be pretty grand considering we only paid $60 bucks a night.  The hotel was the centerpiece of the old St. Louis train station that had been revitalized into a mall-hotel venue.  The weird thing was that when we arrived in the late afternoon, the mall was closed as was virtually everything downtown.  Take a close look at the pictures and you will see that we were virtually alone.  St. Louis was like a ghost town on Easter Sunday.  The streets were nearly empty.  It was actually pretty cool just walking around and having no one bother us.  The next day we got up and went to the St. Louis Arch, took a trip down the Mississippi river on an authentic river boat, and visited the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis Zoo.  We left St. Louis on Tuesday morning and made one final stop at the St. Louis Temple before heading off to Independence Missouri and the start of our church history tour.

Outside our hotel

Inside Union Station

Easter Sunday afternoon and downtown is empty

The day before Opening Day (although the Cardinals opened in Phoenix)

This was the only restaurant open near us for dinner.
Nothing says Easter like the Hard Rock Cafe.

This is the round capsule-elevator that you take to the top of the arch.
It's designed to fit five adults. Yeah, right.

At the Top of the Arch looking out the small windows.

Jumping for joy directly below the Arch.

Our river boat the Tom Sawyer.

On the Mississippi River.  

Monday the temperatures dropped to the low 40's.

We loved the zoo, and the best part is that it's free!

Me and a Sloth Bear.   We could be twins.

Hey, don't you go to BYU?

St. Louis Temple

Sweet Sixteen

Mckay celebrated her sweet sixteenth birthday yesterday.  She had a great day which started with donuts at Seminary.  We decorated the house, rented a big 15 passenger van, and took a bunch of her friends out for a fun evening around town.  We started at Islands for burgers and fries, then went to Westwood Village for ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Riese, then a walk around the lights at the Temple before coming home and opening presents.  In between was a lot of laughing, singing, and having fun.  Happy Birthday Mckay, we love you!

The Color Run

We went to San Diego and had a great time at the Color Run 5K.   There were 15,000 runners in the morning and another 15,000 in the afternoon.   Jill and Mckay "ran" it, although it was more like a walk, while Maddy and I supported them by taking pictures and throwing color packets at the finish line.

 After running through the first of four color stations. (Pink, Yellow, Orange, Blue)

Having fun in the middle of the race.

 The blue station

 Walking past the blue station

 At the finish line

 Jumping for joy

 The color festival at the end of the race.

July 4th Weekend

Today is July 4th.  We are so thankful for the liberties and freedoms we enjoy.  This morning we're going to the Ward breakfast this morning at Anderson Park, probably the beach this afternoon, followed by fireworks at El Segundo.

We have already had lots of fun this weekend.  On Friday night we decided celebrate Maddy's 12th birthday because we will be out of town on her real birthday in a few weeks.  She had a slumber party with several of her friends.  We ate at El Tarasco, then the girls made fun picture frames, before watching a movie and staying up way too late.  The next morning we all had a fun breakfast of crepes, fruit, and whip cream.  She opened her big present and was thrilled to get a new beach cruiser.  That was followed by a fun time at the beach and playing in the water.

Two weeks ago me and Maddy went to Las Vegas for the weekend while Jill and Mckay were in Washington D.C. and New York.  We hooked up with Alana and Josh and had a really fun weekend.  We went to the M&M store, went swimming in the hotel's lazy river, at dinner at the Venetian, and saw the play Phantom of the Opera.  Good times!!!

It's official - I am G Papa

So it's official.  We welcomed in our granddaughter, Katelyn Carey Gillette, into our family.  She was born last night at 9:40pm (MST).  She weighed in at a very healthy 7 lbs 8 oz.  We are so excited for her to be here! 

Jill, Maddy, and I were upstairs watching Dancing with the Stars and playing Quiddler when we got the text from Andy at around 9pm (PST) to tell us that she had been born.  Immediately, Jill and Maddy forwarded the text to others, while I got on Facebook and posted a message.  A minute later Andy called and spoke to Jill and we could Katelyn in the background.  She sounded like she had a heatlhy set of lungs.  Within another minute, Andy sent a picture of her to our cellphones. 

As we gazed upon her beautiful face for the first time, I said "Isn't technology wonderful."  Without ever leaving our spot on the bed, we found out about our granddaughter, contacted all our friends, and were already seeing pictures of her.  We didn't even have to stop our game, which I won by the way.  The only thing that was bad was having to endure Dancing with the Stars.

As wonderful as technology is.  It doesn't compare to how wonderful it is to be a family.  As I gazed at little Katelyn on that two-inch cellphone screen, I just had so much love for her.  I also had so much love for Andy and Dana.  I know they will face many, many challenges raising Katelyn and what a difficult and daunting responsibility it will be for them and my heart just really went out to them.  Of course, as Grandpa, I will do everything I can to help and assist them. 

It just made me realize once again how much our Heavenly Father must love us.  He has so much love for each of us and wants so much for us to be happy and have love.  I love Him and his wonderful plan that has brought me so much love and happiness. 

Welcome Katelyn, we are so glad you are with us!  We're going to have so much fun together.

Love,
G Papa

The Piano

One year after we got married, I bought Jill a beautiful black piano.  I had to finance the piano at forty-five dollars a month in order to get it.  Nevertheless, I thought it well worth the price because my home would be filled with the sweet melodies of gospel hymns and lively upbeat music for all my life.

While there have been days that sweet music did come from the black beast, it's seen its share of fights as my children refused to practice.

Why it hasn't been the glorious peaceful experience that I had originally envisioned when I bought the piano all those years ago, I think in the end it has been a positive experience and I'm grateful that all my girls can play the piano.

Here is Maddy at her recent recital playing Music Machine by Thomas M. Palmer.

And Mckay playing Minuet in G by Bach.  She said she did much better on her first and third songs but I didn't tape them.  Oops.

My "Heart Attack"

This year for Valentine's Day I wanted to do something a little different.  So about two weeks before the holiday I started doing some planning and investigation on the internet and came across something called a "heart attack" where you cover your house with hearts.

I thought this sounded pretty fun so the next week I went to Michael's and bought three packs of construction paper: red, pink, and white.   Then on Saturday morning, while Jill had gone over to Disneyland, I locked the door of the bedroom and cut out literally hundreds of hearts.  As I was cutting them out, I decided that I needed to included a clever saying on each one.  I had three size hearts, for the largest hearts I wrote some longer sayings including some lines from our favorite old songs.  For the smallest hearts, I used some sayings that had been on Sweetheart candies over the years, which I got off the internet.  For the medium size hearts, I just started writing up any thoughts that came to me and wrote them in one of my notebooks. I tried to customize these and included sayings about Jill, and all my kids and their spouses, and even my mother and mother-in-law.

In addition to the heart attack, I bought some red and pink ballons, crate paper streamers to go across the ceiling, and a package to make sugar cookies which I would cut out in heart shapes.

My biggest problem was when to do the heart attack.  As it just so happens the day before Valentine's day was Sunday and I was scheduled to go to the Redondo 3rd  Ward's ward conference at 11:30, while Jill and the girl's would go off to our ward at 8:45.  It seemed like a perfect time so as they got ready for church, I tried to keep a straight face and pretend that I was just going to have a lazy morning before leaving for my meetings.  Just before they left, I gave them a small hint when I decided that I needed to pre-heat the oven to get the cookies finished first.  Luckily, they were so busy that they left without noticing the oven.

As soon as the car was out of the driveway, I put my plan into work.  I started with the cookies.  As the cookies baked, I started to put up the hearts.  I had originally planned to put hearts in every room except the bedrooms.  But as I started to put them around, I realized that was a little too ambitious.  Just covering one room took much longer than I thought.  At one point, I blew up some of the balloons but realized that was also taking too long and decided to not complete that part.  When I left finally left, I had covered the entire first floor and stairwell in hearts and had a big plate of unfrosted cookies on the dining table. 

Jill says that when she, Mckay, and Maddy came home at 1pm (they had to stay late because she had a meeting) they were totally shocked.  They just walked around the room laughing as they read every heart including a few that the Mckay and Maddy deemed "inappropriate" such as the one I put up in the kitchen that said "Let's Spoon."  Luckily, I keep most of them G-rated. 

When I came home I got a big hug from each of them.  We invited the Manley children (Maggie and Josh) over to help frost  the cookies after we heard that little Claire had been in the hospital all week with pneumonia.  Maddy explained to Maggie about all the hearts all over the house by saying "uh, yeah my Dad went a little crazy." 

The next day, Valentine's Day, all my hard work paid off when I got a surprise candle light dinner at home with my three sweethearts that included pink mashed potatoes and a heart shaped meatloaf.  Does that rock or what!!

A lot of people don't like Valentines day.  I'm not one of them.  

Here are a few pictures of the "heart attack"