Memories of College Days!

So back when I was a young college girl, I had a cool experience.  I wanted to put in on my blog because a TV show reminded me of this time.  I was just watching The Golden Girl reruns.  And Rose was doing a show and wanted Bob Hope to appear.  And lo and behold he did!  As I saw him on my TV screen, I was immediately taken back to my college years.  (A long time ago!!!)  Well, I was flying home for Christmas and back in those days we all flew "stand-by" and usually it worked.  But bear in mine, it was Christmas.  I was flying to Palm Springs airport from Salt Lake with a connection in Las Vegas.  Well, the inevitable happened...yes I was not able to get on my fight in Vegas.  I went to the check in desk to see when the next flight was leaving and found out there was none that day and in the next days there were totally full flights...

Yes, I was 18 and wanted to go home for Christmas...what was I going to do.  Well, the man at the check-in must have felt really sorry for me and asked me to wait just a minute.  When he came back he told me that Bob Hope was flying home to Palm Springs on a private jet and had agreed to let me fly on his private jet with him!  This little college girl was shocked beyond words and I got on and there he was!  Unbelievable.  I was afraid to speak to him.  When I got off the jet he came up to me and spoke to me as I headed to get my luggage.  I don't remember what he said exactly but was wishing that my dad would get to meet him. 

Well, I picked up my luggage and went to the front of the very small airport in Palm Springs (back in those days) and waited for my dad.  As I stood there Mr. Hope came up and continued speaking to me and I was so thrilled and thought what a nice and kind man he was and where was my dad!  We spoke for quite  a while as he waited for his Chauffeur and I waited "for mine".  Well, finally his arrived. And he said goodbye holding on to his golf club.  My dad didn't show up for quite a while.  A flat tire!!!  Of all the days!  Well, dumb me, I was so stunned be the whole event, I forgot to ask to take a picture...but I still have the wonderful memory of a most kind person that would help a poor college girl get home for a Christmas with her family.

2018 Catch-up time

So this year has kept me hopping.  It was the first year of my retirement.  I guess the good Lord knew I needed to retire at the end of December 2017.  Because 2018 was going to keep me soooo busy, and that's no lie!

So it started with a bang as four days after retirement, my daughter and her husband went to Hawaii and I was to take care of things with the house and kids and pets!  So that kept me running between our two homes and I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the day.

The following month, precisely the 5th of February, my mom called around 3:00 am and said she wasn't feeling well, so Spence and I ran over, taking her house keys along with us.  I say rather facetiously that I never can get her keys to work or her lock, but this time, the door opened just like it should.  My mom was sweaty and pale and it only took us a minute to know that 911 was the way to go.  We are lucky as the paramedics are maybe a block and a half away.  After they took vitals, it was on the way to the Mountain Point Hospital in Lehi.  We followed the ambulance by car and she was quickly admitted.  After a little while the cardiologist told us she needed an angiogram.  This showed she had a 95% blockage in the main heart artery.  A stint was placed to open things up.

Three or four days later she was moved to rehab, nearby, and she stayed there for two or three weeks.  Again I found myself going between her house and mine, taking care of her house, her needs at the rehab center, and taking the dog in and out, and feeding the dog and her bird as well as giving the dog it's heart meds.  It was quite the time.  Here is a picture of her leaving the hospital after her treatment there.

I am sure she was happy to leave the hospital.

While at the rehab, she had lots of company.  Here is when Tyson and Brecklyn went to visit.  This rehab even let you bring in the patient's pets.  But mom didn't want to stress her dog to much as he was also having heart issues at the time.  But I thought that was a pretty cool thing for both the patient and the lonely pet at home.

So needless to say, my first two months of retirement were not what I had expected.  You know, you hear of the retirement vacation trip, etc, etc.  Nope didn't happen for me...Oh well.

One fun event was to meet part of Jamie's mother-in-law's family when they came to visit her.  Here is Lance and his daughter's visiting with Arden.  It was a dream come true for Arden.  I was able to find her biological family after a long disappointing search.  When it happened it happened fast and furious!  I was thrilled to be able to have helped this reunion of mother and daughter.  I think that was wonderful.

Two days after my mom's heart attack, I made a huge discovery, which I have already written about in my genealogy blog.  Here is the link to that amazing find.  Needless to say, the research after that kept me working at home, in between checking up on my mom, and such.

Also during that time, I had what I thought was a really bad sinus infection.  It felt like one and made sense, because I have an issue with my sinus and any dairy products.  Being that it was a bit after Christmas, a time of chocolate and other dairy-type goodies, I was sure that was it and went to the doctor and got some antibiotics.  They agreed with what I thought it was.  Time went on, and I still had some pressure, but when it comes to my sinus issues, I just have to deal with it at times.  Finally I got a swelling on my gum and went to the dentist.  Had an abscessed tooth under a crown.  So off to the endodontist.  I had lost a lot of bone and tissue, so there was a lot of damage.  The root canal was done through the crown and took two long appointments to complete.  Then back to the regular dentist to fill in the crown's hole.  It still hurt for quite a while.  But is pretty good now.  But that started a summer full of dental issues for our family.  Spence had a toothache, too.  Needed a wisdom tooth extracted.  After that still more pain.  Another wisdom tooth, then our son-in-law Jake, had a root canal and crown.  Then Spencer had yet another tooth ache and yet another root canal and crown.  Ugh.  will this ever end!  Just recently my poor mom had a root canal under a broken crown which got infected into the gum line and yeah.  Let's just all get dentures, right????  But when Brian went to the dentist just a few days ago, he only needed a cleaning.  I guess he was the lucky one this time!

In October I took my mom to my eye doctor, as she complained that for the last three check-ups, her eye doctor didn't find much to change in her prescription and even specifically when she asked about what he had checked her for, there was still no big change, yet she knew her eyesight was getting noticeably worse.  So when she went to my eye doctor, he noticed right away cataracts and glaucoma.  So two more surgeries and lots of trips back and forth to appointments.  So her doctor had missed 2 very important problems...Kind of makes ya a bit unhappy, to say the least.

We did have some fun things happen, too.  In July we went vehicle shopping and got a new truck.  

We traded our beautiful Sienna mini-van for the new truck.  I can't remember ever feeling so sad about leaving a car behind.  I didn't realize how attached I was to it.  It took us to Disneyland with the grand kids and lots of other places.  It had all the extras in it and was spotless inside and out.  But we found as the grand kids were getting older, we saw less and less of them as they started doing their "own thing".  So it was time to trade her in.  And this is what we got:

You can tell who was really happy about this one!

Yeah, he was pretty happy, but wished we had bought the Tundra, instead because it's a bit bigger and powerful than this one.  But too wide for our garage doors.  Oh well, it works.

Then about a week later, we made another purchase.

It's a Winnebago Micro-mini.  It is nice.  Sleeps four and has some nice little features.  But along with the trailer, comes a lot of extras to buy, Including an outdoor TV to watch while in the RV parks, in the evening under the canopy.  Ha ha!  yes, it's also a whole new learning curve, leveling, hooking things up, backing the truck up, just right.  But we are learning it and have good teachers in the neighborhood, with lots more experience with all that.  Right now she's covered and winterized till spring.  Then let's go!

Here are a couple of views of the inside.

It has a nice slide-out which gives more space.  And has good storage.  

So she has only been on one trip, but it was lots of fun going to Heber and Midway for the Swiss Days.  We had a good time there!  The RV park in Heber is top class!  We loved it.  Even if we had the smallest rig in the park.  Well, not really, but close.  But hey, it was fun and they have lots of amenities, we had a nice neighbor and we learned a few things and that was great.

And we had a family baptism, Grayson turned 8!  And we all came to celebrate, of course.  All the grand kids were baptized in the church Jamie and Brian were baptized in.  Makes it special.

But what made things super special was that Tyson was able to baptize his little bro!  Proud of both of them.

And of course, Jamie made the luncheon super special!

And of course, the summer had lots of baseball.  But for Tyson, no more.  He went to Alaska to play in June after breaking his ankle.  Ouch!  So that made things rough.

And there were a few day trips, as well.  First trip to Antelope Island to see the bison.  It was fun.  I enjoy stuff like that!

And to Logan to the temple.  It was on my bucket list for about the last two years!

We went to a fun restaurant for breakfast and saw this pretty girl!

It was a very tasty place to eat and apparently it was the place to go for all the Logan locals!  And while there, I had a cute moment with the ketch-up bottle.

Heinz is my late daddy's name and I liked this!

And we had football with Grayson every Tuesday evening in Orem. And of course, Logan had football too!

We did take a 3 day trip with Logan to Mesquite for football.  It was lots of fun and the break from the cold was very much appreciated!  However, lots of his games were at night and night started at about 4:00 pm.  the minute the sun went down, it was freezing!  I think we have been here three times now.

And they did well!  I think third place?

And the grand kids got grandpa back into fishing.  Yeah, he goes back and forth on his interests, but that's Spencer!

And of course, cheerleading competitions were fun to watch!

And we are always thankful for the holidays and the times we get to spend together!

And now the end of the year is quickly approaching.  I hope we will all have a wonderful 2019!

December 2017 Changes and Fun Times!

So the holiday festivities have started and the month is half over.  On the 9th we had our annual church Christmas Breakfast.  We had a small family group, only Spence and I, Jamie, Jake and Logan.  Ty was working and the other 2 kids slept over at someone's home and weren't able to make it.

Then it was time for a basketball game.  Logan has started to play basketball, too.  Fun to watch!

He's the one in the middle in white.
Then it was retirement party day!  Dec. 14 at 2:00 pm in the missionary lunch room.  Why there?  Because that is where we have "lived" for 32 years, my "second home" so to speak.

My co-worker, Heidi, and I decided together to retire on Dec. 29th and actually we have talked about it for quite a while.  And set a tentative date a few times.  Each time the calendar pages kept tearing off and we were both still working.  But in September, we bit the bullet and we did it!  Below is a picture of the pretty food table.

We got a framed signed letter from the First Presidency of the Church. This was presented by Diane Loosle, manager of the Library.

And we got a "genealogy" picture from the staff and then the missionaries gave us a B-1 floor International zone family tree, with our pictures and a picture of all the missionaries that serve on our floor.  It was really cute!

All the little leaves on the tree are missionaries.  So fun!

Lots of friends to greet, including former employees, like Nell, Margarita, Charlene, Barbara, it was wonderful.  I wish I had had a chance to take more pictures, but it got so crowded and busy, it was hard to take all the pictures that I would normally have done.  Suffice it to say, it was a great party.  And afterwards I started feeling a bit meloncholy.   The end is near of my working career.  I have worked since age 16 with a break for kids and then back to work.  So this staying at home life, will be a big change for me.  I can't believe it is really true!  PINCH ME!

That same evening was Brecklyn's Christmas Concert at Timberline Jr. HS.  So I hurried and grabbed a few pictures there, too.  This was where Tyson started and eventually was nominated to the UAM tour to Europe.  Maybe Brecklyn will have a chance, but it might be easier for Ty because there probably weren't as many bass singers as soprano ones that Brecklyn's choir probably has.  Well, only time will tell!

Brecklyn is center, top.

And then Papa gets some new Christmas flowers.  Merry Christmas #2 in Heaven, Daddy!

Miss you...

Then this morning Brecklyn called and asked if they could go to the Temple. Here they are in front of the manger.  A woman inside asked if they were twins.  Nope, cousins!  That Hofheins' blood must be shining through!

Well, Merry Christmas to all who read this post!  Till next time!

Sports and Fall Fun

So football has been in the fore-front now with Logan sporting the number 1 on his jersey.  This is not a picture of today's game.  I forgot my phone today although I took one photo with Spencer's phone.  So they have won 2 and lost 1.  Today's score was 48-0 against the Lehi Pioneers.  Logan's new nick name should be pit bull.  He's little but dangerous!

Afterwards they were gathered hearing about their game.  I'm sure it was mostly all good!

Brecklyn's birthday came and went and left her with a new number!  13!  She is officially a teen.  And she was busy like a typical teen.  She had practices all afternoon and then at night a big friend party at grandma Arden's pool.  Lots of friends, gifts and fun, I would suppose.  So on Thursday night she came all alone to get her gifts from us and Omi.  Here she is admiring her new cheer shoes.

Over the Labor Day weekend, Saturday, exactly we went to Swiss Days.  We hadn't been in a while, but we wanted to go.  It turned out to be a busy day.  We made it to Midway by 7:45 and started going through the vendor booths, early. We spent a few bucks and bought this amazing piece!

We had to order it and hopefully it will be in my possession in about 2 more weeks.  I bought the "natural" one.  There are no electric plugs.  It has a battery pack in the base.  Isn't that awesome!  I just love it.

Fun Swiss Days! And interesting, although, not very "Swiss" type food.  But that's OK!  I'm always up for a good SCONE!  With Blueberry syrup on it.

Nummy! We saw that they filled the whole plate, so we shared!  And we also had great news from Arden, the DNA tests and my hard research found her biological mom.  I had been trying to help her since our second borns were engaged about 18 years ago!  Hard work, luck, prayers and we did it!  Yeah, best news I've had for a while!  More on that later when all involved have heard.