It's still Winter in Idaho

All: I have been pretty busy the last few week. At work I have been organized a company wide professional exchange which has consumed enormous amounts of time. Actually this is the 3rd one that I have done, but the first one that I have done out at the site on the desert. It entails a lot more logistics then doing them in town. Anyway, enough of work. It happens to be my Friday off and Dennis and Travis went skiing at Pebble Creek in Pocatello. I hope the weather is good for them - currently it is only 17 degrees. Last weekend I had four of my grandchildren come for a visit - Aftyn, Kaylee, Blake and Alyssa. I thought that Dennis would be here to sort of help, but he had to work until 1:00 pm on Saturday and then on Sunday he was in Rexburg until about 3:00 pm. However, we managed without him - we played a lot of games and went to church without him. The kids could not figure out why Dennis was not going to church with us so I tried to explain that he has a church calling in Rexburg to help out the college ward. The kids were great and we had a fun time.

I can hardly wait until spring gets here and we can finally go outside and not freeze to death. We currently still have about 3 feet of snow in the front yard, but it did melt a lot this week when the temperatures starting reach 35 - 40 degrees.

This week I received an email from my oldest brother Deon who has been transferring some of our old family microfilm into jpeg file which he got from Mom's house when he was here for her birthday. The first picture is my baby picture - don't laugh. The second picture is my youngest brother, David on his 2nd birthday. He even sent one of me when I had the mumps as a young girl.

Adventures with Grandkids

Last Saturday, February 6th we picked up travis and Ryann's girls (Aftyn and Kaylee) and went on an adventure. We started our adventure at the Pocatello Public Library. The kids seemed to know everything there was to know about the library and how to use it. They started off having their pictures taken in front of a staute on the outside of the library building. We then progressed into the inside of the library where they rode a green dinosaur of sorts.

It's head bobs up and down.We then played on the children's computers. Little did we know as grandparents that we could actually listen at the same time that they were listening to the games and software programs on the computer. Aftyn and Kaylee really know there way around those computers. We stayed for almost 2 hours. Following the library we ventured down the road until we found McGee's pet store. We found all sorts of "creatures" from birds, to fish, to ferrets, hamsters, turtles, snakes, and even some puppies which the girls were able to hold.


After seeing all of the animals for over an hour we were very thirsty so we went to Article Circle and had chocolate shakes.
We still had some time so went to the dollar store and let the girls each pick something for a dollar.













Aftyn came home with a cute little soft dolly and Kaylee came home with a "tiki" cup.















They were very proud of their purchases. Our adventure ended back at home telling mom and dad all of the fun things that they did. We took pictures of the adventure so we could share with all.

PS: Here is a picture of Hunter Aaron with his eyes open.

Hunter Aaron Loftus has arrived Friday, January 30, 2009

Thursday, January 29th we were invited down to a friend of Ryann's for a diaper baby shower (this is where all of the gifts are supposed to be diapers or anything related to that department). It was a lot of fun and we played a matching game which resulted in receiving candybars related to having baby's. We arrived back in Idaho Falls around 10:00 pm that night. The next morning around 4:00 am Travis called and said that Ryan was in labor. Dennis and I left our house around 5:00 am. in hopes of making it there before the baby was born. (We did not make the arrival with Kaylee because she came too fast). We stayed at the hospital until 8:30 am but because Ryann's contractions slowed down we went to their house to watch the girls so Chelsey could go to class. She went to class and at 9:24 am Travis called and said that Hunter Aaron Loftus was born. He weighed 6 lbs 1 oz and was 20 something in length. He is strong and health. We took Kaylee and Aftyn out to buy some flowers for Mom and a new little outfit for Hunter.