Goodbye January

I need to bid January farewell. It was a good month. I did lots of service for family, and also served at the Draper Temple open house. I took the tour the same day. I attended the Jordan River Temple twice.
I took photos of Sweet Cameron for his third birthday. I attended his birthday party and took lots more pictures. I baked bread, I made cookies with grandchildren. I watched Jeff's children, Cessna, and Lance, twice while they went to bible study. The second time, they picked Lance up and Cessy stayed over night. She dressed up in all the princess outfits I have, including the wigs. We danced. I was Prince Charming, Eric, and the other guy whos's name I have forgotten. (He is a fine Prince and I apologize for forgetting his name). We also watched "Barbie and the Diamond Castle". Twice! :-) The next morning, I took Cessna to the Aquarium. She had fun. I took a photo of her by the Sting Ray exhibit.

She asked me if I like how she posed, because she was Ariel! She is very photogenic. She bought a little stuffed sea horse and she named him "Sea Horse". She bought a colorful stuffed frog to take home to Lance.

I also watched Danny's children overnight recently, while they celebrated Becca's birthday. We went to the Aquarium too. They were closing much too soon, but we did see the sharks, the Rays, the touching exhibit, the octopus and the jellyfish. Cameron found the "Nemo" fish. In the gift shop, Cam bought a little frog, and Livvy got a dolphin that she painted for her mom, and a block of "horrible stuff" that contained a plastic Dolphin skeleton. The object is to unearth it with a little wooden pick then assemble it, and glue it together. Ha Ha. The "stuff" goes everywhere, you can see the very beginning in the photo to follow. We were all laughing at the mess by the time we got that pesky little thing out of there! Grandpa glued it together for her. I think she had fun. We colored pictures and watched the Swan Princess. Both kids thought that the inflatable matresses were great. (makeshift trampoline you know)! Cameron kept me amused with his explanations about EVERYTHING. The best one was the toilet plunger....I will spare you the details. :-) They slept like little logs. in the morning we had a breakfast of waffles and juice, and I drove them home in time for Livvy to get to afternoon Kindergarten. It was so fun!

I made progress in my bedroom....throw rugs for the hardwood floor, a curtain, and some things got hung on the wall. I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to in there this month, but it will roll over to February. I spoke in Sacrament meeting last week, about Temple blessings. Tomorrow, I will teach Relief Society, the lesson is about meaningful scripture study and coming to Christ through scripture study.

Other thing I did was to make fudge and deliver it to our veterinarian. I went to lunch with a friend. Ralph and I saw a movie, went to dinner twice, and watched a movie together at home. Dan and Becca had us up to dinner for Ralph's birthday. Roast beef, potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls and jam, and dessert. Yummy!

I also accomplished a lot of little things, and I feel real good about the month with the exception of my "diet". February will be better. Enjoy the following pictures.

Ralph and Gracie on his brithday January 13 2009 73 yrs young

Cessna giving a gift to Grandpa.

She drew the picture of her family with him on the bag

He is second from the right with the "long grey hair!!!

Cameron at his birthday party Jan 17th 2009

Blowing out the candles. He turned

3 yrs old December 27

Cameron and Grandma Hubrich



Our little baseball player


Cessna at the Aquarium

Cessna posing as Ariel

Grandma Hubrich and Cessy

Livvy and Cameron at the Aquarium

Livvy checking out the Star Fish

Cam looking at a strange Star Fish

Livvy unearthing the dolphin skeletin

Cam with his froggy

25 Things About Me

Becky's mother-in-law, Jennifer, tagged me for this post on Facebook, but I never could figure it out, brilliant as I am on the computer! So, here it is on my blog and I tag all of my chidren and their spoouses, along with Ann Nelson.

TWENTY FIVE THINGS ABOUT ME:
1. I will qualify for Medicare in a few days. It is a good thing.
2. I have been married for almost 43 years. I am the mother of four sons and two daughters and mother in law to three daughters in law, and two sons in law. I’m grandma to seven granddaughters and three grandsons. My family is my greatest joy in life. I also have one brother who is a bachelor. I like him to visit me and bring his Dachshund, Thumper to add to the Dachshund excitement here.
3. My pets are two clever, fun loving Dachshunds, Oscar and Gracie. I believe everyone should be loved by a Dachshund!
4. I do not like inversions, rude drivers, asparagus, finding mouse droppings in my shop, loud angry voices, foul language, or the smell of blue cheese, for that matter, I find all kinds of mold disgusting! I don’t like sports unless my grandson is playing.
5. I am in the Relief Society presidency in my ward. 2nd counselor over enrichment.
6. I love photography.... I enjoy candid shots at family gatherings, and experimenting with new settings. I have gotten some beautiful night pictures, and have learned a lot recently. My goal this year is to get a LOT better. Especially indoors. Last year I actually got some fabulous pictures, but I need to be able to do it under challenging circumstances. That’s the trick. I am learning Photoshop, you know for fun, and for the times when my shots sre not so fabulous!!! (Or special effects)
7. I LOVE babies....and puppies, chocolate, hugs, and blogs! I love flying to places with my son Brian, like the time we went to San Francisco and got stuck there over night. Last Fall, we flew to St George just to cook foil dinners up in Pine Valley where my parents used to take my children (and me) to camp. We flew home the same day! It was so much fun. I love reading to grandchildren and laughing so hard we fall off the couch! I love that my oldest granddaughter can now drive ME around. I love e-mailing back and forth to my cousin, Darlene, every day. She’s my best friend. I love seeing my husband helping our children and anyone else that needs anything! He is so generous with everything he has....time, money, talent, ability to fix anything. I like to cook, and feed people, just not all the time anymore. I like garage sales and boutiques. I’m crazy about Gardner Village, and it could be my second home. I love going anywhere to get pictures of anything. I love popsicles, and grandchildren to share them with. I love poetry and live plays, and LDS artists who touch my heart strings with their angelic voices. I think I am also in love with Josh Groban....at least his voice.
8. I am a member of the Sandy Senior center, and finding there are a lot of nice classes, and lively, energetic, seniors who go there. I attend a photography class on Tuesdays. I better plan on a computer class in the future!
9. I’m excited about organizing, painting and fixing up projects I have planned this year. I am REALLY excited that the gift our children gave us for Christmas, is to help us with stuff! 73, and 65 is not really so old, but help is good.
10. I love everything about Salt Lake City except the few days of inversion every year. I enjoy all four seasons. Fall is my favorite. Last Fall was the best. Long, and beautiful.
11. My favorite comic strips are Pickles, Flying McCoys, and Baby Blues
12. I could never live where there is high humidity. I LOVE our dry desert air here.
13. I do not have a great voice, but I love singing aloud when I am alone.
14. Some things that I miss: Watching my daughter, Becky, dance. I miss the trips and competitions, and figuring out ways to get the trophies home! I miss rooming with our good friends Phyllis, and her daughter Amorette. I miss watching my sons, Randy, Danny and Jeff, play church basketball. I miss Randy’s soccer games. I miss watching Brian, playing in every musical group in school, in college, and some outside of school. All of the concerts and the competitions he was involved in. The accordion competitions in California. (Luckily, I still get to see him perform and he is great!) I miss Jeff’s funniness every day. (I enjoy all my kids good humor when we get together. I think we raised a family of comedians. Maybe that’s how we cope with life). I miss seeing Becky play the trumpet. I miss the productions she acted in during High School. I miss making Heidi’s and Becky’s prom dresses. I really miss my young body that didn’t hurt when I did ordinary stuff. I miss my mind. It takes too long now days to remember names etc. That’s it for now, before I make a book here.
15. I had my own craft business for 25 years, and made many original products for Mormon Handicraft, Deseret Book, Missionary Emporium, the Quilted Bear and a number of small craft stores.
16. I am just as comfortable with a band saw, scroll saw, sander and drill as I am with a needle and thread. I do enjoy hand work, embroidery, a little crochet, and sewing.
17. I have always loved horses. The way they look, the way they smell, their soft noses, etc.
18. I seldom see a movie all the way through because as soon as I sit down to relax, I fall asleep.
19. According to one of my sweet granddaughters, I look "adorable in my swimming suit"
20. I love the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and I love teaching about it. I love that we have three beautiful temples all in a row here in the valley.
21. I have mild OCD. I have to check the stove and back door about three times before leaving the house. I cannot leave the dryer on if I am leaving, and I worry about everything.
22. When I was young, I played three musical instruments, Accordion, Clarinet, and Tenor Sax.
I played clarinet and sax in a dance band for several years.
23. I have broken my toes so many times I have lost count. That is because I never wear shoes. They make me feel confined and too warm. I have broken one finger, my ring finger, on my left hand. I broke it on the scroll saw! It still hurts when it gets real cold.
24. I loved having my mother live here with us for the last ten years of her life and I miss her so much that it hurts. I miss her love, her humor, her hugs, her companionship, and her wisdom.
25. I wish that my children and grandchildren could have grown up in the wonderful, simple, innocent time that I did. I would have liked to grow old in that time as well, but time marches on and things change. We have to deal with the here and now. All the STUFF, the fast, busy pace, and the modern conveniences (that I really do appreciate). I will never get old inside. I love to learn new things. I have to stay busy. And....busy I am!
26. Ha Ha fooled ya...you thought I was finished. I LOVE seeing my children raising their children. The love, the concern, the laughter, the tears, the struggles, the rewards, the accomplishments.....the public school things that never end, the home schooling that is going so well for Jeff’s family....the growth that everyone experiences through the challenges of this life. I love seeing them serve the Lord in many, and varied ways, and I am also very proud of every one of them.

Rory's take on the Inauguration

I was watching Rory for a little while on inauguration day because her mommy was sick. My first thought was that it would be a cool photo for her to see herself watching history being made when Obama took the oath of office. By the time I grabbed my camera, he was turning away from the podium, but I snapped a few pictures anyway. Rory knows what ought to be on the TV screen, and she is really handy with the remote, trying to get Baby Einstein or Elmo on, so my captions are not too far off the mark here.

What in the world was that!

Grandma, why are you watching this show?

Well, Maybe it is a good show........

Nope! where is the remote????

It's not working....maybe I can just turn him off!
There! Isn't this nice? ELMO is our new president!

Open House at Draper Temple

Today, I had the privilage of serving for 4 hours at the open house for the Draper Temple. I left home at 6:15 AM and rode with the neighbors to a Stake Center a short distance from the temple. From there, we were bused to the Stake Center that is right by the Temple. We had a prayer meeting and got instructions for our service. Everyone who tours the temple, comes into this Stake Center for refreshments afterwards, and then they are bused back down to where they parked. There was time before the first group came through to actually walk through the temple. I went with my neighbor, Deanna Hurst. The temple is high on the hillside, and overlooks the valley. Even in the rain and fog we had this morning, it looked so beautiful. We were not on a tour, just a walk through with some other workers. My first impression is how small it is!!! It is very beautiful though. I am so used to the Jordan River and Salt Lake Temples which are both large. The decor inside is unique to this temple. I like the way the endowment rooms function. They have murials on the walls like in the SL Temple. Each room seats 50 people. There are four. Patrons start in the one room and move to the next where they have brighter lights, like the SL Temple, rather than just turning up the lighting in the room where you are. The second room has the veil. It was behind a beautiful curtain. The Celestial room of course is really elegant, and it has the most gorgeous chandelier in the center on a raised ceiling to accomodate it. This ceiling is higher than any other temple in the middle where the chandelier hangs. I love the brides room. The carpet is beautiful with flowers around the edges. The stained glass and everything are elegant. It looks like four brides can get ready at the same time. Of course there are beautiful lights and chandeliers. The woods and granite, and other materials come from a variety of places around the world. This temple has the largest seating capacity in a sealing room of any temple in the world. 75 guests can accompany the bridal couple for their sealing. Considering how small the temple itself is, I thought that was nice. In this area, we need that to accomodate the large families who gather for sealings. The tour ended in a sealing room where a couple told about what happens in there and bore testimony of the gospel and temple work.

There is a covered walkway between the temple and the Stake center. They have nice lighting in there, and it is heated, so it is a pleasant walk to the Stake Center even in bad weather. It was raining today. That beautiful new stake center was decorated like a temple inside the cultural hall. They had carpeting, large floral pieces, elegant tables and lamps. They had panels that took up whole walls with story boards like in the visitors centers, and every bit of extra wall space was covered with beautiul paintings by various artists. There were pianists who played continuous music one hour at a time. They had couches and beautiful chairs etc arranged around the edges. There were six sister missionaries. My work was simple, but a necessary function. Everyone took cookies from a beautiful buffet table and they had small water bottles in pretty silver bowls around the buffet. I stood at an exit door with a filigree serving tray, and people could put their empty bottles and paper napkins in there as they left, then I took them to the large container for recycling. There were three of us doing this job. When it was it real busy, I walked around with my tray to pick up trash from people who were just standing and visiting. There was a cute little family there who were LDS, and they consisted of the grandparents and parents with two snall children who were adorable. They stood them in front of a beautiful painting for a picture. It is the one of Christ exiting the tomb. It was really big. Almost life size. I commented to the grandma how cute the children are. She told me that they were adopted through LDS family services, and had been sealed to their parents when they were still babies. They are actually half brother and sister. Same mother. They were so excited to see a temple today, and to see an alter like they have heard about in the sealing room. We had a nice discussion about adoption. I was holding back tears. The spirit there was wonderful, and I was thinking about the sealings I have experienced in the temple with my children, and the five grandchildren that I have because of my own adoptions.

I was touched by the spirit today and it was really nice to watch people coming through. Many were talking to the missionaries and filling out cards to learn more. One thing that surprised me was how impressed they were with the building where congregations meet every week. They understood that it was decorated especially for this, but some asked me about the chapel where we meet, and asked if they could just walk through the building. They seemed to appreciate the reverence they felt there. People lingered and looked at displays. It was very nice, I really enjoyed the spirit that was there, and the service I was able to give. I thought a lot all day about the blessings of the temple that are mine. I am so grateful for the restotration of the gospel, the Priesthood, and the beautiful covenants that I have been priveleged to make in the temple. I'm looking forward to serving again next month.

Our beautiful mountains

Friday evening, I was coming out of Target and saw this very scene, only a little closer up. I was kicking myself because I had no camera with me, but I wanted to remember it forever. Tonight I looked on the KSL pictureline link and was so happy to see that some lucky guy got a photo of it. The moon was huge, and the mountsin tops were protruding up out of the clouds so big, and white from the days snowfall. I do not believe there is a more beautful sight than this! I grew up, and have lived here in the shadow of these mountains all of my life. I do not think I could be happy anywhere else. I LOVE them.

Draper Temple

This is a special month. The new Draper Temple will be open to the public for an open house before it's dedication. Our stake is assigned to this temple now, and we are actively participating in the open house preparations and activities. We have opportunities for many hours of service in a variety of areas. What a blessing to have another beautiful House of The Lord right here where we can see it every day. I cannot think of a better way to start the year than with the opening of another temple. Following almost immediately afterwards, will be the open house and dedication of the Oquirrh Temple in South Jordan. I am so excited, and have a goal to attend the temple more often in 2009, starting with tonight. We have our dinner, endowment session, and chapelside at our beloved Jordan River Temple tonight. The last one we will have there. Its's been "our" temple for 20 years.