November!

November was a super busy month for us and I can't believe how fast it zoomed by! I spent the first week of November in Turlock.  It was a fun week of sewing (my Aunt Susan was helping me finish a project) and visiting family and friends.  I spent one evening with my good friend, Barbara, and she showed me some mums that I had at our wedding reception that she has kept alive all these years!

They are still very pretty and have multiplied and I was just amazed.

I also spent some quality time with Jayde, my aunt and uncle's black lab.  She is adorable and really big and likes to hug and kiss and wrestle ALL the time.

Every once in a while she would wear out and fall asleep, but it wasn't very often.  She's so lovable that she wears you out!  But oh, so cute.  It was so fun being with my family....thanks guys!!

Before we knew it Thanksgiving was here.  Mom and Marlowe came down to spend a few days over the holiday.  It was great to have them here.  We cooked and baked pies and visited.  In fact, we cooked for two days and then sat down to dinner and were done eating in about 20 minutes.....so sad.  After dinner, we went to see Disney's Frozen.......IT WAS AWESOME!  On Friday we had my stepbrother, Travis, and his wife, Brenda, and her brother-in-law, Cory, who all live in Chandler (see photo below) over for a second Thanksgiving.  Corinne and Benworth joined us too.  Then we went to see the Christmas lights at the Mesa temple.  They did a couple of new things this year.  It was very pretty as usual.

After we got back we ATE MORE PIE and then tried to work it off playing ping pong.  Travis is really good and gave Scott some good competition.  I think they each won an equal number of games.

On Saturday, since Thanksgiving was over, it was time for the Christmas season to begin!  Scott put lights up on the front of the house and we put up the Christmas tree. And thanks to Jo Ann, we even had some gifts ready to put underneath.  One of the neighborhood girls came over this week, saw the presents under the tree and said, "Sister Klundt, if you don't mind me saying, it's a little early to have presents under the tree."  Well, she may be right, but I like having Christmas all month!

We put the tree in the family room this year which I really like since that is where we spend all of our time.  We don't have a fireplace anymore so we have been racking our brains trying to find a good place for the stockings.  This year we thought the entertainment center needed some Christmas cheer.

All this month I have been blessed with the company of neighborhood kids after school.  They come over a couple days a week after school, sometimes 4 or 5 of them, sometimes just one or two.  My good friend Agnes, who is 7, started the tradition, she has been coming over for quite a while, and she has recruited the rest.  They love to jump on the mini tramp, play UNO and Scene It, and take Riley for walks.  Before they do anything, they take all of the blankets out of the ottoman and spread them over the entire floor, along with all of the pillows from the couch.  Then and only then, are they ready to play.  I love the company as it is very quiet here during the day with only Riley to talk to, which conversations are very one-sided.  Yesterday they were fascinated with our tree and asked me about every ornament.

And of course, Riley still watches over all.....

Well, that's about it I guess.  It has cooled way down here although I know it's nice and toasty compared to the winter wonderland in Utah!  We are looking forward to having all of the kids here for Christmas!!  Until then......

Birthday Weekend

I got a wonderful surprise over the weekend.  We were traveling on my birthday so Scott said he was going to take me out for dinner on Friday to celebrate.  We went to The Melting Pot, which is a really fun fondue restaurant.  When we got there, all of the kids were there waiting for us!  Scott got everyone here to surprise me for my birthday and spend the weekend.

 

 The food was so yummy, especially the chocolate part!!

 We had a great weekend playing games and hanging out.  Camden loves Riley.  I can't say the feeling is mutual though.  Camden would look all over the house for her and then stand and stare at her.  Riley would just look at me with the most pathetic "Help me!" face.

We had a block party on that Saturday and Camden was helping Uncle Jared set up some games and he also entertained the troops by dancing on the garbage can.

 Camden looked so cute all dressed up for church.  But getting him to stay still for a picture was ridiculous!!

Here is everybody!  We don't get us all in the same photo very often.

Thanks to all who planned, organized, and participated!  And thanks for making turning 50 a lot of fun!  I love you guys.  I also received so many fun birthday wishes from friends and family letting me know that the good life starts at 50.  I can't imagine it getting any better than it is right now, but I'm excited for what's next.  Thanks everyone!

Cruise Part 2

We received a CD in the mail yesterday of all of the photos that our cruise director took and thought I would post a few more of the cruise.  This is our cruise ship!!

 

 If you can see past us, this is the theater where they had all the shows.

There was one town, I think it was Bar Harbor, that had lobster ice cream!  I don't think there was one of us that was brave enough to try it.

Here are a few more photos of the beautiful scenery.  I think these are mostly from Bar Harbor.  It was the most beautiful out of the four, in my opinion!

New England/Canada Cruise October 2013

Scott and I had the wonderful opportunity of going on a cruise for the first time.  We flew to Boston, spent a couple of days there, then boarded the ship.  We had four land excursions, two in Maine and two in Canada before cruising back to Boston.  Here are some highlights:

We flew in Friday evening and had all day Saturday to tour Boston.  It's a beautiful town that has a feel of "Old Town" history to it.  This photo is of the newer part of downtown however.

This is Paul Revere's house that was part of the Freedom Trail tour.

We were lucky enough to be there during the peak of the fall colors.  It looked like this all over Boston and all through Maine as you will see in later photos.

Of course we had to go see Cheers.  It looks exactly like it does on TV on the outside, but the inside is quite different.  It was fun anyway and we had lunch there.

We were able to do a session on Saturday evening at the Boston Temple.  It is beautiful and the grounds are very peaceful.

On Sunday we found a church building by our hotel so that we could attend a Sacrament meeting and ended up in a Stake Conference.  Afterward we headed to the pier to board the ship.  The process was much less hectic and time consuming than we had thought so that was very nice.  Our room was quite cozy and we were bumping into each other a lot, but it was comfortable and we weren't in there that often as there were many things to do on the ship and ashore.

 

Our first shore excursion was in Portland, ME.  Our tour included historical sites in Portland and a drive out to Kennebunkport, a quaint little fishing village:

It's a great place to walk around and enjoy the scenery.  It also has fun little shops.  I loved the Christmas shops.  It seemed that there was a Christmas shop at every port.  I was able to find a Christmas ornament at every stop we made on the cruise. 

There were a lot of "summer cottages" such as this one.  I think my term would be "mansion", but I guess it's a matter of perspective!  There are so many coastal homes like this all through Maine.

This is the Bush estate in Kennebunk.  The fact that the flag was flying meant that George and Barbara Bush were still there but they didn't come out and say hi unfortunately.

This is a solid chocolate moose and bear.  There were a couple other bears on the other side that didn't get into the photo.  There was a fence around the display warning people not to get too close.  Darn!

This is a shot of some of the Maine coastline.  Most of their coastline is rocky like this.

The next day we were in Bar Harbor, Maine.  This is a beautiful village and the surrounding area was just one beautiful scene after another.

If you have ever wondered where the extremely wealthy live, the answer is Bar Harbor.  The Rockefeller's, to name one.  They have their own island there.  They said the average high temperature there in the winter is 0-30 degrees.  Thus, it is a nice summer home!  It was beautiful when we were there, in the 60's.

 On Wednesday we were in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.  It was mostly city but they are famous for the Bay of Fundy and its reversing falls.  We were expecting actual falls, but it was really just the flow of the bay that reverses itself in the early afternoon. Below are photos of the Bay.

 On Thursday, we were at sea all day.  We were very happy to sleep in that day as we had been getting up early to go on the tours.  We had a leisurely breakfast and then went to the first of Michael Ballam's four concerts he did for us.  On Thursday he gave two concerts about the history of Broadway.  He started back in the late 1800's and worked his way to present day.  He would tell us about a play or song and how it all started and then he would sing.  It was fabulous.

 It was also a day we could just hang out and explore the ship.  We played mini golf, ping pong, and even shuffle board!!  I guess we're getting old because it was a lot of fun even though we weren't very good.

Thursday night they were showing Man of Steel on the big screen outside in the pool area.  We hadn't seen that one but figured it would be canceled because it was raining.  But we went down there anyway and it was playing.  It wasn't raining very much by that time so we dried off a couple of lounge chairs and sat down with blankets.  About 20 minutes into the movie it started raining harder so we moved over to the bar where there was an overhang and sat on the bar stools.  I went to the cafe and got us some hot chocolate and then sat on the bar stool with the blanket wrapped around my head.  Scott thinks it was totally worth it to see Man of Steel.  Me, not so much.  But it was an adventure!  There were about 8 or 10 other brave souls who thought it was worth it too.

On Friday we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

It was still really overcast that day so the photos are kind of gloomy but it is a beautiful city.  We found a Maritime Museum that had displays of the Titanic and the Halifax Explosion.  When the Titanic went down, Halifax was the closest port so they went out with their boats to collect the bodies.  Then they brought them back and gave them burials.  They weren't able to collect all of the bodies but there is a Titanic cemetery there.  Five years later, there was an explosion on a ship in the harbor that spread to land and killed many people.  It sounds really dreary and it was, but we learned a lot about what they had been through and the history of Halifax.

 This is an actual deck chair that was on the Titanic.  Not sure how or why it was saved.  Scenes around Halifax:

On Saturday we were at sea again and we had another two concerts with Michael Ballam.  One was a Christmas themed program and the other was a variety of personal experiences.  We also got dressed up for our last dinner on the ship.  It's true that cruises provide you with as much food as you want.  You can order as many entrees at one meal as you want.  I will admit that there was one evening that I ordered two entrees.  However, I did not clean either plate, way too much.  What we mostly ordered more than one of was dessert, sorry to say.  We were a little disappointed in the quality of the food.  It wasn't heavenly like I had hoped.  And for me, the choices were just too weird, like asparagus and brie tart, cauliflower curry with cumin seeds, tomato pasta with plump mussels, etc.  I'm just not that brave.  Scott was in heaven with all the seafood though. 

 All dressed up for our last dinner.

 The moon was so bright that night and reflected on the water which was beautiful although we are blocking your view of the reflection so sorry about that.

 You probably won't believe me but there is a whale out there.  The white out there in the middle is the whale blowing air at the surface of the water.  No, really!

 Michael and Laurie Ballam

And we're back in Boston Sunday morning.  It was so nice to wake up to a beautiful clear day after a couple days of overcast and drizzly weather.
We had some time before we had to catch our plane so we went to Harvard and Minuteman Park.  I'm so glad we went to Harvard.  The campus is so pretty and I can say that I used a restroom at Harvard University.  I feel more intelligent for having done so.

 Below are photos of Minute Man National Park.  We couldn't stay very long so we didn't get the whole tour and history of it but again, the landscape was GORGEOUS!!

Then after six hours on a plane, we were home again.  I wish I could show all the photos, but I took 477 of them and so it would take days to post them all.  We loved the cruise and highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about taking the adventure.