Crazy Graduation Day

We headed for Logan dark and early in the morning and it was already starting to look like this....

Mostly all of us were worried about getting through Sardine canyon okay... We let mom and dad blaze the trail in front of us...wasn't that nice of us? :-)

We all managed to make it through the canyon and then while driving through Wellsville the wind was blowing snow all over so visibility was very bad, and all the sudden there was a stop light and a line a cars...Cary tried to stop but we just kept sliding and slid right into the back of an Explorer. Yay! That made our day.

Luckily, the damage is pretty minimal to both vehicles since we were going so slow to start with.

However, since we had to sit around and wait for the police to file a report, yada yada, that meant we missed the first part of the graduation, which means that we missed watching Ken and Abby walk. Nice.

Chandra, Dad, Kenneth, Mom, David

Aidan trying on the cap.

Thankfully the rest of the day was rather uneventful...

Back at the homestead, "admiring" the snow.

A rare occurance.

It seems like it gets harder and harder these days to get a family picture...like, one that ALL of us are in. :-) Sharon took this last weekend so I stole it, even though I look like a dork.





Tomorrow Ken is graduating from USU and we're all planning on driving up to Logan for the ceremony. Problem is, there is a blizzard that is supposed to be hitting tomorrow morning while we're supposed to be driving up there so I guess we'll see what happens.

I had my heart echo today and I won't know the results until probably Tuesday. However, the ultrasound tech kept asking why I was getting one done while she was looking at my heart, sooooo I'm guessing that's probably a good sign. :-)

Dr Appointment Update

I know, I know, most ultrasound pictures look like black spots and hazy white clouds, but you can sort of make out what you're looking at in these pictures.
I had an appointment yesterday where we got to see the baby and I had 8 vials of blood taken. (Yes! 8!) They told me to go eat a steak afterwards. :-)

I also had to do a 24 hr urine sample before going to the dr. Let me tell you how much fun it is to pee in a jar and then store it in your fridge. Well, I was hungry but now that I've looked into the fridge I think I just lost my appetite.....

I survived. :-) Tomorrow I get an echo on my heart so hope all goes well at that appointment.

Family Get-together

So the Hanks family gets together twice a year....we usually get together in June and December. Lately in our December meeting we've been renting a lodge up in the mountains for a night where we get together eat, talk, sleep, eat, etc....


This lodge is fairly good sized which is good since we usually have 40 - 65 ish people.

Usually there is more snow outside and the kids can go sledding and all that good stuff, but this year there just wasn't a whole lot of snow there.

There is always plenty of parking

Here is the kitchen

and creepy taxidermy everywhere

Dining room

There are only 7 bedrooms, but there are about 10 twin beds in the loft area, we were lucky enough to have this room. :-)

Aidan showing off his drinking skills.

Eating dinner.

Nick and Jesse were always fighting over who got to hold Aidan.

Dad and Kara were playing the piano and Ava wanted to join in on the fun.

The lodge managers had decorated the lodge for Christmas so they had baskets of ornaments and pine cones and Ava just loved grabbing the ornaments and sucking/biting them. Guess they looked good to eat.

Jenny and Sharla

Anita and Grandma

The lighting in there at night makes it nearly impossible for ME to take good pictures. I wasn't wanting to use my flash all the time, but if I didn't it just wasn't working out. I wish I wasn't so lazy and would learn how to take proper pictures with my camera. :-)

Birthday flowers

Last week I had a birthday and Cary is always so good about suprising me with something. This year I woke up to a card, roses, and a bag of chocolate. He's a good guy. :-)

Sanctuary site

So one of the House of Aaron's goals right now is to build a sanctuary. It's just something that is really important to dad as part of the role as Levi and Aaron and so we've already got the land set apart for and had it built up and leveled. Now we're just waiting for the next $2 million dollars to roll in. :-) Ha.

Here is the site.


Here is another view and this would be your view from the sanctuary facing South.

View facing the South West-ish side.

View facing East

View facing West

View facing North West-ish.....................

Ummm....yeah....

We need to work on that.....

Beautiful, isn't it?

Happy Birthday Grandpa

This is Heber and Arlene, they are my grandparents.


Today is my grandpa's 80th birthday and he's still as active as ever and always wanting to help other people out. He's only partially to blame for my gardening obsession (my other grandpa likes to garden as well)
Together these two are responsible for 9 children, close to 30 grandkids (with potential for more, ha), and 12 ish great grandkids, plus 3 on the way. (I'm struggling with my math skills today so I'm ish'ing it)
My mom and aunts threw him a birthday party last night with all his favorite foods and they had around 80 people show up. Wish I could have been there!

Happy Birthday Grandpa and here's to many more years of gardening and all your other hobbies.