26th Anniversary & Las Vegas

You all have such cute and cleaver posts that I am feeling inadequate! So to update what we have done in the last month.

Feb. 1st:

Jeff and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. I was going to put up an old wedding photo, but haven't looked for my wedding album, hence, no old picture.

To celebrate Jeff and I went to Las Vegas a day ahead of our scheduled trip there for furniture market. We were able to go see Lance Burton, a magician for free.!!! (Thanks Steve and Emily!!!!) He was pretty amazing, even made a car disappear and levitate.















We shopped until we about dropped. You would never believe that there are that many different manufacturer's/distributors of furniture.

The best part of this annual trip is being with family. My nephew, Steve and his family live in Vegas and my dad and his wife always meet us there. Here are a few pictures of our adventures.

Emily, Easton and Steve

My Dad and Nita

We took Easton up to Grandpa's room to see the lights of Las Vegas and this is all of us in an elevator, obviously trying to take a picture and I had the camera and short arms, hence I am in front. I know, I look really scary! Too bad Grandpa got cut out of the picture.















Thanks for your help, Grandpa from Arizona. That's how Easton was able to relate to my dad. You see, he has Grandparents in both Oregon and Idaho too. It was really cute to watch him try and understand it all.

He grew up to be a cowboy!

I am so excited to actually have something to blog about and that I get to put up a new post. Saturday night, Jeff, my MIL, and I all went to Ogden to watch Ethan ride in his most recent Rodeo. It was the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Associations (RMPRA) Winter Series rodeo. It was a 2 night event, each night had 7-8 different bareback riders. Ethan was "up" on Saturday night's performance, 85 was the leading score from Friday.

So here is a little rodeo judging information:

There are 2 arena judges, each judge has a total of 50 pts to award. The horse can get a max. of 25 pts, and the cowboy gets 25 pts. The judges are on opposite sides of the arena, watching how the cowboy spurs the horse, moves his legs and maintains control of his body; and also watching how well the horse bucks. Lots to watch! Well Ethan scored a 42 on each side, that's a score of 84! Pretty good, and because of that score, won first place in his performance and 2nd place overall. It proved to be a nice payday for him.

Here is a video of his ride, see what you think.





Watch the horse's timing, he actually kicks Ethan's hat.

1987

Happy Birthday, Abi!!!!

Here I am, a day or so late again. Today I want to celebrate Abi's birth. Abi was born 22 years ago, December 11, 1987 at 2:36pm at Cottonwood Hospital. She weighed in at 8lbs 12oz was 20 1/2" long and had brown hair, not a lot but some. Abi's actual due date was Christmas Day and since I had the pleasure of having all my children C-section, I was able to move her due date as far away from Christmas as possible. They would only take her 2 weeks early, so I always know that on her birthday, there are 2 more weeks until Santa arrives.
Grandma Hickok, Abi and mom

It didn't take long for us to realize what a special little girl this gal was. Abi has been a joy since the first day we had her. She slept through the night pretty much right from the start. She has been a peacemaker in our family and an example for all of us to look up to. It is so hard for me to believe that she has grown up so quickly. I am so proud of her.

Abi is currently serving a mission in Cleveland, Ohio. She is privileged enough to have the Kirtland Temple in her mission. She loves that she gets to go to and be in places where the Lord himself has been.

She is our adventurous child. An example of this....once when she was about 11 or so, we went to Virg's here in Tooele County for dinner one night. On the table was a bottle of Tabasco sauce, she asked her dad what it was. After explaining what it is he then offered her $5.00 if she would "eat" a spoonful of it. Mustering the courage she needed, she did so. Pretty soon her eyes started to water, her mouth started to burn and she was "dying". Successfully, after a few hours, she was able to enjoy her well earned $5.00. Abi has also shown this adventurous spirit by attending school in several different environments. She started at BYU-I, transferred to BYU-H, and then went to BYU- Jerusalem all before venturing off to Ohio for her mission.

She is a wonderful daughter! A valiant and obedient servant of the Lord. She loves life and finds happiness in all that she does. Her goal is to be "wheeled" in to the chapel for her "homecoming" through the funeral doors, because she has exhausted herself in the service of others.

The blessings of service and a very good man.

No pictures with this post, just thoughts....

Last Friday, December 5th, the High Council of the Grantsville Utah Stake had a dinner and caroling activity. Jeff was assigned to bring a main dish, and after much deliberation we decided to take a Korean dish of marinated meat called: Pulgogi. It is delicious and since we haven't made any for a long time I was really looking forward to the feast. However we had a small scheduling conflict that night and so I ran to Salt Lake for Stephanie Clayton's wedding reception and then went to the activity late. I had told Jeff to save me some meat since my taste buds had been salavating all day long. He thought there would be no need, we brought enough, or so he thought. Luckily for me Bro. Casey Killian, also a RM from Korea had the same idea as me. He brought pulgogi but even better than that is he brought some cucumber kimchi to go with it. Now that was heaven! So I was able to enjoy the Korean feast made that much better by the fact that there was kimchi and seaweed to eat too. I can't even tell you how yummy it was and how many memories flooded my memory bank from days spent in the mission field. It was all so good.

We then went caroling to some of the members of the stake who are either suffering from age, health, or loneliness. May I share with you two experiences from this night of joy?!?! We had gone to a home of an older widow who lost her husband earlier this year, but unknown to us she had moved. Well when 10 cars all pull up in front of your home, one might open the door to inquire what was going on. This poor unsuspecting new resident was thrilled to have us sing to her. From what I understand, she isn't a member of the church and has no interest in any part of it, but was accepting and even eager to share the Christmas Spirit with us and all of her family. She called all of them to come out on the porch and listen to us. It was a great time and hopefully a true opportunity to become "brothers and sisters in Christ".

My second story is approached with tenderness and meekness as there are feelings very close to the surface for those directly involved. We had the privileged and opportunity to go to the home of Robin and Annette Baird. As those of you close to the Grantsville community know, Robin is battling cancer and his fight seems to be getting harder to win.

I just wanted to honor this man. Ever since I have known him, he has been involved with girl's softball. Teaching many young girls the skills necessary to play the game well and to "compete" in life. Skills that coaches so generously teach by sacrificing their time. He was always so supportive of my daughters while they were playing softball even though he never actually coached either of them. But Robin did more than just influence girl's in softball, he was an entrepreneur, he was friendly, and showed his friendship to all. An example of this....He would wave to me as he would pass by while I was out walking and he was driving by early in the mornings on his way to work. Always with a friendly wave and smile.

I am privileged to call him friend, even though I am no more than an acquaintance from the community. As he fights this final fight, I hope his family may be comforted with an understanding of God's love for each of them. I have no words of comfort to offer, just an appreciation for a life well lived, for a heart that has been deeply touched. Thank you Robin, you have made an impact on my family and a community that will not soon forget what you have done. God bless you and your family.

1989

Well, I'm a week late on this post. Ethan turned 20 last Monday, November 16th. It is really hard to believe that he is no longer a teenager and that he is growing/grown up. Ethan was my biggest baby, weighing in at 10lbs 4oz. He was born is Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii.

These are the only pictures of him he would let me take. I can't find his baby book since we moved 2 years ago. It's still packed up somewhere in the shop. I guess I ought to finally unpack things. Anyway....enjoy.






Ethan in a very tender, caring young man. He loves his mom and puts up with her antics and sillyness. Our favorite conversation is: me, "Love you", him, "Love you more", me, "Love you most", him, "love you mostest" etc, etc,. Yes, we know those aren't real words, but we love to try to out do the other person in expressing our love for each other. Thanks E, you know I love that about you.
He loves having his back rubbed or fingers run through his hair. (He is just like a cat when you touch his head. He will move it around and almost purr while his head is rubbed.) hehe!
Ethan has a great love for family. His best friends are his cousins and sisters. He admires his "older" cousins and enjoys hanging out with them, their wives and their kids. He is a very hard worker. Cannot sit still for 15 min. He loves construction and working with his hands, but his first love is horses. He still enjoys trying to let a horse buck him off during a rodeo. Ethan has high hopes of one day being in the NFR as a Bareback contestant, but for now, he is riding in every possible rodeo he can enter and living his dream to the fullest. Ethan is faithful in his attendance at church and in his priesthood duties. He's a teenager/young adult that doesn't really enjoy sitting through church, but knows that is where he is suppose to be, so that is where he is. Ethan is a joy and a blessing to our family. He is a good son!

Princesses

When our neighbors moved in a few years back, their oldest daughter was about 1 and her and Abi hit it off. Abi gave her the title of Princess Kaiya. Well Kaiya is now almost 4, and with Disney's Princess on Ice in town, it just seemed logical for us to go. Emalee, Kaiya, her little sister, Mekenna, her mom Michelle and I all went for a "ladies" night out. It was soooooo much fun....here are some pictures of our adventure

As you can see from the distant pictures, we needed a better camera or closer seats, but since we bought the tickets just a few days prior to going, seats selection was limited. We had so much fun. Mekenna was jabbering away during most of the first half. By the second half she was winding down and ready for some sleep. Kaiya loved seeing all the princesses. She kept asking where was Cinderella. I don't think that she was disappointed at the end. We took 137 pictures!! Enjoy
Let's see, we saw Snow White, Mulan, Ariel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Belle.

1985

I'm a day late with this BIRTHDAY post. It is hard to believe that my 1st born turned 24 years old yesterday. I am in awe of the fine young man that he is.



Here is the story of him entering the world. I found out that I was pregnant in March of 1985. I was given a due date of Oct. 25th. As the months went by, I slowly developed a very large belly. The doctors were concerned about my size and the possible size of the baby, (This is back in the day when ultrasounds weren't as common as they are now)so they thought that they better find out how big this little guy was. Well, after they did the ultrasound they moved my due date up to September 26th, a whole month. I knew that there was no way that I was that off with the date of my last period, but figuring that the doctors knew better, we went with that. I began going to my doctors appointments on a weekly basis the first of September and by the time I had gone 8 weeks, every week to see the doctor, with no progress we knew something was up. I had to go to the hospital several times to have non-stress test done to make sure that the baby wasn't in any stress. Winston stopped moving around and after we passed our original due date of October 25th, we asked the Doctor when we should start to worry. Mind you, I have not dialated or thinned at all. No progress what so ever! The doctor says that usually at about 2 weeks past the due date they begin to get concerned about the placenta functioning effectively. We told the doctor that we were at 2 weeks, he said see you in the morning. We left the doctors office, went straight to the hospital for blood draws, knowing that I was going to have to deliver c-section. All went well.


I forgot to add that just before they pulled Winston out, he pooped, swallowed it and was in Intensive Care for a day and a half. Scary but like I said all was well.

Winston Grant McNeill
9lbs 14oz
(born sometime in the morning, can't remember the exact time.)
head circumference 47" (too big to fit through the birth canal.)

My beautiful baby has grown to be a handsome man. Winston works with his dad, understands the construction business, wants to go to school to be an accountant, loves to dance, sing, & play WOW. He is working to be able to put himself through school.