Weekend in the North Land

Our Thursday morning started in an exciting fashion with a phone call from Jodie. She was headed to the hospital. Auntie Nell was on her way and Bubby's attendance was required to keep an eye on sleeping boys until Grandma arrived. It was funny to watch the Bubb, she was roused out of a sound sleep and stood in the middle of the bedroom floor turning circles for about two minutes. She said she was trying to get her bearings! She told me that she didn't see Jodie's instructions (attached to the refrigerator) until 7:45. Cade was supposed to catch the bus for school at 8:15 and he was still sleeping! I guess they got him out the door in time, but I am not sure whether he was able to get his bearings.




On Thursday afternoon, we drove north for a rendezvous with Ty and Teresa in Provo, where we visited Gloria's Little Italy. We had a mediocre dinner (that is the second "average" dinner at a Utasty highly recommended spot, what's up Jason?), and then drove on to SLC and the Little America. We made it there in time to see the second half of "The Office". We didn't see much of the Redd's after we arrived at the hotel. Rumor has it that Teresa spent most of the time in the tub (three baths at last count) because she is a tub person and the rooms have large and comfortable bathing accommodations.

In the morning, Ty joined me and we drove down to drop Bubb off at Sarah's. Our meetings were at the Larry H. Miller Free Enterprise campus of SLCC. They were dreary, but over by Noon. I dropped Ty off back at the Little America (he had forgotten to give Teresa her car keys when we drove south, so she was without transportation during our meetings). I joined up with Bubby and Sarah and family and we had a nice day together trying to get Lydia to nap, hanging out and making a trip to Toys-r-us to work on Christmas lists. We stayed the night with the Wells, and even made an attempt to go to Costco with the whole gang on Saturday morning. Lydia did OK for awhile but then had a melt down because she decided she wasn't going to ride in the basket anymore.


After a very brief stop in Provo for a squeeze on Evelyn and a lovely dessert, we drove home and Bubby arrived just in time to attend the Women's Broadcast. She enjoyed it and stayed for the refreshments afterward. I was beat and simply vegetated on the bed.

Sunday was a marathon with the first meeting at 7:00 AM and last over at 6:15 PM. I taught three priesthood lessons, attended a missionary correlation meeting, sacrament meeting, and a Tri-stake coordination meeting. Add to that interviews and callings starting at 4:30 PM, and it was a long day. I had to smile at Bubby, though. While I was getting ready on Sunday morning (it was 5:30 AM and the lights were off, she announced that she was going to get up and get her swimsuit on. I asked her what day it was and when I informed her that it was Sunday and not Monday, she smiled and rolled over, falling immediately back to sleep. We are getting a little dotty in our old age. Lots of fun ahead.

Bubby wrapped presents for Samuel Simmons and dropped them off Sunday afternoon. Evidently all is well and Jodie is feeling pretty good. The report is that the new Mr. Simmons looks a lot like Zack. Let's hope that he shares Zack's low key personality. That will make three as easy as two for Jodie and Kyle.

We had a visit from Aunties Nell and Bee today. Nellie is on baby duty and Barbara is hiking with friends. It was great to see them both.



Looking forward to conference weekend and our first Leo-encounter. Bubby is very excited.

Buboppy

Homecoming Weekend

We had a great weekend and we appreciate Daniel and Rosalyn taking the time to spend it with us. Andrew, ever the outside boy, enjoyed all of the outdoor activities from picking the garden to moving the rocks so the concrete guy can pour a slab for the boat to reside on during the winter. It was fun to watch Andrew as he explores new boundaries including jumping off of the big rock in the backyard and lots of other boy stuff.

After a quick trip to the Cow for French fries and bottomless drinks, we went up to the Discovery Park. It was a beautiful early fall day and the sun was shining. Of course Andrew spent most of it exploring, and in this photo you can see what Princess Evelyn did at the park. Of course, it was a little windy (come on, it's Cedar!) so this location afforded her some protection from the wind.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a photo of the whole group. You can tell how excited Andrew is to hold still in this highly stimulating environment. He could hardly be contained.

The weekend's activities included the homecoming parade and while Poppy rode in a restored hot rod 1952 Chevy pickup truck, the rest of the family stood outside the phone company offices on University Blvd. and waited for the parade to go by. All things considered, a parade on this beautiful weekend was the right thing to do.

Of course what Bubby was really craving was a little face time with Princess Evelyn. She is very sweet and at a cute age. She is responsive and when ever she is awake, loves to have a little interaction with the adults in her life. She wasn't really sure about Poppy, but most of the Grands aren't.

I had a request for a couple of photo shoots for Miss. Evelyn. I took lots of photos both times, but unfortunately we only got two poses and two outfits. She was willing to really ham it up for the camera, so I am hoping that Rosalyn gets something she can use. Bubby is excited to get some of them printed in order to update Evelyn's book.

Here she is in her Sunday fall attire. This was just before they raced away, trying to get to church on time.

It was a lovely weekend and great to share it with family. We had good dinners on both Friday (chicken enchiladas) and Saturday (bacon and garden vegetable pasta with bruscetta) nights, but after all, eating is part of being together. Our garden is in its glory, and we enjoyed lots of its fruits during the visit. I am hating the thoughts of saying goodbye to summer, though. It has been glorious.

Buboppy

End of the Line

This photo was taken in Halifax and represents their town clock.

We had a wonderful adventure on the high seas, and Bubby admitted that she loved all of the pampering. Our egress from the vessel was absolutely smooth and uneventful. We retrieved our luggage and caught the airport shuttle, checked our bags ($55!!), then decided that since we had nearly four hours before we had to board the aircraft, we would run out to Revere Beach and find Kelly's, an old favorite our ours. We grabbed a couple of T-tickets and headed out the Blue Line. The trip involves a walk of about a mile, but it is along the beach and usually lovely. It was raining on us, but we didn't let that stop us from achieving our goal.



Once we got back to the airport, we began the process of returning home. I won't bore our readers with the gorey details (nearly missed flights, lost luggage, etc.), but we finally got home to Cedar City at 1:00 this morning. Great to go, great to come home. I am sure that we will cruise again, perhaps with some of our readers.

Buboppy

French Dinner and Bar Harbor

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are pretty well satiated when it comes to food. But, I wanted to include a couple of shots of the French food we consumed at last night's dinner. This was the appetizer. It was a cold lobster and scallop thing with a cauliflower puree mixed in with the lettuce. Pretty good.

Bubby enjoyed her carmelized onion and goat cheese tart, and I had some escargot. She even tried one of those, but later reported that it did not play well with the other food she had consumed (sounds like psychosomatic indigestion to me).

Our waitress asked if we were celebrating on the cruise, and Bubb spilled the beans. Of course, we had to have a really nice looking, but not particularly tasty, cake and a lovely rendition of "I Love You Truly" by the wait-staff. The music was nice, and brought a tear to Bubby's eye.

Upon returning to our room, we found this small animal near our pillows. Don't know what s/he is, so you can draw your own conclusions.

On Saturday morning, we landed in Bar Harbor, Maine. In typical Eves-Traveling-mode, we immediately started walking around and found a grocery store. Bubby engaged a man there and got the straight scoop on who has the best chowdah in town. He recommended a place called Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park. To get there, we rode a free shuttle service, partially financed by LL Bean, that leaves from the village green at Bar Harbor and goes all over the park. We rode to the end of the Jordan Pond line, just because it was fun, and free.

This is the Lodge at Jordan Pond. We arrived without incident and were promptly seated for lunch.

On the recommendation of our friend from the grocery store, we ordered seafood chowdah and popovers. The chowdah was really, really good, and loaded with "things". The star of the meal, however, was the popovers. Bubby, who knew nothing about New England popovers was in heaven because you eat them with a little butter and jam and they are served piping hot! We ate the two (each) that came with the meal and decided that we could bear the shame of eating one more each. Bubby is interested in trying these at home and even bought a cook book that contained a recipe. You will probably all be the beneficiaries of our popover experience in the near future.

Following our Jordan Pond experience, we rode the shuttle to Sand Beach and Northeast Harbor. I took this photo of the boats in the harbor and just as I was rushing back to our departing shuttle, our friend from the grocery store walked up! He was taking some guests out on his sailboat, and had, in fact been buying the ingredients for their picnic lunch when we first met. We thanked him profusely for the tip, and rode the shuttle bus back to Bar Harbor.

I did get one photo of Bubby standing outside a stately home on the seashore walk. We seem to spend a lot of time looking at stately homes during our travels.

Buboppy

Sidney, NS

Let us begin this post by saying how excited we are to see photos of Leo! How he would look has been a mystery to us all, and now that he is hear, we are not quite sure what to think. What is up with all the blond hair?

We docked this morning in Sydney, Nova Scotia. It is a much smaller village than Halifax, but we enjoyed looking around and getting a feel for the community. It has a small downtown area and we wandered out of it quite a distance. Of course there was a casino in town, but we didn't waste any time there. We did find a mall with a Hudson Bay Company store in it. That is where we stole the wireless signal and made s previous posting. While I was posting the last time, Bubby called Big K and got the news about Leo from Booty.

Here is "welcome mat" for Sydney with the Norwegian Dream in the background.

In our never ending quest for good, fresh, seafood and chowdah, we found this cool converted bus and ordered both. The scallops were yummy and the chowdah hot and full of stuff. Some folks would be put off by the ambiance, however, while we sat there we watch half a dozen locals stop for a cup of the lovely brew. We are in Bar Harbor this morning and will likely continue our quest here. If memory serves me correctly, this was the second best cup o' chowdah during Booty's quest a few years ago.

We did notice that Sydney is now quite as well kept as were the public areas in Halifax. We saw so many of these beauties Bubby thought dandelions might be the Provincial Flower of Nova Scotia.

We did discover a lovely park with a fountain for children to play in. This small, but stately home was just across the street.

The never ending parade of towel animals has a new participant. Isn't he cuuuu'ah? We paid the extra and did the lovely French restaurant on-board last night. Unfortunately, we are at the saturation point when it comes to food. We really couldn't enjoy it much and neither of us ate our entree. We did enjoy the soup, salad, appetizer, and bessert. The creme brule, was all it should be.

Our final item comes from the crew talent show. We just loved this number which was announced as an Elvis Presley tune. Listen particularly as this crew member pronounces the word, "thorn". It cracked us up, and we are still laughing.



Buboppy

St. John, NB

When we arrived at St. John, NB, we were royally greeted (I am sure it was not all for us, but it seemed so). Bubby posed by this cool miniaturized light house.

Our original tour (a St. John river cruise) was canceled so we took a 1.5 hour bus tour around the city. I captured Bubby on the bus seat with the rose she was handed when we disembarked. She felt ripped-off because what she really wanted was the miniature Canadian flag pin that I was given. She tried to make a trade, but the welcoming committee was unobliging. She can have my pin, it is really cool.

After our bus tour, we began to wander around town in our never ending quest for seafood and the ultimate bowl of chowder. We found a nice fish restaurant near the big, open-air, city market in St. John's and we shared scallop-topped bruscetta and a huge plate of haddock fish and chips. Both were excellent, better than anything we have had on-board the ship. We wandered through a beautiful garden in King's Park, and I got Bubby to pose with the flowers.

We walked through several stores and Bubby found this really cool camouflage green t-shirt. She loved it, and had to have it. I am certain I won't have trouble spotting her in a crowd when she wears it the first time.

Bubby wanted a shot of herself with the Norwegian Dream in the background, so here you have it. We have one of the "big" picture type windows in the lower part of the ship. We are glad we opted for a window instead of an inside state room.

We attended the evening's entertainment, which was a showcase for what the week held in store. I was very excited to see that an Acclamation-type group would be on the cruise with us!! They were very good, NOT! We did enjoy the comedian who had an endearing way of laughing at his own jokes. When we returned to our room we found an elephant in our bed! I don't know how he got in there, but we pushed him off the bed because we were ready for bed! We also went to our first karaoke party that evening. One woman was really good, and we enjoyed watching her perform. Most of the others shouldn't quit their day jobs.


Buboppy

We Be Cruisin'

We are posting this over a stolen signal in a small mall in Sydney, New Brunswick. Of course Wifi on the boat is prohibitively costly, and we decided we couldn't leave our readers wondering much longer. Yes, we are fine. Yes, we are having fun. No, we are not sure about the cruising concept. Lots of food, interesting places, but overall, ??? The weather has been very fine on all of our port days, including today. Since we are not "joiners" most of the shore excursion we chose have been canceled. The good news is that it leaves us time to explore, which we like just fine.

This is the Norwegian Dream, a smallish cruise ship (1700 Q-tips, 700 Philipino crew members). This particular vessel is on its last days of service. They are going to retire it soon, which is fortunate, because it seems a little battle-worn.

Here is Bubby with her $4 virgin margarita. After finding out what it cost, she hasn't wanted another. Since all of our shore excursions canceled, she might as well drown her sorrows in lime and ice, because we may only do this once. We did go to a BBQ the first evening, which is when these photos were taken. We will shoot pictures of our stately state room and add them to the blog later. By the way, Bubby has discovered room service, and she likes it!

Bubby insisted that I include this photo, which contains the $50 aluminum Coca Cola cup. It really is disappointing, however, because although you can get a refill anytime, anywhere, all they do is open a room temperature can and pour it over a few cubes of ice. It is above 32°F before you can sit down to drink it. I recently discovered that I could get glasses with abundant ice in them at meal time by simply flashing my room key with a sticker on it. We are learning.

We will post more at the earliest opportunity, which will probably be Bar Harbor, Maine on Saturday. We are most anxious for news from Texas, and will check our email one more time before we get on the ship. We are dying to see Leo!

Buboppy

Evelyn's Blessing Day

Sunday morning, after a good sleep and a breakfast of egg and ham on an English muffin, we headed down to Provo. This was the big day, and all were in their finest. As you know from Rosalyn's post the cute hat is something she picked up at an exclusive lace shop, and the dress is made from heirloom material. Evelyn looked really sweet, but she was not fond of the hat, at all!

Bubby grabbed this photo of Poppy and the Wells family as we went into the building. We had a lovely sacrament meeting with the one notable exception. Daniel did a nice job with the blessing, despite Miss Evelyn's protests, and of course you know about Andrew's histrionics. The real fun started when we retired to Bruce and Patty's for a lovely luncheon. Lots of salads, roast beef sandwiches, and party food. We all enjoyed our time.

Of course the children enjoyed playing with all of the toys in Bruce and Patty's family room. Lydia found this antique rocker and tried her darnedest to over turn it. She was having a blast.

Kate got into the "sit and spin" and was pretty as ever. She is such a girly-girl. I just love to watch her work it. I took a video of Jake on the sit and spin, I'll review it and see if it is worth publishing on these pages.

Of course we had to have a photo of the reason for our celebration. Here is sweet Miss Evelyn chillin' on the couch. Jake spent a good portion of the afternoon holding her. He does love the little babies. She was quite cooperative.

After the party, we gang-checked-in to our motel on University Avenue and then went to North Park in Provo to blow off some steam and keep the kids from shredding the motel room. Daredevil Lydia was absolutely fearless and made us all catch our breath a time or two. This is a beautiful park with lovely facilities. We could have killed several hours there.

Following our trip to the park, we all went back to Bruce and Patty's for dinner. They were so kind to host us. Daniel made the special cream and eggplant dish and we worked on some leftovers from the luncheon. Patty even had some fresh corn she had acquired. It was most delicious. Sarah and Aaron took the girls back to the motel room early to try and bed them down. We kept Jake with us. When we returned, Miss Kate was not yet asleep so Bubby, Jake and I went to the lobby. Jakie devoured all of the cookies he could find and we had a grand time there together. Jake was in his "I don't dare slow down, it's the end of the day and I am tired" mode. He would not sit still and he was driving me crazy. (That's why I'm the Poppy and not the Dad!) Finally, Sarah and Aaron came down and Jake went upstairs to watch a movie and be with the sleeping girls. Daniel and Rosalyn joined us and we had a fun couple of card games topping off a wonderful day.

On Monday morning we tried door crashing at the mall, and didn't find much. We ended our activities by having lunch at the River Bottoms Mall (a Chinese restaurant recommended by Jason on UTasty). No one puked or cried, so the luncheon was a success. Bubby and I drove home taking Sharon Snow with us. She and Dr. Snow had dinner with us in the backyard. They even helped us pick beans for Booty and Laur.

Buboppy

Wheeler Farm

On Saturday Bubby and I rose at 4:00 AM, got ready, and were on the road by 5:00. We stopped in Provo for a quick hug and "Hello" and took Andrew with us to Sugarhouse. Once we all gathered, we headed to Wheeler Farm for some fun and a picnic. The highlight was the $2 pony rides and you can see from the images we have posted that everybody was really fascinated.

They rode in two shifts, because there were only two ponies. At first I wasn't sure that Lydia would be able to stay on. Her feet never touched the stirrups. With a little shifting, she did just fine. Andrew was a staid as I have ever seen him. He was visibly pleased to be on the pony, but just a little intimidated, too.

Of course Miss Kate was a natural. She petted all of the animals she could reach, having visited the farm earlier in the week as part of a birthday party.

Bubby loves this picture of Jake. He is so long legged these days, that she thinks he is too big for the pony. I think he looks pretty cool. I know that a pony ride is no match for a horseback ride in a thunderstorm, but you will have to ask Jake about that.

One of the really great things for Andrew was that his Daddy got to lead him around. Daniel was able to dodge the horse hockey and still show him a good time.

After the animal viewing/petting we had a nice picnic in the shade. Andrew wanted to join these three birds in the tree, but no one felt he could sit still long enough. You can just see Aaron's hand stabilizing the Ly. This photo was taken just before she realized that her Dad was holding on, and she began to bellow "No Way!"

Bubby got a nice photo opportunity with Evelyn, who was pretty low key through the entire adventure. She really is a sweet little girl.


This last photo will likely end up as my desktop photo for the next little while. I can't believe that she got everyone in an attractive facial expression.

We had a fun Saturday with everyone and thinks to all for being so cooperative.

Buboppy