December 2010 Notes

It has been awhile since I made an entry in this blog, but I hope everyone who reads this is fine and are anxiously getting ready for Christmas.  We began December with a wonderful visit to Denver for the blessing of beautiful little Alice Mae.  It certainly was enjoyable for us to be with the 4 families in Denver and Erin and her girls.  You all seem to be doing well and we are so thankful for each of you, especially our grandchildren,.  Here are some visual memories of that visit:

Following Thanksgiving the annual traidtion of putting up the Christmas tree took place and Pam, Erin and Johanna had a good time decorating and playing Christmas music.  Since that date your mother continued the interior and exterior decorations and the following pictures show what a beautiful job she has done: 

This week, which is just before Christmas, we have had warnings of storm, and it seemed to hit with gusto last night.  The forecast is for more through the next few days.  But we awoke to such a beautiful scene this morning.  Actually we awoke much earlier as the power went out at about 2:00 am and despite the fact we should have been sleeping and not noticed it, we did and ended up enjoying some time to ponder about our life together and our children and how blessed we are.  Finally the lights came on about 6:00 am and we turned on the TV to see what was going on through the state and promptly fell asleep.  This is what is looks like around our home this morning.  We just hope it last through Christmas as it is quite warm outside. 

Well family and friends.  We hope you have received our Christmas card and know of our love for each of you and hope this season will be filled with happy days and wonderful traditions.  We will miss your family celebrations and look forward to a Christmas Day phone call.

Well here goes another post from the last month or so in the late summer of 2010.  We have been busy mainly trying to recover from my ailments.  But all seems to be well now.  Ann and Sherwood came by one Saturday and invited us on the mountain so we went with them in their truck.  The mountain was so green for late August.

Pam went to Pleasant Grove to be with Erin when Beth was born.  It was a wonderful occasion and Beth was another beautiful Colton production.  Kate was so cute with her and Erin seemed to be doing excellent in her recovery.  

 

 





After going home I decided it was now or never with your mother's pet project of the fireplace.  So I got brave and took it down.  It was a sad day as it was one of my best productions.  Something I'll never do again I'm sure.  But it didn't take too long to knock it all down and get it outside and ready for the trash.







While this was going on a seemingly insignificant fire began brewing over in Beaver and before you knew it it had moved north up and down the ridges until we began getting an afternoon deluge of smoke and ash.  It is sill going on with no end in sight.  I-70 up clear creek canyon has been closed for the last few days and who knows when the fire will be put out.  Another of these "let it burn because that is natures way."!!!



I began the rebuilding process a week ago and by the time Pam arrived home on Wednesday of last week the box was in and the new sheetrock applied to the mantle.  I also had the new wooden mantle in place and when she got home she helped me a lot in finishing the mudding on the new corner that extended down to the floor and then eventually the painting.  Thursday of last week I had the new box set and we began tiling.  It went pretty well and by the afternoon we had everything in place.  On Friday the vertical wooden columns were set and the grout put on the tile and Pam also finished painting the entire south wall all around the fireplace and in the two alcoves.  By 7:30 pm we had everything cleaned up and the front room back to order so that we could host an Area Seventy for our stake conference.  So we are now in the process of finishing up the wood mantle [paint] and I guess we are committed to painting the entire front room.  Hope everyone likes it !!!

Family Reunion 2010 - Monroe, Utah

Well I have finally decided I need to make this post before it is ancient history.  But the Joseph Cottle family reunion was held in Monroe and we really had a good time.  Our entire family was here for most of the first week of August. 

Early in the week the kids found the sprinklers and even Reynolds and Jane had a great time running around the back yard in the "cold" water. 

During the first part of the week we enjoyed quite a few evenings on the back porch watching the kids play.  The "men" also played golf almost every day when the weather cooperated. 

We have some budding musicians

Of course each morning began with a freefall in the kitchen.  We went through boxes and sacks of cereal, gallons of milk, and even some good old fashioned bacon and eggss.

On thursday everyone was in Monroe and the highlight of the day was the water slide.  We had it for four hours in the afternoon and the kids and adults had a time of it.  The water was close, however it didn't seem to bother anyone, even the little kids.  We also had a badmitten net up and to warm up vigourous games were played.  Tom brought a lawn game that was tried and was very interesting. 

Saturday was the day we planned on going on the mountain.  Unfortunately we had a lot of rain that morning and the picture below shows us coming back down after a trecherous section where we wondered if we would stay on the road.  We ended up going to the Monrovian park and cooking a wonderful Dutch Oven dinner (thanks to Tom and Johanna) and the kids played in the river, and climbed the nearby peaks.  We had a nice warm fire and it was a wonderful few hours. 

Well that's about it.  I'm sure many of you have other pictures of our week, but we concluded Saturday evening at our home where we had another excellent meal (Weston grilled steaks on the grill) and then we assembled in the house and had a wonderful testimony meeting.  I guess we plan on continuing this tradition, but now it will be every other year.  We will give some time for the in-law families to meet!!!

Thanks for making the time to come together.  It was well worth it.  Next time we will have a few more new ones.