VALENTINE'S DAY.......................2012

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

TO EACH AND EVERYONE WHO READS MY BLOG

VALENTINE'S DAY is my favorite holiday of the year. Compared to Valentine's Day, my birthday and Christmas are of no consequence. This holiday requires little money, but it does insist upon thought and expressing those thoughts to the ones you love. A handmade card that says "I LOVE YOU" is every bit as welcome as Hallmark's finest.

I have enjoyed these beautiful roses since last Friday. But, that is a story for another day.

As you can see, the roses in the first pic are over-exposed. My pics for this session were either too bright or too dark. It is a quandary.

FINALLY!!!!

Today we visited the Apple Store and purchased an IPad

It is a thing of beauty.....Thin and Sleek!!!!

ANOTHER HOME ON THE RANGE.....IN IDAHO

Catherine, Taylor, Lindsay, and David

Catherine and her family have built a new home outside of Idaho Falls and about five miles from their potato and barley farm. It was completed in time for Christmas 2011. On a trip to Yellowstone last summer, we stopped by to see the progress. The home is large and lovely. You will notice that it has 360 views of the wild west as far as the eye can see. We are anxious for a return trip to see the final product.

Jacob and Taylor

A construction site is a playground for Children

Samuel

New Living/Family Room

There is another family/playroom Downstairs

Master Bedroom

There are three bedrooms upstairs and three bedrooms Downstairs

Taylor and Jacob

These boys are great friends and Playmates

Mom and Samuel

Catherine is a patient and loving Mother

Taylor Below in the Front Yard

The house faces the diagonal on the Property

Check out that View

WINTER BLOOMS

Right after Thanksgiving, I purchased two large blooming poinsettia plants from Costco. One wilted and died several weeks ago. Yesterday, after tiring of the reminder of Christmas past, I cut the remaining flowers from the plant and put them into water. After the stems were cut, it was necessary to burn the end of the stem to open the water passages to the plant. When cut, the plant secretes a white liquid which gums up the water delivery system. Burning the stem opens these passages. These flowers, actually leaves, will last for several more weeks.

The poinsettia plant is a native of Mexico and was brought to this country by the US Ambassador to Mexico, Joel Robert Poinsett in 1826.

Beautiful!

2nd stem of amaryllis blooms

Pasadena

There are still no leaves on this amaryllis plant. It has been interesting to observe it progress through its life cycle. It sits on our island and receives a quarter turn each day to keep it nice and straight. It wants to turn its head to the sun.

I had a similar lily in my yard in California. Each spring it sent up numerous stems of pink flowers. No leaves appeared until the flowers had all died and then the leaves appeared and lasted until they died back in the fall. The common name for this bulb was Naked Lady.

WHO READS THIS STUFF?

McKay Today Magazine BYU Magazine

Fall 2011 Winter 2012

One of the pleasures of retirement is having the time to read for enjoyment.... books, magazines, newspapers, and online. Though our local library is small, it certainly serves me well. Those who know me, know that I subscribe to over 15 magzines a month...everything from Vogue, to Smithsonian, National Geographic, Time, English Gardens, Better Homes and Gardens and Architectural Digest to name a few. Each of these is read cover to cover and back again each month. Toward the middle of the month, I am anxious for the mail to come and eager for a new magazine to peruse.

Four times a year I am sorely disappointed when I shuffle through the mail hoping for Veranda or Southern Living and instead come across BYU Magazine or McKay Today. Why are we receiving these magazines? We certainly have not subscribed to them. Chuck does send a small donation each year and he did graduate from the Y. I attended BYU for 3 years.... But, Why? They are promptly tossed into a basket until the next time we clean out the clutter and file them into the "round file".

Today, I was desperate. Football on all day. SL Tribune read.....magazines read.... I was desperate and started looking for something in the baskets. BYU Magazine caught my eye.....boring!!!!! But, I gave it a shot and being thumbing through the pages....History of the King James version of the Bible, History of Cosmo the Cougar ( I actually skimmed this one), BYU grads serving in the Foreign Service, and thennnnnnn, it caught my eye......Vive la Blog.

Seems Gabrielle Stanley Blair a BYU grad "while on Twitter learned that Time magazine had named her website one of the best of the year." Her blog designmom.com is about parenting and design. This family of six children relocated to France for a year.

Their house hunt was aired on House Hunters International (I actually think I saw the episode). The pictures, text, and links are fabulous!!!!!!!! Bored?.....it will provide hours of entertainment and ideas. Their French farmhouse is called Cressonniere and dates from the 1600s. Calling all Francophiles!!!

In a coming post, I will share some valuable info gleaned from McKay Today magazine. This mag, actually more of an ed. journal, from McKay School of Education is actually very informative for teachers and parents of young children.

WET AND BEAUTIFUL.....JANUARY 21, 2012

Snowed for about four hours today covering everything with wet slushy snow. The temperature today is a warm 32 degrees. When it stopped, Chuck and I worked for two hours ploughing and shoveling....too wet for the snow blower. The dogs raced and chased each other and we enjoyed being out and doing something physical and productive. It is beautiful, but not as magical as it was the first couple of years we were here.

Saw a lone bald eagle wheeling above the hills west of our property today. It is obviously back searching out a safe place to lay eggs and raise young eaglets in the spring. Don't know if they return to the same nest and just repair it or if they build a new one. In the next weeks we will see five to seven adult eagles flying all at once near our home. Fascinating Creatures!