Saturday with lots of STEPS!!!

Our Saturday morning started with walking lots of steps from our parking spot at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake to the area where the Gigi Cross Fit event was being held.  From 9:30-10:30, Jena and a group of people with Down syndrome exercised together doing different types of exercises.  It was part of a huge event called FITCON.

Jena and Emily

 And it turned out that Scott and Chantel wanted us to watch Scarlett in the morning because they wanted to attend this same event.  They got there at 10:30 and were able to take our parking spot when we left with Scarlett so that was a great plan.

On the way home it was so beautiful that I decided we needed to do some more walking and exercising so we headed to the North Shore Bird Preserve in west Layton.  Jena's friend, Emily who also had done the exercise with us lives close by there so we called her mom on the way to the preserve and they came and dropped off Emily to walk with us.  It was a fun morning walk and Scarlett walked about 3/4 of the over a mile walk which I thought was great.  She also did a great job spying birds in the sky or the bushes.

At the start....still snow on the mountains to the east.

And off Scarlett goes.....she loved walking on the boardwalk and hearing the sounds of her shoes on the wood.

Checking for fish or tadpoles in the marshes but no luck

Wasatch mountains to the east.

 The view from the back of our group...

Emily and Jena
Good sports to go for a walk after an
hour of exercising!!

They had built an overlook and Scarlett and I went to the top.  Jena is not a fan of open stairways so she didn't climb to the top.  Emily didn't the first time but when Scarlett and I came down, she decided she wanted to go up so the three of us went up together.

 We sat on the edge of some stairs and watched two little ducks swimming around in the pond.  They were fun to watch.  Scarlett couldn't see one of them and said, "Where is his brother?" and was delighted when the second duck returned to view.  It makes sense that she decided the ducks were brothers, because after all she had a brother, too.

We decided that we need to go back at the end of May.  Things were still very brown although you could see bits of green here and there.  We did see and hear lots of birds so that was fun.  Stay tuned for green pictures in the future.  Scarlett wants to bring James in a stroller next time.

Then we dropped off Emily at her house and Scarlett with her grandmother Berenyi and Jena and I headed down to usher at Centerpoint for the matinee of Oliver!.  We are now going to do the matinees as that will fit better into our schedule.

AND THAT WAS A LOT OF WALKING AND STANDING FOR ONE DAY!!! ESPECIALLY FOR JENA!  Good job, Jena.

PS:  As part of the fitness event, Jena has taken part in a fitness program for the past five weeks, including wearing a fitbit and tracking her food choices.  She lost one lbs, but two inches off her waist and hips because of her walking regularly.

PSS And I spent the rest of the day/evening sitting at my computer and finishing my second to last assignment for this semester--a 14 page paper.  Whew--I was happy to click submit last night about 10 p.m. on that one.  I really love school and I am going to miss it so much but it has been hard to keep motivated these last few weeks with so many other things going on in life.

PSSS:  I mean I like school so much that the idea of getting a PhD in social work so that I could teach college came into my mind briefly the other day until I reminded myself that I am almost 62 years old and that will simply be crazy....I mean more crazy than getting another masters degree was!!!

A blur of a week.....

This past week has been a bit of a blur......

On Tuesday I attended the funeral of a friend of mine.  She has a son who was 25 with Down syndrome who passed away in his sleep a week prior.  Although I didn't know him real well, I had worked with her many times.  And of course this just touches very close to home for us.  It was a very sweet service.  All of his three siblings and his parents spoke.  Roz, his mother, shared: "I posted on Facebook that our hearts were breaking.  I know now that the reason was because our hearts were so full."  

I loved that.  I feel that--my heart is always so full of love--for Gary, my kids, their families, my parents, my siblings, the grandkids, family and friends everywhere, the people on the street, the people across the world.  And sitting in Josh's funeral, you couldn't help but feel the fullness of love he brought to everyone he touched during his life.

Wednesday, Jena had her last day of Wonderwood.  They talked about their unit about space and here is their art mural.  Jena loves the teachers and students at Wonderwood and we are looking forward to future opportunities with them.

Wednesday was also a hard day because it was decided that Ben needed to be sent back to the State Hospital.  The first week he was back, his own doctor was out of town.  However when she got back, she was immediately not happy with the state he was at and the type of medication regimen he had. We had thought the same things and had tried to stop the transfer as we felt he was not ready and the medication schedule was too complex to be managed outside of the hospital.  He was heartbroken as you can imagine as we were all.  Our only hope is that the doctor down there will listen to Ben's doctor here and make some significant changes in things.  We also hope that he is able to have more vocation and occupational training while he is there.  I was disappointed to find out that he is now back on "on unit" which means he doesn't have a job, can't leave the unit even for meals and can't attend the therapies which I felt were the most useful.  He has "to earn all of that back".  I feel that is not fair as he shouldn't have been transferred yet.  So now it is back to trips to Provo again....

I tried to get some homework in as it is the end of the semester--two big project left to finish!! I was having a hard time getting into either of them so I was grateful for the opportunity to watch Zander and Liam on Friday night.  (Jena took this "lovely" picture of me.)

And then we got to play with Scarlett on Saturday morning.  More about that in the next post!!!

(And the good news is that I finished one of my last big assignments on Saturday night and got a great idea for the final project on Saturday morning-win-win!)

Easter Sunday

With grandchildren of our own, we have started back the tradition of an Easter Egg Hunt at Great-grandma's house on Sunday evening.  This year we added some more of the great grandchildren (and we decided to move it to Saturday evening next year to get even more great-grandchildren there--if Grandma Hall still wants us all to come!)

Our family gathered for dinner at our house (minus Scott who had to work and Tosha, Austen, Niki and Cooper in Japan).  One special treat was that Ben was able to join us for a few hours on Easter. He got to meet Zander and James for the first time and renew his connections with Scarlett and Liam. It was a crazy evening but it was great to look over and see Ben there with us. After dinner we headed to Grandma Hall's for the hunt and cookies.

 The greats loved the parachute as well.

Liam loves to stand on things so this rock
in front was perfect.

Uncle Ben with Zander for the first time.  James slept the entire time in the house, so Ben only got a brief look at him.

Cheesy smile from Scarlett

Aunt Jena and Liam

Liam and Scarlett waiting to start the hunt.
We were trying to get the kids to line up from biggest to smallest
but it was a bit of a challenge..
This section was cute though!

Liam with Ben on the hunt

And even though Niki was an ocean away, he still hunted for Easter Eggs on base.  I think it was the Saturday before Easter.  Here he is with his friend, Aiden.

Of course this was the family fun part of the day.  We had a sweet Easter program at Church with some great musical numbers.  Most of all, we are reminded that Christ died for us and he lived again!! Because of that, we all will live again and see those who have come before us and come after us.  That is the great news of the gospel.  How grateful I am to know that fact.  He lives!!

The GRAND OPENING OF THE LIBRARY!!!

Yes, it was finally time to have our grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony.  We posted on Facebook and also took flyers around to our neighborhood.

The flyer:  (Minus the cute Little Free Library logo which I can't get to paste here)

We are pleased to announce the grand opening of the

Walnut Grove Neighborhood

Little Free Library

TOMORROW, Saturday, April 15

4:30-5:30

Ribbon cutting Ceremony at 4:45

869 West 2800 South, Syracuse, UT

Stewards:  Gary and Judy Hall

Please come and check it out with your family

and enjoy some cookies, too!

Little Free Libraries are an international program to promote literacy and community.  The concept is that you can take a book to read, keep it, share it with someone else, or return it to the Little Free Library when you get another book.  To start with we will stock the library with books we have, but you are welcome to add books to the shelves when there is space or leave a box of books on our porch for later use.  There will be books for all ages of readers.  The idea is a free exchange of loved books and the love of books within our neighborhood and community.  Join our Facebook page (Walnut Grove Little Free Library) and post reviews of books you have read and also hear about other book events we will have “at the library”. Please feel free to share this flyer or our Facebook page with friends and family who might be interested.  And because we are who we are, we will also have games which can be borrowed for games nights and returned when you are done.  We have some old classics you might enjoy.

Hope to see you there for our opening and many times after that!

“Be awesome.  Be a book nut.”  Dr. Seuss

After a short nap, we began to load up some books into the library and to get everything else ready for our event.

Kaitlyn and Dillon Dangel were our first official customers to check out books.  They got there before our party as they had a conflict at 4:30.  They were happy to pose as our first "book takers".

 A close-up of the shelves-

door closed--upper shelves

door opened--lower shelves

As you can see, our library also includes puzzles and games which were big items on the first day.

We had about 40 people come to our ribbon cutting ceremony--of course I was talking so we didn't get pictures although our friends posted some for us. It was fun because some of our more queiter neighbors came and brought books to donate.

One of our Primary kids with her dad

So many people brought books to donate that we pulled out another table to display those books as well.  People have continued to bring books all week which is great, although I need to get some good totes to store them in.

After Jena cut the ribbon, the library was swarmed by kids.  It was fun to listen to them talk about the books they saw, the ones they have read and why they wanted to take the ones they did.  Games and puzzles were also taken. Gary's cousin, Anita, came from North Ogden which was so sweet.  Our nephew Eric also came.  He lives in Logan but was down for the Easter weekend.  He traveled the farthest to attend.

Thanks to Rebecca Jensen who took this picture during the party

Jena is picking up the ribbon that she cut!!

Another one of our Primary class
posing on our big rock

His older brother posing with his choice of a book

And here it is after the party--we had to stock it up to keep it looking full.

We are #444519.  If you check the world map for Little Free Library you will be able to see us (in about 3-5 days from now).  I just formally registered last night.

Gary's mom named this housing project "Walnut Grove" after the
LIttle House on the Prairie books that she loved so much.
We wanted to honor that name by naming our library after that.
Little House on the Prairie stories are a tribute
 both to reading and to community.
And who wouldn't want to quote Dr. Seuss!!

"BE AWESOME!  BE A BOOK NUT!"

It has been fun this week to watch people stop and grab a book.  Gary said he came up late on Tuesday and saw someone at the library with an umbrella (because it was pouring rain) and a flashlight.  It was a friend from several blocks south of us who was looking for a book for their daughter to read.  Gary was able to have a short conversation with them. 

I got this fun package in the mail from Andrea Slack, a friend from Richland and one of my roommates at BYU:

These books definitely traveled the furthest to get here.  Thanks, Andrea, some of them are already in the library ready to go.

I have seen several books I hope are still there that I can take on my long airplane ride next month to visit Tosha and family.

The library is about literacy and community.  It is off to a great start!!

Makes you want to go read a book, doesn't it???

Come by anytime.

UDSF Easter Egg Hunt

was held Saturday morning, April 15th.  It was a gorgeous spring morning up in the foothills of Salt Lake at the Research Park Marriott Hotel.  We had over 380 people register for the event and probably had around 350 people there--the largest crowd yet.

We started off with some family dancing while people were arriving and getting checked in.

Our friend, Ben CHristensen in the black in the middle

Jena was a helper this year and joined these two young women who organized crafts for the day and organized their extended families to stuff all 4000 eggs this year.  Jena was their right hand lady all morning long while I ran the rain gutter duck races.

 This is what part of the crowd looks like waiting for the countdown to enter the Easter Egg Field.  The staff at the Marriott "hid" the eggs for our group.

Jena helped with the parachute game.  The ball is about ready to hit her head as she holds the edge of the parachute.

It was a great morning and we had some great volunteers which helped make things go so smoothly. Which was good, because Jena and I were off to another Saturday afternoon activity......