Idaho Jan

Woah, that's a long time to work at one job nowadays. In this picture, Dale is talking about how long it will be until he retires: 1 year and 5 months. I think he is happy about that. Dale got the razing about wearing a nice shirt and tie. A lot of the other guys just came casual to the dinner. He looked great in it but only dressed up at my request. (He looks great in this color in my opinion!) Dale is here with his supervisor Eric who mentioned how Dale reminds him of his father...same haircut. :-) The dinner was great as the University Catering does so well: roast beef, chicken, salad, fruit salad, green beans almondine, and desserts. I enjoyed it because I didn't have to do the cooking! Thanks Dale, for all your years of hard work to support our family.

Our flowers survived the snow that surrounded them. I love the purple color. Pretty soon we'll have daffodils. After that the tulips bloom. I think they call that "layered" flower bed.

This is what we look forward to each year- burning the ditch behind our house. We had a day without wind so Dale decided to take the torch to the ditch. I like it when he does that because first of all, it smells like barbecue and second of all it looks tons better when it is done. I think it reminds him of when he played with fire as a child and at that time he got in a heap of trouble...his dad called the fire chief on him and they had a "talk!"

The race begins for the Easter eggs! Here we have Lori on the left, Holdem, Jenna, and Cole with Madison in the background. It was so nice to have them all here for our gathering on the Saturday before Easter. Rilee, Faye and Zane chasing after the next egg. Holdem had his daddy Cole helping him collect most of the eggs. Cole calls Holdem his "Little Man." Here's the gang. Zane's wife Victoria is not pictured. She wasn't feeling well and was in the house. For some reason, we all like to hunt for eggs. It's even more fun with the grandchildren helping. I hope you all had a nice Easter.

This Easter egg is about 3 years old. I think it was Madison who decided back then to hide the Easter eggs downstairs in the family room...well, this one wasn't found until a year later and by then is was petrified! I know what you're thinkin...no stinkiness either! The mean bunny in the background is Dale's bunny basket I fill each year. This time it has mostly plastic grass in it though, and his little stash of the good ol' jelly beans.

No, this is Madison, my granddaughter. I met with Lori's family at Porter Park after Gen. Conference. I was amazed at how many people and children were there! Here's Kyler climbing the big toy. He is 4 but he does a lot of things his big brother Kimball does. This is Mississippi...He's a turtle we met at Porter Park. A couple college students were out with their pet turtles and they let us hold them and take pictures. Kyler was fascinated. This has got to be the first time in my life I've ever held a live turtle. We had them as pets when I was a child but mine were only 2 inches big and I made a point of never touching them. They had icky odors (probably since we didn't clean the cages much) and we fed them raw hamburger. They liked that a lot. I was afraid I would drop the little thing but it didn't move much so I didn't get creeped out. Besides the two turtles (one was named Alabama who is not shown, and this one Mississippi), we saw about 6 dogs, 50 c...

I figured out the "empty nesters" way to color eggs for Easter. Take a pan of simmering water. Cook eggs about 15 minutes. Don't drain the water... Add about 1/2 c vinegar to the water along with about 1/2 tsp of food coloring. Let sit about 30 minutes. Wallah! This egg did something funky and artistic with the dye! I like it! Now just peel one when you need a protein for your meal or better yet, make deviled eggs (and don't worry about the ham!). Next time I'll try making pink eggs.