It can't be March already!!

Our month of February started out with a special visit from our Philpott family. They arrived on a Sunday evening in time for dessert and some fun activities with Gramma and Papa. They all spent the night with us. How wonderful it was to have our home filled with laughter and smiles.

This picture was taken of Richard with the grandchildren just before he left for work. He went in a little late so he could be here for a special breakfast where we all fixed our own "Eggs in a Bag" to complement our pancakes. It was a fun, adventurous breakfast.

We played games together and watched a movie, then they were off with the promise they would be back this summer for a longer visit. We are excited about that.
This is the whole family...(L R) Noelle, John, Abigail (in back) and Isaiah, Emma, Michael, and Jenna. We love you all.

I had two floral contracts this month but they were for funerals instead of weddings. I love to do flower arranging but prefer weddings and birthdays for obvious reasons. However the families were grateful for the arrangements I designed. We knew the families for both.

Now that our Grandson, Shawn and his wife Karlena live in Oakland, they can come up for dinner occasionally. We had them here on a Monday night as she works on the weekends. Emily, our daughter-in-law was here that night too so we had a fun time talking, eating, and watching old family movies together. This is them with their cute, well behaved dog, Piglet.

Here is a picture of Richard with a special portion of an assignment we were asked to do by our granddaughter, Jenna Philpott. She is in preschool and her class made "shadow" figures of themselves (that's who is sitting on Richard's lap..."flat Jenna") and sent them to a far away place to go on adventures with their friends, or in our case, grandparents. What a creative thing to do. I wish I could have been there to see all the adventures of all the children. So the following pictures are some of those we took to send back to Jenna along with a journal that showed her shadows journey.

Here we are at the Luther Burbank home and garden in Santa Rosa.

Now we are outside of the Snoopy's Ice Arena where Charles Schultz had senior hockey tournaments and families come to ice skate. They used to have a fantastic Christmas Ice show here too. We went once many years ago when our three youngest boys were little. The sign next to the bench tells you that you are being recorded and if you call your friends and tell them to log onto the Snoopy Ice arena website, they will see you. I called Noelle, who was back in Utah, and asked if Jenna was home from school. She was so Noelle logged on to the web site and, by golly, Jenna could see me and "flat Jenna" right there. I took this picture so Jenna could remember that. It was fun.

Then I took "flat Jenna" over to the Snoopy museum and gift shop. Here we are up on the top floor where there are very interesting articles, awards, and fun things to see about Charles Schultz. You can see the gift shop below and Snoopy in his airplane hanging from the ceiling behind her. I bought her a Snoopy sticker that she put on before she went home. You can see it in the picture of her with Richard.

On Flat Jenna's last day here with us, I took her to the park across the street from our house. She had fun playing on the playground equipment. I look forward to taking our real granddaughter and her family to these places when they all come back this summer.

The rest of the month was spent on finding a job. I took a class put on by our ward that taught job search skills. It was a 11 hour class given in the evenings one night a week for 5 weeks. I learned many valuable skills and have been working with them in my job search, networking with people and spending hours on the internet finding jobs listings and sending out my resume. Still no interviews but I will keep plugging away. Our other two sons and their families will be here next week so I am glad that I still have time off to spend with them. It's a blessing. Maybe the perfect job will come along after their visit. So you can guess what pictures will be on my next blog. I can't wait to be able to babysit for my little grandsons.