Blessing Day

Lat Sunday was Ronan's blessing day. A lot of fun people came in from out of town to hang out with us. We had a great time.Here are some pictures.

Auntie Stink came out to start at BYU. Our little zoobie. Here she is having lunch with Nana at Rumbi, where they have awesome sweet potato fries.

Aunt MeMe was reunited with Max. Here they are enjoying a cuddle. Meme also brought with her a sparkling engagement ring. Soon she and G. will set a date and make it official. I am so excited. We LOVE G.!

This Great Grandma holding the first great grandchild. She was so excited. Ronan loves his Great Grandma a lot.

Poor Nana. She was tortured by the dogs her entire visit. Finally she agreed to let them sit on her, as a birthday gift to MeMe, who turned 24 on the 1st. We had to take a picture. This is as rare an occurrence as seeing Bigfoot.

And this is Ronan, tired from all the fun, and a good meal. Thanks for the fun bibs Auntie Stink. Ronan sure needs the with the way he scarfs down a meal.

Nana, could you send us the photo of our little family outside the church? We never got one taken with our camera.

Christmas With Nana Poppet

Nana Poppet invited us all home for Christmas this year, and it was a total blast. I loved seeing my sisters, and Hubby and G hit it off great. Plus I got away from the construction zone that had become my kitchen!
Here are MeMe, Stink and I, all doing our thing at the local Target. Meme, and I got banned from several stores for this kind of activity in high school! It was awesome! We have to teach Stink the way of the Merrill high school girl.

Nana Poppet made us all get gussied up for a family photo. This is a blurry (and thus beautiful) pic of me and Stink practicing for our close up.

On Christmas morning, the family chefs made us delicious, high quality french toast. G was wearing a new beanie, with fashionable tag intact. Hubby looks on lovingly at the food being prepared. I think this is the first time he has witnessed cooking in real life.

Here are Hubby and G. doing what they do best. Gaming, and ignoring the womanly chatter ans snickering going on in the kitchen. Manly.

I gifted these two cool T's to my sisters, to remind them that Sunday is not just about boredom. It can be fun if you make it so.

Nana Poppet said she would combat these shirts by getting he own with the 10 commandments printed on it, and a movable arrow. She would point the arrow to whatever commandment we children were making light of at the moment.

PS- Those are obviously cups of root beer.....

G. had a terrible accident. While saving 10 kittens from sure death by semi, his leg was mauled by a truck and MeMe had to carry him home on here back. Look at that concentration.

In effort to save her love, she sacrificed her favorite jeans. Killing them with a rip to the rear.

Later, Hubby and G. repaired Nana Poppets dinosaur computer, giving it new life and the strength to withstand the iTune fixation of Stink.


And what would a get together of Merrill woman be without the display of our god given triple chin shocker. Here we all are demonstrating the beauty that we have been given.

Here is John, building one heck of a fire, unnecessarily, in the home hearth. He looks pleased doesn't he?


I would like to close this photo essay with a picture of the beautiful MeMe, doing a mating display, dance and call in the isles of Target. Just for kicks. Thanks MeMe, you are hot!

A Visit from the Talented Twinkle Toes.

Twinkle Toes

My cousins Quick Draw and Twinkle Toes

Last night I went out with two of my many cousins. We will call them Twinkle Toes (12) and Quick Draw (20 this Monday).

The nicknames are obvious to those of you who know my cousins, but for those who do not, Twinkle Toes is so named because of her sweet dancing skills. Quick Draw is named for her super human texting skills. She can whip out her phone and text faster than Clint Eastwood can draw a gun in a Western film!


I picked Quick Draw up and we went to see the lovely Twinkle Toes' dance performance. It was hard to spot her. I have not seen her for a few years, and girls start to look a LOT different during those developmental pre-teen years. Not to mention they were all dressed alike and there was more that one towhead blonde. But Quick Draw and I had her picked out by the end of her first routine.

I must say that Twinkle Toes has grown up a lot, and is a very good dancer. Quick Draw and I may be bias, but we think she was the best in her age group by far. Not to brag but Quick Draw and I were dancers ourselves back in the day, so we know a good dancer when we see one.

Twinkle Toes can now credit herself with inspiring her "old lady" cousin and "no longer a teen cousin" to try their out of shape bums at dance again. We will see if this idea actually ever comes to fruition though.

Twinkle Toes danced so well, Quick Draw and I just watched with our jaws on the floor whispering about her abilities to each other. She elongated her neck as a dancer should, and her hands are not plagued by the stiffness of some other dancers. She is so talented.


I moved down to the front so I could take some snaps of her amazing skill.

After the show, we took our dancer out to eat at Chilie's where she ordered the spiciest thing on the menu. Seeing her so comfortable with spices made me miss her mother's homemade salsa. It is so good!

We saw a sweet motorbike outside the restaurant, and thought we would scare Twinkle Toes' father by letting him think she may have ridden it. She didn't really. It probably belonged to some restaurant patron who could see us touching his bike out of the window and was cussing us for doing it.

We were actually very safe and responsible on our outing. Here is Quick Draw. Safety never looked so hot!



Though we didn't ride the bike, the seat made a great place to put my camera and take a group picture of me with my beloved cousins. Bike owner guy probably loved that too.



It was a lovely evening and I am so glad I got to see Twinkle Toes dance, and enjoy her charming and hilarious company over dinner. Quick Draw and I will be spending a lot more time together, hopefully in dance classes!