Missing My Honey

23 years and counting

Today marks 23 years of marriage to this man!

Today I want to tell "My Man" how thankful I am to have found such a man as he is!

23 years ago all of our hopes and dreams were just that "Hopes" and "Dreams"

Rarely does a person get to actaully realize them and then live to tell about them!

And here we are.  Together and still going strong inspite of all the ups and downs, the hard times and the good times, the good, the bad, the difficult and the fabulous too!

This man I married is a good man thru and thru.  He certainly puts up with a lot from

this girl who has had so many ups and down.  All in all we have had a good time together

and we make sure to laugh a lot in spite of it all.   

It is most apparent to both of us that there are 3 of us working this marriage,

 this family and this life together.

There is certainly no way we could have done it alone. 

So, mostly I thank my Heavenly Father for sending me this

"Good , Good Man"

And on to 23 more!

Bryce

Well Bryce finally turned 14 yesterday!  We will be celebrating tonight!

I cant believe he is that old already.

Time is flying right by.  It scares me a bit.  I mean I remember so well the day

he was born.  I remember going to the hospital with Mike and Denisa by my side.

I remember pushing him out!  That was 14 years ago!

I also remember thinking that when he is 15 I will be turning 50!

And it's right around the corner! 

We are so pleased with Bryce.  He is the last of 3 young men that Heavenly Father has

sent to us.  He is everything and more than what we dreamed he would be.

We are so proud of him and the choices he is making.

Now on to the tougher choices in life as he enters the real

 "Teenage World".

So, here we go!

49 Years

Last Sunday was Mike's 49th birthday.  He has stubbornly decided that he is only 44 years old.

  I think he is freaked out that he is this close to 50 now! 

 I make sure to rub it in real good

(like 2 cakes with a total of 49 candles between the 2 of them)

 that he is actually 49 years old now!

I know, I'm too kind .... right?

Anyway, we had a really nice get together with some family and close friends on Sunday night.

Mike and I enjoy our kids friends so much we use every excuse to invite them over! 

They are all so talented and ambitious!

Of course Michael and McKenzie sang for us!

And Katie and her soon to be Mr. Right, Tom, entertained us.

Man that boy is talented!! He even sang me some Billy Joel!

And our home teacher even played us some tunes.

Can you tell we love music?

We all had a great time and Mike said it was one of his best birthdays ever!

This growing old stuff is fun when we do it all together!

The Birthday Boy!

Michael turned 22 on Sunday.  Don't you just love his cake?  We had a great time with some of his friends and the immediate family.  I thought this was a cute cake I found at Costco, so I just had to get it for him and we really talked it up before we let him see it!  We told him he was gonna love it and well, he did!

Among his many friends this cute girl came and sent Michael on a scavenger hunt before his party.  It ended in his bedroom with pictures of the two of them plastered all over his wall.  McKenzie is Michael girlfriend and is a very nice, talented, kind, fun-loving girl.

  Michael sure knows how to pick them!  They make a great pair.

However, McKenzie has chosen to leave this cute boy for 18 months in order to serve a full-time mission for the Lord.  Now, how can you be upset about such an honorable choice?  Of course Michael would love to marry her TODAY!  But it looks like we will just have to wait for "The rest of this story"

McKenzie's papers were submitted on Michael's birthday! 

Now the wait begins!

What a couple of great kids!

THE BASEMENT

Just thought I'd share some pictures of the basement area.

Now, remember that flood we had? We would not have been able to
 carpet our entire basement floor like it is if we hadn't had that flood.

The Lord works in mysterious ways:)

Here's a view of the downstairs. 

 There's the bathroom in the middle and then Bryce and

 Michael&Adams bedrooms on either side.

Here's the view lookig down into the basement from the stairs.

Here is our movie area for now. 

We have wired this area to eventually be able to

make it a kitchen area.(someday this whole entire basement can 

be a whole separate living quarters)

 For now this is a great little family room area.

Around the corner in the main area is our ping pong/ game area.  The door to your left is where the

theatre room may eventually go.  It is now being used as a weight/storage room.  The door at the other end of the ping pong table sits underneath our front entry way and is used as a storage room. 

Here is the veiw close to that storage room and shows Stephen's bedroom.

And opposite that china hutch(which was my grandmas) there is a small closet underneath

the stairs which I am using as a family history room.  It houses all of my pictures, scrapbooks etc.

And that is our basement besides the boys bedrooms which are a mess, so I wont be

showing those for a while.  One of these days they will all be cleaned at the same time and I will

dare to take pictures of them. For now, you get the idea:)

Mom and Dad Nelson's 50th Wedding Anniversary

Last night we celebrated my Mother and Father in Law's 50 Wedding Anniversary.  We had hoped that we could get the whole family out here for this but it crept up so quickly after Christmas and we were running out of time.  So, between Me, Darcie, Coleen and Jamie, we pulled off a pretty nice event.

We moved our living room furniture out and set up 4 long tables with room to spare. 

We decorated the place like a dinner theatre.

Everyone except Mom and Dad came early to help set up and get the food ready.

We had a nice dinner of a choice of chicken or salmon with roasted potatoes, green salad and rolls.

Of course Mike started out by toasting to Mom and Dad's 50 years of marriage!

He pointed out how important the family is and how Mom and Dad have accomplished something so rare these days.Then Mark took a turn and that got everyone conversing about old times.

After dinner we had some entertainment by the kids. 

I even sang this time....even though I had to choke back tears throughout my whole song!

After dinner and entertainment, we had Mom and Dad cut their cake that Darcie made.  They cut it and fed it to eachother just as they should have 50 years ago...they said they never did do this part!

They were so cute!  We made them kiss several times because our camera's

 just weren't quick enough to get that shot! Darnit!

Anyway, it was a fun time for everyone.

So, here's to the happy couple!  50 Years of hard work, loyalty, love

and never ending devotion! 

 Cheers!