Yard Sales and Swimming

I woke up this morning realizing that I forgot to go to my Dad's house like he asked me to. My dad's neighborhood was having a massive garage sale today. He had taken a lot of things from his parents house and he wanted me to look through and see if there was anything I would want. I hurried over there early this morning. I was able to help my dad and Matt pull things out to the driveway. I had just placed a fancy glass candy dish on the table when my dad came by carrying something long. He knocked over the candy dish with the long thing he was carrying. The dish is now in 1,000 pieces. Matt was teasing him that Grandma was able to keep that dish for years and years and Dad breaks it first thing. Anyways, I brought home a few boxes of knick-knacks. They had a lot of African stuff which would look great in our jungle room. They also had a lot of Oriental stuff, which Jorja and Preston might like. I also took this chandelier. Jorja used to have a chandelier in her bedroom, we haven't hung it up since her room was painted. She's asked for it back several times. I thought it would be more fun to have a chandelier from her great-grandparents rather than a chandelier that was here when we bought the house.

We also found some old pictures. I took pictures of a few of the pictures. Here is one of my grandpa in his swimming suit on his mission. Haha!

Grandpa Millburn

Grandpa took a 6 month trip home. He went through Germany and took a picture of one of the buildings, I think this was 1943. The crazy thing was, he walked through Germany right as the Nazi's took power, but before they went super crazy. Well, they were probably always super crazy, but this was before they started invading other countries. I'm guessing he had no idea what the symbol meant on those flags.

 Olive Branch (Grandpa's mom) ~ she met Grandpa in Hawaii

 Grandma Millburn

Matt's kids had fun playing outside. Jeff is funny. He was running around in circles laughing and laughing. Life has gotten so much better for him once he decided to walk!

Anne, Greg, Jeff

Gregory

 Anne said, "I've never seen a baby pray before!"

 Anne, Greg, Jeff

I felt better today, but not great. I procrastinated doing my chores. I would work on them at a super slow rate. I remembered BYU was playing in a tournament game for baseball. It was do or die and on ESPN3. I decided to watch that and finish up the dishes later. Stockton had a friend that was opening his mission call up on Traverse Mountain. I helped him leave for that. (His diving friend, Matt, was called to the Fort Worth Texas mission.) As Stockton was driving away I started wondering when Harry was getting married. (Harry is our bishop's son and he is Maysen's age. Crazy!) I found the invitation and felt so sad when I saw the wedding was today. The reception was up at Traverse Mountain. Well, that would have been helpful to remember about an hour earlier. I couldn't get anyone to go with me. Mike was covered in sprinklers and my family was supposed to be over soon. I just jumped in the jeep and hurried up there. They had pizza and ice cream for the food. I thought that was fun. I didn't have the pizza, but the honeycomb gelato was delicious!

My family came over for a swimming party tonight. The kids were really excited the pool was finally open! I stayed out of the pool. Didn't want to get any sick germs in there.

Stockton & Gregory

All the kids love the ice machine. What's not to love? Don't worry. I got all the ice Jeff was digging in out; but look how happy he is!

Jeffrey

I finally got cheese for Maysen's nacho bowl. We have put salsa in before, but Maysen has always wanted cheese. What service she provides for the swimmers.

Maysen, Anne & Matt, Stockton

 Maysen, Dad, Anne & Matt, Max

 Maysen, Dad, Stockton

 Stockton

Amelia, Jorja, Anne

 Millie & Anne swimming by themselves!

 Night swimming is always a lot of fun. Not sure these guys have tried it before. 

 Last fun of the night? Snowcones!

Amelia, Anne, Abby, Ella, Preston, Lincoln

One Hundred Years and One Day

I didn't get a chance to read my dad's blog yesterday, even though I knew it was up. I read it this morning. I wish I would have read it yesterday, because my dad mentioned how May 21st of this year would have been my Grandma Millburn's 100th birthday. That would have just been cool to think about during the day.

Grandma Millburn

I stole these pictures from my dad's blog. Yesterday also would have been my Grandma & Grandpa Millburn's 75th anniversary. I love this picture of my grandparents. Someone watched my grandpa hold the drinking fountain for my grandma and thought it was so cute they snapped a picture. She talked to my grandparents afterwords and sent this picture to them. How nice! When the lady complimented my grandpa for being chivalrous he replied, "I'm not being chivalrous. I just wanted the water to get cold." Haha! Grandpa Millburn was so funny!

Grandpa & Grandma Millburn

Anyways, I think I will copy what was written on my dad's blog here when I get a chance. My kids check my blog more frequently then my dad's, and I think it would be nice for them to hear some stories about my mom. Even the sad ones.

I also forgot to write about Mallory yesterday. Cassie went into the end of singing time because she was going to teach Trevor's class. Mallory was crying. Tears were streaming down her face. Cassie went up to her and asked what was wrong. Mallory said, "These are happy tears. We just sung a beautiful song." Cassie wasn't convinced so she went to the teacher and asked her if Mallory was okay. The teacher told Cassie that she just thinks Mallory was feeling the spirit. When we got home we asked Mallory what the song was and she said that she couldn't tell us, then she pointed secretly to John. Must be a Father's day song.

This morning Cassie and I went to Costco with Trevor, Brandon and Collin. We then stopped to see John at his work for a bit. The first picture I took of John you could see more of his office, but you could also see what he was working on on his computer screen. We thought maybe that wouldn't have been the brightest idea.

John

Mallory and Trevor had a baseball game. Luckily it wasn't rained out. Mallory got to be pitcher the first inning. The coach pitches, but Mallory got to stand on the mound. Boy did she love that! She would throw her arms up in celebration, sometimes even while the play was still going. It was so funny!

Trevor ~ shortstop, Mallory ~ pitcher

 Mallory

 Trevor just smacked the ball!

 Trevor was the last batter, so he got to have a homerun!

 Mallory

 Trevor got to be pitcher too, the coach is giving him pointers.

 I had Mallory recreate her pitcher's mound celebration after the game.

Cassie ran home during innings and put lasagna in the oven. After the game, John pitched to Mallory, Trevor and Brandon. They had fun running the bases. Mallory did a 'slide' into home. Really she tripped and had quite a fall. We cheered about her awesome slide, but she has been limping on her leg sense. Brandon also had an awesome slide. He was running to first after he hit it. He decided to slide about halfway to first base. He did a diving slide. What a nut! Cassie had a delicious lasagna dinner ready for us when we got home. My kids are never that lucky!

I read Goodnight, Baseball to the kids before bed. I don't think I have ever read the book before, although I have given it to three of my nieces and nephews.

Stephanie, Trevor, Mallory

Brandon, Collin, John

Tonight I'm sleeping in Mallory's bed. I will have slept in all three beds in the kids room. Cassie wanted to move Mallory's mattress down because she thought it would be better on my back. John and I convinced her I could sleep on the top. The memory foam does seem really comfortable.

John & Stephanie

John defeated me in 5 Straight, then I defeated him in Ticket to Ride. It was a weird Ticket to Ride game. Both of us concentrated on the East coast. I have never done that before. This is what the board looked like when the game was over.

I asked John if he had read Dad's blog. He hadn't. John looked it up and read it. We then talked about mom for a long time. Mostly about the day she died. What we were doing. Nice things people said. Weird things people said. Teachers that were nice to John. Like how John didn't do his big science project and his teacher just told him it was okay. Teachers that were mean. Like how one of Mike's teachers gave Mike a really bad grade and had no sympathy about what he was going through. Didn't matter that he had to spend his after school time getting ready for the funeral, going to the viewing, dealing with hard things that most adults struggle with. Didn't matter at all. Annoying because Mike was a junior in high school and his grades really mattered at that point. Anyways, we talked for a long time again. We went to bed around 1:30 in the morning. Cassie fell asleep on the couch before we started games.

John was telling me about something Stockton had written when he was Mallory's age and how funny it was. John showed it to me and we were laughing so hard. I was crying. It was so funny. I will need to show the kids when I get home.

Oh! That reminds me. John and I were talking about baseball. John wants to eventually go to all the Major League ball parks. He would really like to go to at least one new park a year. I told him we should make a tradition to meet at a new ballpark once a year with the six siblings. How fun would that be!?!

Grandma Honey's 75th Birthday

Maysen and Preston helped me make cake for Grandma Honey's birthday.  She would have been 75 years old today.  Wow!  I can't even imagine that.  The cake also served two purposes.  It was the treat for Family Home Evening and the treat for family dinner.  Stockton gave the Family Home Evening lesson.  We did it in-between conference sessions.  He made a word search and had different words like anger, honesty, joy, selfishness.  The thing was, as we soon realized, only the positive words were in the search.  I started looking for anger.  It was not there.  Soon I figured out to skip all the negative words.  Stockton said that if you do things that Jesus wants you to do, you will find what you are looking for.  If you do things Satan tries to get you to do, you won't find anything - you won't be rewarded.

Conference is over.  All of my children listened to every session.  Well, Preston went upstairs during one of the talks I think.  Still, I was impressed with them!  I love conference and am looking forward to listening to the talks again this week.  Hopefully.  I have such a bad memory, it helps to listen to conference twice.  Once with the family and once by myself.

My family came over for dinner tonight.  Gayle arrived first.  She brought me a broach from my grandma that matches my bracelet!  I love it!  It was fun having everyone together.  I was able to play Dominion with Matt, Sam and Mike.  Sam won.  I almost snuck up and won the game.  Sam made one mistake.  I knew if the cards fell just right I would win.  I was able to draw two extra cards.  I only needed two more coins.  Instead I drew two victory cards.  Talk about a choke! Anyway, it was a great day and no one got electrocuted from all the weird wires hanging from the ceiling.  That was a very good thing!

Gold Nuggets

I went down to my dad's house to pick up the bracelet Gayle found for me.  Years and years ago, before I was married, Grandma Millburn had me go through her jewelry box.  My grandma had tons of fancy jewels. She wanted me to pick out something that would be passed down to me.  I found this bracelet and asked her about it.  She said that she had it made from some gold nuggets my great-great grandfather brought home from the gold rush.  (I'm pretty sure it was my grandma that had it made into a bracelet, but not positive.)  Anyway, how cool is that? My great-great grandfather had a saloon in Alaska during the gold rush. These were his.  I think my grandma thought it was weird that out of all her fancy jewelry, this is what I wanted.  I just really thought it was awesome.  Anyway, after my grandma died I asked my dad about the bracelet.  He and Gayle looked for it, but they couldn't find it anywhere. Gayle told me that grandma wanted me to come and pick out a piece of jewelry, I just never did.  Anyway, when Gayle was getting ready for Jae's wedding, she was looking around for something to wear.  (Gayle lives at my Grandma and Grandpa's condo.)  She came across this at the bottom of my Grandpa's sock drawer.  I think.  I was glad Gayle found it and remembered that it was for me!  I love it!

I took Maysen, Stockton and Jorja to the eye doctor today.  Stockton has 20-40 vision and needs glasses.  He asked for contacts.  Jorja also asked for contacts.  I told the doctor I wanted Maysen to try contacts, but she refused.  So, Maysen has glasses and the other two came out with contacts.  I wish Maysen would just trust me sometimes.  She would like contacts if she gave it a try.  They're not that bad and definitely better than glasses!

Funeral Pictures

John was gone by the time I woke up this morning.  I'm glad it is just a few months until we get to see him again!  Stockton sang in the youth choir at Stake Conference.  He did a great job!  I also found pictures from the funeral yesterday.  For some reason I could not find them when I was working on the blog post.  I knew I had taken more pictures then just pictures of Amelia!  Although she is adorable.

Bubs, Billy, Chris Cremer, Matt

Mark, Todd (or Todd, Mark) Jae, John

 Same picture, but this time you can see Bubs

 My dad and Gayle

 My dad and Gayle

 Preston wanted to wear a flower

 Maysen and Millie

 Jorja and her grandpa

 Amelia, Maysen, Jorja, Ella

 Millie, Maysen, Jorja, Ella, Abby

 Jorja and Amelia

Grandma Millburn's Funeral

Today was my Grandma's funeral.  We were able to make it to the viewing before the funeral, which was nice since I was the only one who could go to the viewing last night.  Her funeral was good.  A lot of really nice things were said about her.  The cousins from California all came, along with many of the Jex family.

My kids were excited to be able to hold Amelia!  Besides Stockton, this was their first time they were able to hold her.  Maysen was able to see her at the hospital, but she was already in her carseat, so she didn't get to hold her.  That was probably their favorite part of the day!

Stockton and Amelia

 Maysen and Amelia

 Preston, Maysen and 'Millie'

 Amelia and Jorja

After the funeral and a few games of Dominion, Mike and I went up to his house one last time.  Now it is officially someone else's house.  We tried to get the plaster handprints out of the bridge, but the only one that didn't break was the one of the cat.  Boo!  As we were leaving, I had Mike take a picture of the front of his house.  I couldn't remember if we had one of those.  This place was sure a wonderful place for him to be raised!

Mike and I also had to pick up a few things from Walmart.  Most importantly, pictures for Preston.  When we got home, we started playing Dominion with John and Matt.  We played until two in the morning.  I love it!