. . . . . . . .Life With Grandma & Grandpa Waite: November 2021

Monday 11/1

Every year Linda creates a "Waite Family Calendar"

Here's a "Sneak Peek" at the interactive calendar she created for 2022.

Tuesday 11/2

The autumn leaves are still falling and . . . .

Steve is still blowing and raking leaves so, in an effort to make the job a little easier, he ordered a combination blower, vacuum, mulcher.

Friday 11/5

Steve's new "toy" arrived today !

He got right in and assembled it, read up on how to work it then . . . .

after raking some leaves out of the planter so he could try it out, gave it a whirl.

It does a great job of sucking up and mulching all the leaves

the mulching feature is amazing. All those leaves that used to fill up one of these lawn bags, barely made a little pile in the bottom.

This unit comes with a long hooked tube for cleaning out gutters. Since Steve just did that job last week, he hasn't had a chance to try it out yet.

Monday 11/8

Today we drove in to Dave's house where . . . .

Steve got to "try out" the gutter attachment on his new blower/vacuum. As you can see, it works great !

Given the time of day, we decided to take the back-way home.

We were treated with this view of our beautiful Meridian Temple, all aglow, just on the horizon.

Wednesday 11/10

Today we went to Ridley's Pharmacy in Middleton and . . .

received our COVID-19 booster shots

We participate in a program here in Star called "SOFT-T"

The first Friday of each month the Star Outreach (food bank) drops off a big black bag at our front door with a list of items they are in need of. The following Friday, we put the filled bag outside our front door and they come by and pick it up. It is a great way to support our communities effort to help those in need. We usually get 3 or 4 of each item on the list. We are grateful to be blessed with the ability to help!

Saturday 11/13

Linda made some little Thanksgiving treats

They're not much, but hopefully they will be a fun addition to our thanksgiving table in Bountiful Utah !

Monday 11/15

We spent the day today with some of Steve's family. His sister, Marilyn, and Keith picked us up in the wee dark hours of the morning . . . . 7:00 a.m.

They had to take their tractor up to the cabin for the winter and invited us to accompany them. We had to leave early because the road to Cascade closes at 10 and doesn't reopen until 2.

With only one lane open, the traffic backs up on either side of the construction zone as people try to get to Boise, or McCall before the road closes.

The project they are working on is widening this 4-5 mile stretch of road, which pretty much requires moving a mountain.

We got through the construction and continued on to Cascade, arriving at 9:00. Ron, Cheryl & Dave weren't far behind us and soon joined us at the Cabin.

The "boys" got the tractor unloaded then we had fun visiting, looking at old pictures, touring the "new" upgrades to the cabin and going out for lunch at Grandma's Café.

Before leaving . . . .

we took a group picture . . . wow, what a great looking bunch !

Tuesday 11/16

For several years Linda made Christmas "advent candles" for family and friends but due to old (er) shaky hands it became more difficult and she discontinued making them.

This year, one of our granddaughters made a special request for one of the candles, so after checking and discovering she had the supplies to make one, Linda was able to get the job done. She said: It's not the best one I've every done, but it was made with love!"

Wednesday 11/17

Today we had our Annual Medicare Wellness appointments. Nothing has changed since last year's visit so all is good. We like to be the first appointments of the day because we have to be fasting for all the blood work they do.

The best part of a fasting doctor's appointment is that we go out for breakfast afterward. This is a new place we have never been to before "the Broken Yolk". All they serve is breakfast and brunch.

Tuesday 11/23

We left this morning for Utah. We'll spend the week with Kevin's family and Debbi. We all had a good time together. Here are some highlights from our visit.

Things we took to Utah - Lawn mower (for Debbi), leaf vacuum, Christmas gifts, Thanksgiving craft project, comforters, luggage, etc., we ended up with a carload !

The day started out a little bit stormy here at home with cold, wind and snow flurries, but . . . .

by the time we got a little bit east of Boise, it was beginning to clear up and we had an enjoyable trip.

After a stop in Burley for lunch and Brigham City for Gas, we arrived in Bountiful, at Kevin's home around 3:30.

Kevin received another piece for his GI Joe collection while we were there. A battery operated tank from the early 80's.

On Wednesday Steve, Linda & Kevin drove down to Debbi's where we unloaded the lawn mower,

then with Debbi joining us, we went on down to Draper where we had lunch at . . . .

Café Rio with . . .

Linda's Sister, Karen, her daughter, Shelly, and granddaughter, Tara.

We learned later that Linda's brother Greg was also in town and probably could have joined us. We feel bad that we didn't know and missed seeing him and his wife Ruthie. Karen brought us a couple of boxes of "things" from Linda's mother and we gave her some comforters to share with her kids and one to drop off at Trudi's on her on her way back home.

After lunch we went back to Debbi's and did a "Service Project".

She had a "few" leaves in her back yard that needed to be cleaned up. So Steve, Kevin and Debbi mowed, raked & vacuumed while Linda . . . . uh, took pictures.

Here we are just beginning and realizing that the leaves were deeper than we thought and under the dry top layer, the leaves were still wet.

After a lot of hard work, we got the job done and it looked great !

While Kevin was finishing up the back yard, Debbi did the front yard and Steve trimmed up her rose bushes. Even though it was a big project, we had a good time working together and Debbi appreciated all the help.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day.

Linda had a craft activity for the kids to do . . . .

Decorating turkeys !

They had pipe cleaners, pom poms, jewels, jiggly eyes, feathers, etc., etc. They had fun and got very creative. They each made one for themselves and then one for an adult.

Each turkey had a name on it and was placed on the plate where that person was to sit.

Debbi joined us for the day and, as always, was the center of attention with the kids !

The "Skull King" Card games were enjoyed by the big kids and little ones had fun playing "Go Fish" and "Slap Jack"

While Lani kept busy getting dinner ready . . .

Linda wrapped Christmas gifts . . . .

Movies were watched down in the basement while. . . .

Football games played on the upstairs T.V.

Once the Turkey was done (and that's a whole nother story) . . . .

The "rest" of the story:

We put the turkey in the roaster and checked the temperature. 2 hours later we checked on it and it didn't look like it was cooking as fast as it should. We checked again, and still. didn't look right. Lani checked the temperature gage again and noticed the pointer that was pointing to 350* was just a piece of debris. When cleaned off, the pointer was actually pointing to 100*. We "reset" the temperature and soon we could smell this thanksgiving bird cooking. In the end, the turkey was delicious, just not the golden brown color we are used to. We had a good laugh and dinner was a little later than we planned, but despite it all, it was yummy !