~Goodness, gracious! Life clips along at a pretty quick speed! ~

How is it that time just seems to speed up, the older I get?? 

Before I know it, a day is gone, then a week, then a month, and so forth. 

I never had any intentions of being MIA from blogging so long, but then that time thingy happened, and before I knew it "poof", months had passed by.

Wonderful, amazing, miraculous life has been happening around here.

The above picture is from Waikiki, Hawaii. 

My darling husband and I just returned from a lovely and wonderful trip to Hawaii, to celebrate our 30th anniversary!!

Our amazing kids got together and surprised us with the trip! They paid for and arranged everything! The flights, hotel, excursions, etc... 

All we had to do, is pack a bag. 

We have been so incredibly blessed, and the blessings just keep coming. 

I feel truly humbled by the blessings that have been showered upon us.

A huge blessing is that we are going to be first time grandparents!!!!!!

Yep.. we finally get to join the grandparents club, after waiting for years.

Our darling daughter in law is due in July. This is an older picture, of course.
She is really good to update her pictures, but I don't have an instagram account, and that is how she usually does it.
We got the happy news about becoming grandparents on Christmas day.
The last present that was opened was one that our son gave me. It was a bag, and inside the bag wrapped up in tissue paper was a framed picture of a sonogram.
Instantly, I gasped then started to cry.
I blubberly gave the bag to my hubby, and jumped up and gave our daughter in law a hug.
By this time, she was crying too.
I told her that I had no idea why I was crying, but I suppose it was because I was so happy,
She told me that she didn't know why she was crying either, because she had known for a few weeks!!!
Those stinkers knew that they were expecting when they were here for Thanksgiving, and didn't utter a word.
Anyway... we are over the moon happy about being grandparents!

 Gender reveal party.
Our son and wife called after their checkup to see what the gender was. That was on a Wednesday, and they wouldn't tell us!
They wanted to drive down and have a gender reveal party with the whole family.
So that following Sunday, the whole family met, and we had my daughter in laws family on Skype, and she handed me the knife to cut the cake.
Of course laughter, and squeals of delight followed the cutting into to the cake to reveal that the baby is a boy!!
Just my daughter in law and I had been thinking that the baby would be a boy, everyone else in both families thought that the baby would be a girl.
Yay!!! We can hardly wait to meet this darling boy!!
Now... if they could just pick a name! I keep texting my ideas to then, but so far, none of my name ideas have been chosen.
Our son wants a name that is adventurous like : Indiana Jones, or John McClane... etc.
Naturally, our DIL vettos those names... **giggle**
So, if anyone has any awesome name suggestions, I'd love to hear them!!

 A few more pictures from our recent trip.
All of you that are still waiting for snow to melt and the weather to warm up,~~ you are welcome!

 We stayed in a five star hotel that overlooked the ocean and Waikiki Yacht Club.
Boy, did we ever feel spoiled and la~te~da.
Our kids really spoiled us!
When we left Utah, it was snowy, snowy, and cold.
We had to wait for the plane to be de~iced, before the plane could take off.
You can imagine what a welcome sight blue water, palm trees, sand and sun were for us!

 Sunrise over North Shore.
We made it just in time one morning to see the sun rise over the ocean.
We collected a few pieces of beach glass, coral, and lava rock to take home with us.
I put all of our little 'treasures' on a blue colored glass dish in the living room. A constant reminder of a wonderful and lovely trip,

 The LDS Laie Hawaii temple.
We had wanted to attend a session of the temple while we were in Hawaii, but it wasn't open when we were over on that side of the island.
It sure is beautiful though!

 The view from one of our adventurous days.
Our kids arranged for us to go to Kualoa Ranch, and do a two hour ATV ride.
Kualoa Ranch is the setting for many movies and shows :Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and 50 First Dates, Lost, & Hawaii Five-O..., just to name a few.
There are tons of activities to do there, and I would highly suggest a visit there if you go to Oahu.

 Too fun!

Looks impressive.
Made completely out of styrofoam.
Our tour guide looking at a rope that someone had placed on the skull.

 Sunset view from our room.
That view never got old, as you can imagine.
I have this pic as my current computer save screen.... sigh.... wish I had this view each and every day.

While we were on our trip, our youngest son got engaged!!
Goodness, gracious!!
We knew that these two were going to get engaged, but we thought it would be official once we got home from our trip, not while we were away.
He sent us a pic, and told us it was official.
They are so darling together, and I hope and pray that it all works out beautifully.

This is one of my favorite pics that they had taken.
Her dad took it, and I think it shows their cute personalities and how much fun they have together.
Her dad did an excellent job taking pictures, and I think he is planning on taking the wedding pictures as well.... yay!!

So, now y'all are up to speed, as much as possible at least, without having to read a novel...*giggle**.
This is a big year for me:
  * Our 30th Anniversary
  * Our first grandbaby
  * A wedding
  *Four family birthdays in July
  * Me turning 50, later on in the year.
I'll do my best to update this ol' blog more often, and to get around to visit and chat with everyone.
Enjoy this amazing day... 'cause it'll be gone for ya know it ** hee hee**.

Attitude of gratitude:
~Feeling so thankful for the birdsong outside. Seeing robins and hearing birdsong means that warmer weather is on the way.
~Feeling thankful for daffodils blossoming in the yard.
~Feeling so grateful that our youngest son is in fine health this morning, after a late night scare.
Second time that he's had a disabling panic attack. This time we managed to avoid and emergency room visit and the docs giving him nitro.
Seriously, hope and pray this boy finds out what is triggering these extreme anxiety attacks and is able to fix them.
~Feeling grateful for sweet friends that help out... no questions asked, just supportive and loving when we call at 10:30 at night and asked for help with Spencer.

Our view... trees are beginning to green up, as are the fields.

Last nights scene.
The sunset reflecting off the tops of the mountains. A fresh dusting of snow covers the tops of the mountains, but all that moisture sure helped everything green up even more.