4th of July week celebration

We have had some good times with family the last few weeks. So good to have Jake and Annie around for a few days. We enjoyed a family walk in the Crestwood Park. This is a park by our house that we did not even know was there until a few months ago. Don't even know what is under your nose sometimes.

One of the neat things we have done this summer is attend the Callister Reunion in Oak City. This was a fun time for those there, and our boys played a big part in having Grandma Callister there by "Skype". Most of those there had a chance to visit with her "face to face" using Skype. What a great treat for her. This is the first reunion she has missed in 75 years. Josh, Dan, Angie and I took a side trip to the cemetery to visit family grave sites. This is Joseph Platte Callister's. We are learning a lot about him from Jacob's and other's great interest in his life.

OK, So Dan and Angie gave me an early Birthday present this year. We went to a Peter Cetera Concert in Logan. This is kind of a scary picture, but we are there together enjoying the music and good company. For those who don't know Peter Cetera, he was a part of the wonderful group "Chicago" one of my very all time favorites, before he decided to go off on his own. He sang many wonderful Chicago songs, and some great ones of his own. Loved it!!!!!! Dan fixed us all dinner before the show and so it was a very awesome evening . Thanks again Dan and Angie.

A blurry picture of Peter Cetera, but the best I could do. Very good concert. He still has the voice....even though he is about 65.

The 4th of July weekend made for some fun family times. Because Jake and Annie were here, we planned time together. You can see that one of the things that happened was Ping Pong. Dad was in heaven to have his 3 boys there playing with him. This almost never happens. He said that they were pretty evenly matched as well.

We had our monthly Family Home Evening On the 4th of July. We missed having some of the regulars (Deb and Stephen), but had Jake and Annie there. We even had Jake give the lesson. He did a great job...thanks Jake. Amy and Tom brought some extras with them. Amy's brother was visiting from New York State with his wife and 4 children. It was fun to have them with us. We celebrated Andrew's birthday as well.

My three boys together. Handsome (if hairy) boys!!!!!

We bought a big box of fireworks and Caleb was the official lighter, and he did a great job. The fireworks were especially good we all felt. Lots of oohs and aahs. Good times!!!

On the 5th of July we all went up to Brigham City to see Jake play with some of the lokalgrown band members. He was wonderful of course, and it is always fun to hear him play. We have had a busy last few days, and are looking forward to some more good times in a month or so. Deb and Stephen will be coming home, we will maybe get to see Rachel and kids for a couple of days, we will move Dan and Angie to Moscow Id, go on a family history trip to So. Utah with Jake and Annie and others that can go, and we are excited also to be going on a trip with Catherine and Jim to some of the highlights of So. Utah. Sounds like another fun blog entry. We love all of you so much and are grateful for the Joy you bring into our life!!!!!

We took a trip to Moab/Arches, this last week. What fun we had with Dan and Caleb, Samantha, and Andrew. It was actually Angie's idea, but she ended up not being able to go with us....we missed you Angie!!!!! We camped by the Colorado River and the first night we ate very Yummy foil dinners that Dan made for us.

Next morning, bright and early, we hiked up to Delicate Arch . The kids where such good hikers!!! They where filming a movie there that morning and so we had to wait a few minutes till it was OK for us to be by the Arch. The filming crew got 10 min. and the public got 10 min. It worked out OK....the kids were ready to move on in that amount of time anyway.

Andrew, Sammy, and Caleb by the Arch. Such a pretty view. A nice way to start the day!

We had a good time camping in our tent trailer. We slept everyone in there except Caleb...he had his own little tent cause he sleeps better alone. It was nice to have the trailer....I loved it.

We did another hike in Arches and then everyone was very tired and very very hot. We just wanted to get cool. so close by the camp site was a nice sandy spot, and everyone but Maureen jumped in and had a blast cooling off in the Colorado River. This was one of the best parts of the whole trip.

The tent trailer was our only shade for a good part of that day. So with a breeze coming in the windows, we played some fun games. We played a fun one that Dan brought and Sammy won every time.

Next day we drove to Dead Horse Point. What a beautiful place! I had never been here before and I was very impressed. It is kind of like a mini grand Canyon. Awesome! The kids loved playing on the rocks by the visitor's center and trying to catch lizards.

One of the last things we did was to take a side trip (about 2 miles off the road) to see some dinosaur footprints in the rocks. Wow this was very cool. Everyone in the picture is standing in one of the footprints. In this spot you can see 3 sets of different dinosaur prints, and they say there are more. According to Dan, these were not even discovered till about 30 years ago. The kids thought this was very cool. We want to thank Dan for coming even though Angie was not able too, and Josh and Deena for letting us take the kids. It was a fun three days.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

This post is mostly for Catherine and Jim. We watched your fun video from Las Vegas..... and the kids loved it and watched it over and over. They wanted to share one that Derid put together for Christmas. Enjoy

our trip to Oregon

We had the best time in Oregon with Jake and Annie!! It rained pretty much the whole time we were there...that is why it is sooooo green and beautiful. We were lucky enough to have Angie along as well. The five of us went to Crater Lake and stayed in a very cute little old cabin for one night. Crater Lake had about 10 feet of snow, the wind was blowing and we about froze. But it was so pretty and amazing. Luckily the cabin we stayed in was not as high elevation so no snow there. We saw some beautiful stuff and on the way home stopped in Jacksonville..an old town with many little tempting shops. We also stopped for some homemade Raspberry Rhubarb Pie and Jam. YUMMY. We had lots of fun just hanging about Jake and Annie's home visiting and playing games. What great hosts they were to us.

Aunt Catherine and I have been having a good time since she arrived here last Monday. We have seen Grandma and had a good visit with her, done some shopping, watched some movies and created with the sculpy clay. Look out, you all may recieve more key rings in the future :) One thing we also did was visit Grandpa down in Venice. We were so excited to see how nice the place looks since we had the big tree in front removed, had a sprinkling system put in, layed sod, and other great details done. It looks great!!!!! We are no longer the eye sore of Utah. It is so great to have a sister to share these things with. Love you Catherine!!

callister comfort food.

I don't really like to cook, but lately i have been trying to motivate myself to be less lazy about it and just do it. So, I am determined to begin cooking more- i guess it IS part of my job description whether i like it or not. So, I am starting by going through the little cookbook mom gave me several years ago. I am actually enjoying making food that i remember as a kid ( and teenager). Here are two items that you all may recognize. The joy of eating and sharing these "callister comfort foods" takes away some ofthe bite of cooking.

love you all

rachel

just stopping by

i know there are some people who don't have access to my blog but check this one ( catherine:)- so i trhought i would stop by and share some pics. this morning derid brought ellie in with this shirt on- i am glad that jim's creation gets another chance to shine. we are enjoying lubbock. it isn't green- it isn't lush- but there is a quiet crispness to the air. it is fresh and the sky is brilliant. my little family will definitly thrive here. love you all. if you want an invite to my blog then give me your email address. rachel_ure(at)yahoo(dot)com

Alex's Birthday Party

Tom and Amy and Melonie Christmas Party

Kristin and Rachel at the Christmas Party

Stevie, Andrew and Dan at the Christmas Party

Angie, Alex and Caleb at Christmas party

Samantha, Derid, Tayson and Stephen

at Christmas party

Deena and Deb, Chriatmas party

Christmas party

Christmas party

Christmas Day

Anniversay Family Dinner

I am finally updating my blog. A lot has happened the last two months. We had a birthday party for Alex on the 21st of November. Her birthday is the 23rd. We had most of the family that live around here there for the fun. She is 16 yrs old now and will be driving soon. We hope that she drives to our house often.

We had a great Thanksgiving feast with much of the family here for that. We have decided to have our celebration on the Saturday after Thanksgiving with the hope that less conflict with other family time will be better for all. It turned out to be a great idea and we will make that our tradition. We enjoyed the company of the Josh and Deena Callister family, the Dan and Angie Callister family, the Stephen and Deborah Skokos family, and the Tom and Amy Callister family. We ate good food, played some games and watched a bit of the Utah/BYU football game.

December brought us some additional visiters. The Derid and Rachel Ure family. Derid had graduated from Ortho school and will now be starting to work in Lubbock TX as an Orthodontist. We had the joy of spending some good time with them in December. Alex had the opportunity to sing in the chorus for the Christmas production of "The Forgotten Carols" . We went to see that at the Cottonwood High School, and it was very good. Loved to see Alex singing on stage. We had our annual Christmas party on the 12th this year. It worked out really well. We had 4 of our 6 children and their families there and would have had no one had we done it on Christmas Eve. So we are willing to break from tradition and have more of the family there...it is kinda what it's all about. We had the same people there as we did on Thanksgiving but added the Ure family and Kristin. Sooo much fun!!!!! The day started with a "Surprise" party for Derid. His family came down from Idaho and we met at the Macaroni Grill resturant for lunch. We told Derid that we wanted to take he and Rachel out for lunch to celebrate his graduation. When we got to the resturant, most of his family, and alot of ours were there to surprise him. After, we all came to our home and were able to bless their little baby Ellie. It worked out so nice to have all that family there together for that.

Our actual family party started with a trip to Grandma's Rehab to visit with her and to go caroling down the halls. It is fun to do and see the excitment on the faces of many of the residents. Some join us in their wheel chairs and walkers. Thanks to Dan for playing the guitar and getting the music together for that. We came back home and ate yummy food and played some traditonal Callister games......candy bar game, decorating gingerbread houses, What Were You Thinking (Christmas style), and of course the Chimes. We exchanged true white elephant gifts and all had a good laugh at those. Good time!!!!

Chritmas Eve Von and I went for a wonderful snowshoeing hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon on the Red and White pine trail. Amazingly beautiful!!!!! That evening we had Tom and Amy and family over for dinner and some games. Christmas day was fun because we had visits from Josh and family and Stephen and Deb. We played Apples to Apples ( a new kid favorite) and a new game that Stephen brought into the family "Bang".

On our Anniversary the 27th, we had family with us again. Family home evening with everyone in town but the Ure's...they were still in Idaho. But on the 29th we had a wonderful time in the Jordan River Temple as a celebration of our 35th anniversary. We (Josh, Deena, Stephen, Deb, Derid, Tom, Amy, Von, Maureen) did sealings as a family and that was a very special experience. A little side note to this is that Deborah wore my wedding dress in the Temple that night.

As you can tell the last 2 months have been awesome and blessed with lots of family time together. We know that everyone is busy, and we hope to see most of you in this year. Have a great 2010.

Trip to Nauvoo

So I am finally getting around to posting about our trip to St Louis and Nauvoo. We had such a great time. Of course when you travel with Dan and Angie it is always fun. Just so you know, I always get these pictures on in the wrong order, but oh well!! We spent Dad's birthday at Rachel and Derid's and they made the day fun for us all. We had the weekend to be with them, and we went to the famous Arch. Dan and Angie, Tayson and Derid went to the top. It is a very exciting thing to do.

We also went to "The City Museum" with the Ure's. IT is an amazing place. It is sort of a playground for adults. IT is very random with slides and interesting things to climb and crawl through. This is Dan and Angie crawling through a wire tube that is about 100 feet of the ground. I was happy to be taking the pictures.

We also went to the historic Cahokia Mounds which are very close to St. Louis. It is the remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico. This area had hundreds and thousands of people living there hundreds of years ago. Very Very cool!!!!

So on our way home we visited many different sites. We went to Liberty Jail, Far West, and Adam-ondi-Ahman. I loved walking around Adam-ondi-Ahman. I had not really wanted to take the time to go there. But am sooo glad we did. What a peaceful and, I thought, beautiful place. I did some more reading about it when I got home. Loved it!!

We continued into Colorado, and spent some time in Rocky Mountain National Park. It had snowed the day before, so we could not go all the way through it, but what we saw was very beautiful. We stayed the night in Craig Colorado, then on to Utah. We went to Vernal and climbed to the "Native American Rock Art" that is so amazing. There is so much to see and you can get right to them. Many of these are 2000yrs. old. I appreciate the sacred history that they portray.

We went at the "off" season, so we were the only people at most of the church history sites we visited, which is my favorite way to see them. It is so peaceful and you can really get a feel for the history and events that took place there. We are at Carthage Jail here in this picture. There is a very special feeling here.

We drove about 20 miles north east from Nauvoo to a little town called Webster. It is here that Thomas Callister lived and owned property. According to the records this peace of land was the very place he owned. The little town probably did not look much different then it does right now. Pretty cool. We were also able to locate the property of both Amasa Lyman and Edward Partridge in Nauvoo.

Out side of Nauvoo there is a really cool cemetery and it is here that many of the Mormons were buried. Edward Partridge is buried here in an unmarked grave. This is the monument there that the Church dedicated to his honor.

We had the opportunity to attend a session in the beautiful Nauvoo Temple. It was made to look as much like it might have then. It had wooden floors with carpets on them for example. Of course they had to make it modern and functional in most ways. I loved it!!!

This is the Temple as the pioneers would have seen it. Nauvoo is a little peaceful place. There are several homes and businesses that were built and owned by the pioneers that have been repaired by the church and it truly gives you an idea of what it all might have looked like then. A really neat place.
We are so grateful that we were able to take this trip. We could have spent much more time in each of these places. Thanks to Dan and Angie for going with us and sharing the experience. And thanks to Rachel and Derid for taking such good care of us.