Wendi's Happy Place...........

Happy New Year to all. I know it has been a while since I last made an entrance, but January has been full to capacity for sure. We go the kids back off to school and then on the 7th of Jan. my Aunt Bonnie came down for a visit. We have been go go going ever since. She is my mothers only sister and only sibling. They are 4 years apart and haven't seen each other for a very long time. My Uncle Jim (her husband) passed away this past April and so she has been getting settled in her new place in Willard Missouri and finally had some time to come and make the trek back to her roots here in Mesa. She is the Aunt that I look just like. As a baby, a child, a teenager, a mom and grandma, our pictures are very similar at each age. So there you go you are looking at me when I am that age!!! I now look at our family pictures and say, who told Aunt Bonnie she could be in this picture!!! Anyway, here we are at the Mesa Cemetary at their parents gravesite. We went that day not even realizing it but it was Grandma Brown's birthday so that was cool. We have been very busy since Aunt Bonnie arrived, the pictures are of some of the places we have gone. The one with them in front of a house is the house they grew up in on W. 2nd Place in Mesa. I had never seen that old house before and so it has been really great to hear the old stories. We made the journey to Woodruff Arizona where a lot of our ancestors are burried. It was a beautiful day, could not have been more perfect weather. We saw all of the old headstones of so many of the people who paved the way for our family and so many others. That was really cool. Then we went and found my Grandmother's home where she was a little child. I remember when my great grandma was burried there (I was 6) and we went to the old home then. I really do remember it. So we went hunting. They lived way out of Woodruff and there was hardly anything left of the old foundation, but we took that picture of us both sitting on what was the kitchen wall. It was really sad to see how much of it has crumbled away, but still cool that we found it. We went home through Snowflake and showed her the Temple. My friend Marilyn was a trooper and went with us. Thanks Marilyn. My mom could not go, I was sad about that. But we have had many adventures since the 7th. We have wandered down Main streed (memory lane) and gone to the anitque stores (memory lane) and have shopped, and sewn things, we did scrapbooking things the other day much to my aunts demise (she actually caught the bug!!!). We have eaten ourselves into oblivion and back again. Cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, she does not sit for one second!!! I hope that I have her energy when I am her age, cuz I sure don't have it now!!! We've held babies, put together sharing times, gone to the Temple, and so much more. I just want to say that family is great and I am so glad my Aunt came to see us. I have missed her and so has my mom and so this has been a great adventure. We have her until the 31st and then she will leave to go home to the cold cold weather in Missouri. She prayed for beautiful weather while she was here and I guess her prayers have been answered. So there is my January, I hope yours is going great. Making memories is what I like to do best, and believe you me we are making them at a hundred miles an hour!!!