12.17.2008

Spencer Coleman Hind 1921-2008


My Grandpa died today. I am so full of emotions of every kind. Grandpa would be a whopping 88 years old in January. He lived a long and full life. I can only hope that I am blessed in the same way. He enriched my own life and many others. At a very young age he contracted spinal meningitis which in the end left him unable to hear at all. However, through his trials, my life has been enriched. I am thankful to have learned sign language among other things from him and my grandma. What a good man he was. I will miss him very much.
Some of my fondest memories are of him coming over to our house daily to feed the horse kept in our backyard. We got occasional rides and unlike most people, we had a HORSE in our backyard! I also remember him taking us to the West Jordan rodeo grounds to ride horses with ice cream afterwards. The there is the rib jab that Grandpa will always be famous for among the grandkids. Grandpa had a great sense of humor and a smile right to the end. What a good example he was to me. I feel blessed to have had him in my life for so long. I am so grateful for my testimony of the gospel and that I know I will see him again. I'm sure we will have a great chat then.

Spencer Coleman Hind
"A Man of Service"
January 10, 1921 ~ December 17, 2008
Spencer Coleman Hind, 87, passed away Wednesday, December 17, 2008 in West Jordan, Utah after a long and productive life. He was born January 10, 1921 on a farm in Smithfield, Utah, the son of James Albert and Amy Coleman Hind.
When Spencer was 7 years old he contracted meningitis and lost his hearing completely. He attended the Ogden School for the Deaf where he met Gladys Allsop. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on December 5, 1940. Spencer and Gladys recently celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary with their family and friends.
In spite of what many would consider a disability he worked hard to support his family. He was a welder repairman for Westinghouse for 35 years.
Spencer was beloved in the deaf community and served the deaf people in many ways. He had a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and passed this faith on to his children. He served diligently in the LDS Church and was a pioneer in the leadership of the deaf branch of the LDS Church. He was the first deaf person in the church to serve as Branch President. He presided over the Salt Lake Valley Branch for the Deaf for eight years. He was called to be a high councilman in the Salt Lake City Park Stake. He was also the first deaf person to serve in that calling. He served in many capacities in the church including as a temple worker and as a full time missionary along with his wife in the Houston Texas Mission.
He loved horses and spent several happy years as part of the West Jordan Riding Club. He also loved dogs, tools, sports, and cars.
The Hind sense of humor is legendary and Spencer was no exception. He loved to tell funny stories and tease his grandchildren.
He is survived by his wife, Gladys; his children, Carol Stirling (Fred) of Pocatello, ID; Spencer J. (Judy, deceased; Karen), Richard (Cindy), Douglas (Karen), Ken (Valorie) all of West Jordan, Bill (Cherri) of Riverton, Janet Taylor (Boyd) of Mesa, AZ. He is also survived by 32 Grandchildren and 47 great- grandchildren. He was proud of his large family and enjoyed being among them.
Proceeded in death by his parents, his brothers Platt & Bernard and sisters Wilda and Thelma.
Services will be held Saturday, December 20 at 1:00pm where friends may call Friday, 6-8 pm and Saturday from 11:45 to 12:45 pm prior to services.
Dad, you can finally hear us.

12.12.2008



Happy Birthday to my sweet and sexy husband. I love you so much.

12.02.2008

Gingerbread houses!!


Okay, okay, so they are only graham cracker houses. I'm lazy, so sue me. The point is that Kyle enjoyed eating...er... decorating his house. Isn't it so cute? Adam chose to go a little "ape shiz" and built a "Shiflett gingerbread house". Noah just had a good time getting his pudgy little hands on as much candy as he could.

11.19.2008

NKOTB...



Don't know what the above title stands for? Well, then you must not be a 30 something female who rocked out to New Kids on the Block concert 18 some odd year ago. And for those of you that also don't know, the New Kids are BACK. So of course this meant that me and my g-friends HAD to see them again. And see them we did! As soon as we heard they were going to be in town we forked out *gulp* $80 bucks with nary a blink. (Our nostalgic sensitivities were totally taken advantage of.) We HAD to be there. "We" includes me and my girls that go way back to Jr. High- Kerri, Jessica, Brianna (cousin too) and also Kerri's cool friend, Shannon. We waited a whole 5 months and when it finally came we were like a bunch of giddy little 12 year olds. When the boys came out the place erupted, the 5 of us doing our part to make sure the New Kids knew the girls were in house. These are pics of the girls just as NKOTB came out. They all looked a little flushed, wouldn't you say??? (Plz, don't kill me, B!)

So after some 2 1/2 hours of SCREAMING, singing and groovin', this 30 year old was spent. Funny because I don't remember feeling this way 18 YEARS AGO. Wow, I feel old. Ahh well. The boys are still older than me.... tee hee hee. Come to think of it, I don't remember a whole heck of a lot from the 1990 Marriott Center concert. Pretty much the only thing I remember is Jordan's open shirt blowing in the breeze....he was my favorite! Goll. What do you expect!


It was a fabulous night with my friends and one that I shan't forget (I hope. :) ) anytime soon. I wish my baby sister could have been there with me as she was the one that was with me during the concert and laughed when I had to sit down for fear of fainting. (I'll never live that one down)



11.18.2008

Wire Whimsy


Still trying to find the perfect thing to grace you mantle top for Christmas or need a adorable hand-crafted gift? Ya'll, you SERIOUSLY have to check out this site. I love this stuff! It's totally unique so you won't have to worry about everybody having the same thing. A lot of time and love are put into these so be sure to check it out and patronize if you feel so inclined!

11.13.2008

Time to print....

my BLOG! I am now at the 75 post mark and this baby needs to go hard copy PRONTO! This is the main reason I am even doing a blog- no, not for you, silly! :)
SO I need your help. I have researched a few ways to print my blog and some of them seem difficult (i.e. editing HTML) or not quite what I'm looking for (i.e. having it professionally bound into a book) What have ya'll done? Or are you lazy like me and haven't done anything? My preference would be to just print it off on my printer and then put it into a binder (I already have a yearly picture book professionally bound) but I don't want all the extra stuff from the side of my blog on the print out. Understand? Anyhoo, any and all suggestions are welcome....please!

11.11.2008

I'm it!

I've been tagged a few times with this one so I guess I'll give it whirl. I actually don't mind tags. I'll get a good laugh one day, I'm sure.

8 FAVORITE TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH
Biggest Loser
LOST
The Office
Oprah
WordWorld
News
*I'm boring. I just don't watch that much TV. The last few were a bit of a stretch.*

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
Subway
Einstein's Bagels (Tasty Turkey on Asiago...Mmmmmm)
Chili's chips and salsa
Cheesecake Factory's cheesecake...duh.
Carl's Jr. chocolate shake
Training Table broccoli soup
Lion House's rolls
Chick-fil-A's cole slaw

*I seriously don't really have favorite restaurants but I do have favorite things to eat at various restaraunts

8 THINGS THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY
Watched PBS with the boys since I couldn't get my rear end out of bed.
Went to Wal-mart
Checked blogs and my email
Made dinner which ended up being only so-so
Went to the Fabric Center where Dawn works to get fleece for YW's on Wednesday. (We are making blankies for PCMC)
Yelled at the dog because he was about to tread on my freshly cleaned carpet
Fell asleep before the news ended
*Wow. Again, I'm boring.

8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO (in no particular order)
NKOTB concert
Staying up until 12am to see Twilight
Me Birfday
Seeing family on Thanksgiving
Seeing my boys reactions on Christmas morning
Getting my hair cut
Being home with my hubby on the weekend
A good nights sleep *hint, hint Kyle AND Noah*

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
Redecorating my bed/bathroom, kitchen, family room... shall I keep going? *sigh*
A trip with just me and Adam
Finishing the basement
Lasik
To be in better contact with all my friends
More ENERGY
Patience in all things
Less doggy doo in my backyard *hint, hint Tommy*
*See, I'm not asking for much!

8 PEOPLE I'M TAGGING
Any 8 people that want to squeeze their noggin's dry.

11.06.2008

Halloween Happenings

I really enjoyed Halloween this year but I think Kyle enjoyed it even more. He has been pumped to get out there to get candy, candy, candy! Every house we came to Kyle said, "Stay here." while he tromped up to the doorstep yelling "TRICK OR TREAT!" or sometimes "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" (LOL) " all by himself. *sniff, sniff* He's getting so big. Noah on the other hand just enjoyed roaming around the neighborhood. He is all about the walking.



Ethan and Amy made the cut for my blog since they were so....creative this year. :)








They were both so cute in the superhero costumes. Kyle would run and look back so he could see his cape "flapping" behind him and then would get upset if it didn't flap in true superhero fashion. Unfortunately I couldn't get Noah to wear his mask. I was lucky to get the cape. Without that he would have just looked like a little boy with tights on...not good...


Whit woo!

The similarity is not a coincidence.


10.31.2008

Okay ya'll, I'm not going to go private...yet but I do want to change my URL. Its a little too revealing for my comfort. So if you are interested in following me (this includes all you who check my blog incognito. I know you're there! :) ) please email me at erinmeg@hotmail.com and I'll send you the new link. If you are on my email list I'll send it to you (whether you like it or not.) This is just one thing I can do to make me feel just a teensy bit less stressed so bear with me. Please try to email me by Nov. 14th. You got two weeks! So git 'er done.

10.30.2008

I am LOVING this Fall. Everybody get outside and enjoy it right now. It would definitely be a shame not to AND *sigh* it won't last much longer.

10.26.2008

Disneyland

Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland. What a sweet, fulfilling, "everything I ever imagined and more" trip. Too cheesy? Nah. Just true. After two years in the works and of inundating Kyle with tons of Mickey/Disney movies, we finally made it. It was so worth the wait too. We did more than Disneyland of course. We went to Seaworld, the beach, the Wild Animal Park and just got to do a lot of hanging out together as family. We went with my parents and my 3 sisters and their families as well and you know what, not as chaotic as I thought! So this trip was more than just Disneyland but dang, it was definitely the highlight for me. You will notice the giant grin on my face in the first picture with Mickey. Yeah, I pretty much acted like one of the kids when I first saw him and RAN to greet him. Kyle was so awed by it all too and this is what I loved the most.


Yay! Love Mickey!! Noah's just interested in his stylin' hat.

Kyle and Papa enjoying some chilly waves.

It took a little coaxing but in the end Kyle loved the ocean.


Kyle and Ellie waiting, waiting, waiting. D-land said they opened for early birds at 7am but it turned out they posted the times WRONG and to make a long story short we arrived 2 hours EARLY!! Kyle said at this point "I want to go to a different Disneyland!"


Morgan, Rachel, Olivia, Kyle, Julia, Anna. Who's the dog in the back?


As you can see Kyle JUST met the 40" mark meaning he was able to go on most of the rides which he did! Lucky boy!


Kyle thought Buzz was pretty cool and loved the Buzz ride. In fact, I think we went on it about 5 times.

Kyle's first Disney ride experience "Nemo" and as you can see he is mesmerised.




Nana and Papa really got a kick out of Kyle's piloting abilities with Dumbo. Up really fast, then down really fast.

Relaxing train ride around the park with family.


End of day #1. Our boys were seriously perfect that day.


Ahhhhh, time to pull up a nice, comfy...shoulder. Thanks, Daddy.


Noah now has own special word for rides and that is "wee" (as in the expression one makes while riding rides). He loved every ride he was able to go on. In this picture he tried to climb the fence to ride with daddy and Kyle while crying "Weeee!"


Kyle and Will on Kyle's "favorite ride", "Winnie the Pooh".


Classic teacup ride pic.



Oceanside, CA- This is where one of our condos was located. Thanks Cyd and Eric!!


Noah wanted nothing to do with Minnie. Kyle got snuggly though. :)


One of the D-land highlights for Kyle. "Lightming NaQueen"!



Noah liked being a big boy and riding by himself.


I was so impressed that Kyle was willing to touch and actually loved these starfish at Seaworld.


Monkeying around at the Wild Animal Park.

Well, its pretty obvious after seeing my mass of pics what part we enjoyed the most. Having said that though, the entire trip was awesome. I planned on being burnt out everyday due to ornery kids and tons of waiting in lines but I was wrong. My kids did really well considering naps were few and far between.
Anyone have any suggestions as to where to plan our next trip? I'm ready to get another planned!

9.29.2008

Six Years and Counting...


On September 27th Adam and I celebrated out 6th anniversary and I am proud to say that we are still oh so in love. Never mind the fact that my sister Cyd had to remind us that it was in fact our anniversary...(In our defense, we celebrated quite a bit prior to our actual anniversary.) It seems crazy that we have only been married 6 years. So much has happened that it doesn't seem long enough: Meeting in Sounding Joy where my hard work paid off in snagging Adam (I take ALL credit), finally forcing Adam to propose to me (yessss), school, the dreaded first year of marriage :), moving and then moving twice more whilst pregnant (yuck), graduation, baby #1 aka Kyle, dog ownership, baby #2 aka Noah, and now baby #.....JK....seriously and just craziness inbetween. (Wedding ring at the bottom of a lake? Yeah, like I said, craziness.)

In a nutshell, it has been an amazing ride so far and I know its just going to get better. I love you, Baby! (This was the inscription inside Adam's long lost ring.)

The following pics are from the good old dating days.