NEW POST!

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION...

Visited AZ in July - I got a pic of Sadie and Brinlee, but missed Drew...he moves too fast! We had fun shopping for Sadie's school uniforms and made quick dashes out to shop for hats and other 'accesories' for the famed dress-up box. It's always loads of fun with the Phill-bups fam.

Visited Sparks, NV for Carson's 2nd birthday. This is the amazing cake Mally did for the FUN Nemo party in the park. How did I not get a pic of Carson!?! I think Carson got about 100 gifts from the guests, ages 2 days to whatever age Ron and me are. (I know that's probably not proper grammer, but I just couldn't seem to figure it out). Of course Papa and Nana never travel without the 'bounce house', Matt's now famous Christmas present to Drew. The contraption lives at our house, but whenever we go 'on the road' we bring it with us. Loads of funny fun fun!
The big event of the summer(so far) was Sadie's 5th birthday party which we spent at the happiest place on earth, DISNEYLAND ! We wished we could've whisked Matt & Tara here from D.C. too, but the Grovers and Phillips were all there. 6 Adults and 4 kids is pretty good odds for having a safe and enjoyable time in the park. This pic is Sadie in her cinderella dress at her personal birthday party with Mickey and Minnie. She invited me and Aunt Paula to join her, and she decorated her very own bday cake and played some games w/ the characters. Meanwhile - Drew, Carson, Papa, Brad and Kurt rode the rockets, pirates, dumbo, and other "scary" rides that Sadie was not interested in. Brinlee was a cute little bug, riding in the front pac or in the stroller. Wish I had more pics, but I'm doing well just to get this much of a post up! I'll do better in the future. ..And summer isn't over yet! We still have lots of fun planned, starting w/ Paula driving up from CA today...We're gonna see how many movies we can cram into one day at my new favorite movie venue. Lots of yummy food delivered right to our seats in whatever movie we are in...fun! Maybe I can figure out how to document that!

OK, corny, sad kind of blog, but I'm just getting started again...be patient!

THE TURKEY BOX

OK, here's the tradition. For the past 100 years (give or take) the Thue Family has had a Thanksgiving Tradition called: The Turkey Box. Each year a different person constructs a receptacle that looks like a turkey (sometimes you have to squint your eyes to see it, but it IS a turkey,ok?)

Throughout the week before thanksgiving the Turkey Box is prominently displayed in the home, along with strips of paper and pencils. EACH and EVERY member of the family simply cannot wait to write on the strips of paper all the many things they are thankful for, and leaves them anonymouse. The 'thankfuls' are often funny, or sarcastic, or witty, and many times touching and meaningful. The papers are deposited into the box, and after dinner/before pie on Thanksgiving Day, Dad opens the box and reads the contents aloud. Everyone has fun guessing who wrote what, and it is always entertaining and fun. For the past several years, our family has been scattered at Thanksgiving time...from Saskatchewan to the Dominican Republic, from Arizona to Washington DC, from Nevada to Saratoga Springs; but we never fail to do 'the Turkey Box'. The honorary Turkey Box Creator this year was Sadie, the crafty masterpiece is pictured above.

So calling all Thue Family Members...Thues in DC, Grovers in Manhattan Beach, CA, Phillips in Mesa, AZ...enter your thank-yous here (on this blog). I will print them out and deposit them in said box and they will be read on thursday. I will also list them here on friday, and even tho we are all far apart, we will feel closer, because of "THE TURKEY BOX". Traditions keep our family close and I am thankful for that. Hey...that's a thankful...I'm gonna write that one down.

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HEY! HOW COME NOBODY EVER POSTS ON MY BLOG???

I would just like to know...

Sunday in Mt. Vernon with Matt & Tara

The weather vane is a 'dove of peace' chosen especially for the cupola atop the main house at Mt. Vernon by George Washington himself.

These lanterns are hung all over the propery at Mt. Vernon. I thought this one was particularly "Halloweenie" with the spider webs all over it...and it was all Mother Nature's doing, no

special effects here.

Ron and Matt snuck off in the gardens, while Tara and I were taking pictures, to check their fantasy football standings...I guess a guy can only take so much history and culture, eh?

Some berries growing in the HUGE gardens...

"Sunday in Mt. Vernon with Matt & Tara


OK, that was my really lame take-off on a Sondheim musical, "Sunday in the Park with George", which was based on a painting of closely the same title by Georges Seurat...ANWAY.

The next few blogs will be an out- of -order account of our LONG trip, that took us to
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Martha's Vineyard, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

WHEW!


This post is of the 6 days we spent in DC with Matt & Tara, and they were great hosts. Among other things, we had some fun meals out together, went to a driving range where the golf balls are digitized (that's probably not the right word, but whatever) and their distance and landings were tracked and displayed on a screen in each individual driving area (again, I'm sure there is a word for that too...could someone please respond to this post with the right terminology?). Tara fixed us a gourmet salmon dinner, I spent several hours (as opposed to my fantasy of weeks) in the Smithsonian Museums, Ron and Matt went golfing on a course with a close up view of the Washington Monument. We saw Mount Vernon, the US Printing & Engraving headquarters, a midnight- practically- private- tour of the Jefferson Memorial and Roosevelt Memorial, saw the actual White House, and the Holocaust Museum. Not to mention my harrowing adventure in a Hospital ER somewhere in Viriginia; the only good thing about that experience was my gallant ambulance drivers: Matt & Ron. Thanks guys! I believe later that same evening there was a televised presidential debate...I highly (that's a pun folks) recommend watching those things AFTER being heavily medicated for a migraine.
(see my previous post.)

That's all you can take for now I'm sure. Watch here for another random chapter in the account of
Debbie and Ron's 30th Wedding Anniversary-Vow-Renewal-Adventure!

What I did on my DC Vacation...

The Scream(Norwegian: Skrik)
Edvard Munch, 1893
Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard
91 × 73.5 cm
National Gallery, Oslo

Actually, this is not ALL I have done on my vacation, just the most recent in memory. Yesterday, after a trip to the National Holocaust Museum (excellent, more later), and the National Bureau of Engraving and Printing (aka. the money factory), I unfortunately was struck with a horrible migraine. Matt and Ron rescued me to a Virginia area urgent care, hours later we were sent to a hopsital ER, where, finally, they gave me something to interrupt it's progress. I HONESTLY believe that Edvard Munch MUST have been a migraneur himself, because that is the only thing AWFUL enough to have inspired such a work. I'm just sayin...

Vow Renewal #5

First of all, this pic of us at a baseball game accidentally jumped onto this post, and I couldn't figure out how to remove it, so just pretend you don't see it...it has nothing to do with this post.

This August 19th Ron and I will have been married for 30 years...AAAHHH! So to commemorate this momentous occasion we are doing 30 'mini vow renewals' in 30 different locations that have significance to our history together. This one (#5) is the site of our first 'public' kiss. We had enjoyed exactly 3 dates, the BYU semester was over, and Ron was returning to Saskatchewan for the summer to work. I was staying behind in SLC to continuing working. I took him to an address on Margaret street where he was to meet the other Canucks he was carpooling home with, and he caught me by suprise and kissed me goodbye..whereupon I informed him of my opinion on public displays of affection (negative). We sure didn't know eachother very well, in fact it's kinda scary that we got married 3 months from this incident. We said goodbye on Margaret Street in May '78, I visited him in canada for 1 week in july, and the next time we saw eachother was 3 days before our wedding on the 19th of august. Hard to believe, eh? Actually my theory is that if we had dated any longer, I probably would have talked us out of getting married at all, so - lucky for me - 3 dates (plus the farewell on this street), and the thrice repeated proposal worked out perfectly. I'm so glad Ron was persistent.
So kids, that's the story behind vow renewal #5. I'll post a few of the remaining 29 on this station over the next few weeks. Sneak Peak: our 30th will transpire in the place that our eyes first met, Spring of 1976, on the shores of Cape Tormentine, Nova Scotia, Canada, where Ron picked me up from the first ferry of the season to come off of Prince Edward Island. Romantic, huh? Who knew???

Trees !

Our little trees that we planted less than a year ago are finally starting to take off. I think they actually grow faster than the corn planted in the farmer's fields next to our house (and that's pretty fast...it is almost 'as high as an elephant's eye"). It is as if they grow a hundred leaves each, in the dark, every night after we go to bed...when I wake up in the morning and look out back I am so suprised! They are suddenly not my 'little trees' anymore...they are hardly recognizable from the 24 wobbly twigs we put into the ground last fall. YAY! Soon we will have a natural privacy fence and shade in our backyard. And I can't wait for autumn...it will be so pretty ! Ain't nature amazing!?!
And ain't I amazing for actually being able to get a picture and a post on my blog all by myself?!? YAY me! I'd better be careful, or I might get grounded from exclamation points and the BOLD button...hee...hee...hee