January Joys

January has been somewhat of a restful month...compared to the previous months, that is. I guess it's a good thing. We all needed a little bit of a rest. I had planned on surgery this month, but that got moved to February, so even that didn't add stress to this relaxed month. Dad has been faithfully serving in the Temple, but I took this quarter off because of the surgery I was supposed to have in January. I have had my Relief Society lesson, of course, and Dad and I had to speak in Church, and we had some visits from kids, but all in all January has been slower than some other months have been. We had some very special birthdays in January. I'm going to have to crop pictures for birthdays well ahead of the day I do the blog, though, because none of the cropped pictures I did showed up for blogging. I guess it just takes time for the computer to process them. Anyway, I found some pictures of our birthday kids that I really like, even though they aren't cropped.


This just goes to show you that Shad isn't always being funny. Sometimes he is very serious.

Here is Connie, being her amazing self.

Reygan looks especially pretty here with her cousins.

This is my all-time favorite picture of Albert.

January had been so calm and uneventful...actually not UNeventful, but less eventful, except that Dad has spent a lot of time working on books. He does Joel's books, working hours a day, for which Joel pays him, and then he spends hours a day working on Grandpa's jumbled finances, for which he is hopefully getting paid in blessings. I am very thankful to have a husband who is not only qualified but willing to take on the monumental task of unscrambling my father's finances. Maybe, (do you think?) I was led to that cute, skinny returned missionary because the Lord knew the whole Hiatt family was going to desperately need him almost 50 years later?

Right after the reunion, we put all our missionaries' pictures on our missionary board, with strings and pins to show where they served. We are anxiously awaiting Dallin's call (which his Bishop assures us is in the mail as we speak) to see where his pin will be. Then, Stetson, soon after that.


After the reunion, Dallin, who had received a gift certificate for sky diving, went to cash it in. His whole family went along with him, but I think only Scott actually jumped from the plane with him. I guess the time to do that kind of thing is while you're young, Dallin, before anyone is depending on you. Or, if you're Scott and can do that kind of thing safely because you're in such good shape...right? Or because you want to be up there to protect your son and make sure everything goes as it should. Whatever the reason, I think they had a wonderful time.















Daniel and Connie's family were not able to go to the reunion because of the weather, but they stopped in Moab at Wilson's Arch and enjoyed the beauty and strangeness of God's desert artistry.















After we got back from our snowy reunion, Thomas and Jenn prepared to make the trip to Guadalajara so that he could get back into school. They had all their visas and papers to prove that they belonged together and a new (to them) car that they had bought from David Konopnicki, so they had room to pack away all their Christmas presents, suitcases and kids.
We had a little farewell party to send them on their way.










Goodbye Kirtlyn, Thomas, Hyrum and Maya. Goodbye Thomas and Jenn. We'll miss you all like crazy.




We were glad to learn when they had finally made it safely home, but they had fun on their trip to Guadalajara, stopping by the ocean.








On Shad's birthday weekend, Esther and Shad and their family came to Safford to celebrate with us. It was so much fun to have them here.
Everyone wanted to swim, so we enjoyed the wonderfully heated water, while Esther and Mary shivered on the deck, watching us.

Everyone wanted hats










Super Shad!





















I was scheduled to have my knee surgery on January 24th, so on the 13th Dad and I went to Mesa to have all the pre-surgery tests, a chest x-ray, an EKG and blood tests. Then I had a pre-op consultation at Dr. Matthews' office where Dad had the presence of mind to ask how in the world they could possibly have a knee ready for me by the next week. Dr. Matthews' nurse practitioner said that they were already mapping it according to the MRI that I had had. Oooops! No one told me I had to have an MRI! "Our mistake," she said. "We'll have to get that done and reschedule your surgery for 5 weeks later!" I was angry and upset, to say the least, but my ever-calm husband held me down and I got the MRI done. Now my surgery is scheduled for February 22...I hope.
Nathan and Shauna were in Mesa while we were there. Shauna's Grandmother Fincher had passed away and they came from Omaha for her funeral. It was nice to be in the condo with them and have a chance to visit a little bit before we had to go our separate ways to take care of our separate concerns.


On the 21st, the Hiatts had a cousin party and Rebecca, Rachel, Mary and I went. We stopped and picked up Esther. I needed to go anyway to visit with my parents, so this seemed a good time to go. It was a fun party, with food, family and funny games. It was also an opportunity for me to go by and see our sweet Reygan for her birthday. She turned 13 the day before and I took her our gift while the girls and I were in Mesa. (I have included a cute picture of her when she was at our house last summer, playing "crazy hair" with her cousins, because she looks particularly teenagerish. ) We were all so tired we almost took Jeremy and Erika up on their gracious offer of a place to sleep, but Mary was feeling sick (Linds' disease, Esther says) so we went back to the condo where she crashed on the couch, so as not to expose anyone any more than she already had.







On Martin Luther King day, instead of going on a field trip, Dad and Tyson...mostly Tyson...trimmed our over-grown apple tree. It was a huge job for Tyson, but Dad and Mary offered their support and advice. I just took pictures and the kids enjoyed playing in the branches. I think it's an even better climbing-tree than it was before.
















We went to see Polly's basketball game, finally. She has been playing since Christmas but we haven't been able to go to any of her games until the last Saturday in January. She is really good, too. Quite an accomplished ball handler. DeWitt's been playing varsity high school soccer and we have been to one of his games. We have tried to go to more, but schedule changes have messed us up. Anyway, he's really good too, and it is something he enjoys as much as tennis.








Finally, to top off the month, we and Mary canned 20 pints of chicken breasts. One bottle broke and 3 didn't seal, which I think is not so unusual, but Dad said he felt like a failure...like he didn't get 100% on a test! Whatever, we now have a lot of ready-to-make yummy meals.