2012 Watson Reunion

It had been four years since I last went to a Watson reunion, so this was Stephen's first time meeting the extended family on my mom's side. We both had a blast. I even made a whizzy this year which was my first one in the adult group. We had a garage sale scavenger hunt, played all sorts of pioneer games, some of the family did skits from real stories about great grandma and grandpa watson and Gold, the pony express came riding in to deliver letters, lots of food, candy, naps, and fun!

 Here comes Elmer, Elmer's got a gun.....

 Grandma and Grandpa Watson

 Dad and I dressed up for the pioneer day, so we had to take a picture. This is my favorite.

For those of you who don't know what a whizzy is, it is a Watson family tradition for everyone to make a "whizzy" or some sort of craft for less than a dollar and wrap it up. We play like a white elephant exchange, so you open a whizzy and people can trade gifts so on and so forth. The Watsons are all pretty talented with wood working and sewing, so most of the whizzys are shelves, chairs/benches, tables, blankets, etc...that someone made so these whizzys are gifts that you would want to have not like a white elephant where you are trying to get rid of something you don't want.

I came up with my whizzy about a month ago just out of thin air. I thought some cute clay garden stakes would be fun to have out in my garden, so I made it my whizzy. I thought it was a great idea, so I stuck with it, but by the time I had finished my whizzy I didn't like them. I was really disappointed they didn't turn out the way I had them pictured in my head. I even contemplated whether or not I should even bring them, but I didn't work on those for hours and hours after work for nothing. I thought if no one else liked them I would take them and put them in my own garden. Turned out that everyone loved them much to my surprise. They got traded a few times and broken in the process, but I ended up winning the prize for most creative whizzy and the grand prize for best over all whizzy this year. I even had a few people tell me they would pay me if I made them some garden stakes and that I should sell them on Etsie!

On top of all that I guessed the exact number in order to be the first and last to choose a whizzy so I could get whatever gift I wanted at the end which makes the whizzys so much more enjoyable because I didn't have to sweat over which whizzy I would end up with. I chose one of grandpa's boxes that he made, because owning a box that grandpa made is something pretty special in our family, so everyone wanted them and some people get a little jealous, but hey, what can you do?

 My cute little garden stakes.

 Grandpa's box that I picked to take home.

Meet Toby

So we have only had our little kitty for a week and already we have made some big mistakes. First off, a few days after we brought him home,last week, I noticed that he was acting really strange one morning; he wasn't his usual self. He kept walking like he was flat out drunk--stumbling over losing his  balance, walking really slow, and walking into corners all the time, his meow wasn't even the same, and he had diarrhea really bad. I got worried because I had never in my life seen anything like this before, so I called up the vet to make an appointment. Well they didn't have an opening available for a few more days and after I told him what the symptoms were, he told me to take him to an animal hospital right away. So we rushed our little lame kitten to the hospital to see what was going on.

After about 45 minutes of being poked and prodded the doctor came in and told us that our kitty had gone blind. I was crushed. We had a normal, healthy kitten four days earlier, and now he's gone blind?! What happened? So it turned out that it was our fault that Toby went blind. We made a trip to the grocery store the day after we brought him home and picked up some food and other stuff for the kitty along with some dewormer because we hadn't taken him in to get his shots yet. You are supposed to put the dewormer in his food and he wouldn't know the difference. I thought a deworner was a great idea since I caught ring worm as a child from my cat, and I didn't want that to happen again. Anyway, it turned out that we O.D.ed him on the medication and one of the side effects is temporary blindness (even though the bottle never listed side effects of any kind that I saw).

I went to bed that night so sad for my little kitten, but thankfully, a few days after he was diagnosed Toby got better and regained his sight. A few days after that, we noticed that Toby was a boy and not a girl as we had been calling him. So we changed his name from Tessa to Tobias or Toby for short. We sure love this kitty!

I debated whether or not to post this video, but while we were waiting in the hospital Stephen and I could not, for the life of us, stop laughing at the cat because he was so funny walking around stumbling over. The funniest part was when we walked into the corner of the room and just started banging his little head against the wall over and over (I didn't get my phone in time to get that in video). It really wasn't funny because were sad, but we couldn't help but laugh at the same time. This way you can kind of get an idea of what he looked like poor thing.

Meet Tessa

This is Tessa our newest addition! I took her home from the Franklin farm on Monday. Stephen and I have been talking about getting a kitten, but never got around to finding one until David asked me if I wanted to take this one home after I caught her for Courtney to hold. She's super cute and cuddly!

Grandma Pettingill's Funeral

Grandma Pettingill had been sick for many years with Alzheimer's disease. She past away last week while the girls were in town for a visit. The first thing that came to my mind when I received the news was, "yay, she can finally be with her daughter Alene again after 75 long years". She is no longer suffering and she's happy. I do have to admit that I cried secretly in my car on my lunch break after I got off the phone with Joseph because I loved her so much and I have some great memories with Grandma spending the night at her house in the summer, having BBQs on the back porch, looking at all her beautiful porcelain dolls she painted.

One of my most cherished memories I have with Grandma Pettingill was when I was about 10 years old I took a little trip with her to Franklin to the farm shortly after Grandma Stockdale died. I remember feeling so special that Grandma wanted to just take me on this trip. I packed my clothes and made sure I had my Dopey with me so I could go to sleep. I can't remember very well what we did during the day besides go through Grandma Stockdale's things with Grandma, but I remember being afraid to go to bed that night because of all the box elder bugs crawling around the walls and windows. I had Dopey in one hand and Grandma's hand in the other as we slept in the same bed upstairs.

Grandma was such a neat lady and so beautiful; I always looked forward to visiting Grandpa and Grandma. I remember all the Christmas Eves we had at their house singing carols and sitting on Santa's lap. I couldn't wait to open my gift from my grandma because she always put something on the bow that we could keep as an extra gift--usually it was something that she made in ceramics. I will miss her dearly, but only for a short moment in time.

 My ancestors from Franklin, ID who homesteaded the Stockdale farm as directed by President Brigham Young.

 Becky's attempted glamor shot, haha sorry Becky I couldn't resist!

Our New Neighbors

Last Saturday we worked out in the yard all day tilling the back yard to prepare it for grass seed. We borrowed Christian's truck, and when we got home we found this family of quail in our front yard. They were so cute! Eight baby chicks and two very protective parents.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a blast this past Memorial Day weekend in Elba with all the family. It rained everyday but Monday, but that didn't stop us from having fun. We took a little tour around the City of Rocks, rode the four wheelers and horses, swam in the hot springs, and crammed into the tiny trailer to play games and chat all weekend.

 Gathering rock for the fire pit we never got to use due to the rain

 The kids helped clear out some brush and help clean up. They all loved playing on the dirt mound and riding on the four wheelers.

 Play time with grandpa.

 This was one of the biggest stink bugs I have ever seen, and Tyson carried it everywhere he went.