The Best of 2019 and My Word for 2020

I was gone from blogland for a good part of 2019, but I am so happy to be back now.  This post will be a recap of the best parts of 2019 for me and my family, and it will also be my Catching Up - Part II post.  If you missed the posts explaining why I was absent from this space for ten months of this year, click here.  If you missed my Catching Up - Part I post, click here.

Ok, let's get started on the Jones Family best of 2019!

• Moving

We moved to our townhouse in February, 2019.

It is proven to be an excellent decision.  We really like it here in our new neighborhood.

• 40th Anniversary

Charly and I celebrated our 40th Anniversary in June of 2019.  Even with the ups and downs of marriage, I am proud and grateful to have been Charly's wife for over 40 years!    I sure do love him - he is a great blessing in my life.

• Hiking with my family

We enjoyed hiking in the mountains nearby this year.  Here are some of my favorite hikes:

Donut Falls - beautiful hike about 30 minutes from our home.  It is a popular hike around here, but it was a new one for Josh and I.

Mueller Park Trail - a good trail above Bountiful  I remember hiking here as a child.

Ensign Peak -  with its pioneer history and beautiful views of the Salt Lake Valley.

Holbrook Canyon Trail  - also above Bountiful, near the Bountiful Temple and a beautiful new hiking spot for Josh and I.

• Sacramento

We went to Sacramento in June. We had a great time.

The highlight, of course was seeing and spending time with our oldest son, Alex and his wife, Jess.  I enjoyed being with those two.  We love Alex and Jess and are very proud of both of them.

• Southern Utah and Colorado

At the end of July, when Josh was between semesters at school, we had a family vacation to Southern Utah and Colorado. We stayed in Moab and went to Arches National Park - one of my favorite National Parks. 

We stayed in Moab and went to Arches National Park - one of my favorite National Parks. 

In Colorado, we stayed in one of our family favorite places - Pagosa Springs.

We enjoyed going to the Pagosa Hot Springs...

...and of course, doing some hiking.  It was a good family getaway.

• Performances

Charly and I have always enjoyed plays, but went only rarely when the kids were little, but we decided that at this season in our life we have the time and means to go to a few more permanances, so we started doing more of that this past year.

We even bought season tickets to the opera.  

We also gone to the Hale CentreTheatre for performances of The Addams Family...

Dicken's classic, A Christmas Carol, and the fun and fanciful Seussical.  We have really enjoyed these date nights out at the theater.  

• Volunteering

Charly and I have also enjoyed volunteering at St. Vincent De Paul this past year. 

Helping others and giving back is always a positive thing, resulting in positive feelings.  I am grateful for these opportunities to serve. 

I am also a volunteer indexer for Familysearch.org and do data input of microfilmed historical records, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, military records, land records, immigration and slavery records.  I look at images of the actual records, some going clear back to the 1600s, and do my best to interpret and type in the relevant information so that all the historic information is preserved digitally and can be accessed by those who want to know more about their ancestors and family history.  I enjoy indexing and have been doing it for years.  This year, I indexed over 500 historic records - mostly WWI draft cards.  As a history buff, I feel that preserving historic information about individuals and families is extremely important so I am glad to be able to serve as an indexer. 

• Temple Time

I love going to the temple and this past year, I was able to go 14 times in 2019.  That is down quite a bit from what I have done in years past, but I am still grateful for all the time I can spend there.  Being in the  temple brings me peace.

For Latter-day Saints, temple worship is special and in addition to our regular Sunday services.  I am grateful to have several temples not too far from our home.  I hope to be able to attend the temple even more in the coming year. 

• New Job

After two years of teaching junior high with some amazing women like the two pictured with me here, I applied for and got a position teaching English at a high school which is only about ten minutes from our home. 

Since I taught high school for 16 years in Arizona, I am super excited and grateful to be back working with students who are little older and more mature (at least some of them) than the junior high students. 

I began my 18th year of teaching in a new classroom at a new school and so far,  I like it (most days) and am grateful for this new challenge.  

My new job, which is teaching English and AVID.  AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.  The entire purpose of the program and the classes I teach is to prepare students for success in college.  I love teaching these classes.  My new school sent me to an AVID conference in San Diego last summer to prepare.  It was a fun trip where I learned a lot, spent some time in a beautiful city, and got to know my new colleagues.

• Moving Forward

Josh has been making great strides moving forward in life.  He has attended two semesters of college at LDS Business College, where he is working on his Associate' Degree.  He really likes this college, and it is working well for him.

Josh also has a job he likes at Sherwin Williams. He started there in June and worked at one of their retail stores for several months, but he is now in their warehouse, where he works as many hours as possible while attending school. 

Overall,  even with ups and downs and challenges, 2019 has been a good year, and I have much to be grateful for.  

My word for 2020:

I chose the word Intentional as my word for this year.  I want to be intentional - meaning that I want act consciously and with thought in all things I do and say.   I do not want to react, but to intentionally choose peace, love and positivity.

That then is my recap of 2019 and my word for 2020.  I know the next year will have, as all years do, ups and downs and challenges, but I also hope to be able to intentionally seek the good and love my life.

Have an amazing 2020!

The Last Weekend of the Year

It was a busy, but fairly uneventful weekend, this final weekend of 2019.   I was busy all weekend, but didn't take many pictures to document what I was doing, so I will rely on stock photos and pictures I already had. 

Friday was eye appointment day.  Both Charly and I had eye doctor appointments and both of us got good reports about the health of our eyes - as well as well as new prescriptions for our glasses.  

Later Friday evening, I went to Costco to select new frames for my glasses.  I saved almost $400 off the price of glasses quoted to me at the optical shop by the eye doctor's office.  This has been the case every time I have got glasses over the past decade.  Costco prices are always the best by far, even for my specialized HD, UV coated, Transitions bifocal lenses.  I ordered my new glasses and it will be about a week before they are ready for pick-up.  

On Saturday, after grocery shopping and errand running, I finally got a few minutes to go to a local salon that looks very much like this one, to get my hair trimmed.

Notice that I said get my hair TRIMMED.  The very nice stylist I got ended up taking quite a bit more off than I was wanting and expecting.  No worries, though, because the great thing about hair, is that always seems to grow back.   Who knows, I may decide to keep it this short. 

After our church meetings on Sunday, our congregation had an end-of-year "mix and mingle." Everyone brought finger foods and stayed to visit with each other.  The picture isn't exactly what our cheese and cracker tray looked like, but you get the idea.  It was really very enjoyable to have an after church snack while getting to know other people in our ward (congregation) a little better.  

While we were mixing and mingling, our bishop (pastor) spoke to these two gentlemen, shown in a picture taken last week when we went to see the light at Temple Square, and issued them both a calling to work with the young people in our congregation.  Both said yes.  They will probably be working together.  More details are to come, but it appears they will be working with boys who used to part of our church's Cub Scout program.  Since our church is no longer affiliating with Boy Scouts of America as of January 1, 2020, there will be other activities and programs for both boys and girls.  

It has been a cold weekend here, with just a few flakes of snow coming down from time to time, but no snow accumulation.  The forecast for next week is cold with possibly a little snow on Wednesday and Thursday.  We shall see. 

That's about it for this last weekend of 2019.  Hope you enjoy the last couple of days of the year.  I will be back in this space again soon with a recap of my best things in the last year, as well as my word for the new year!  See you all then!

Christmas Week Friday Favorites

On this  week of Christmas 2019, it is time look once again for the best things of the week and join with Susanne of Living to Tell the Story for Friday's Fave Five

• Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is Christmas at it's dressed up finest at our home.   The presents are all wrapped and under the tree, just waiting for Christmas morning.

The trees are lit up and there is good food and conversation around the table and maybe a fun or touching Christmas movie on TV.  That was our Christmas Eve this year and it was just right. 

• Christmas Food

We always try to have lots of good favorite foods on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  

We have had the tradition of Chicken from KFC for a number of years.  I think it started when our kids were all home and much younger, and I wanted to be able to enjoy Christmas Eve with the family without spending a lot of time cooking and cleaning, so we decided that KFC was something we all enjoyed and it would be a special treat for Christmas Eve.  Thus, the KFC Jones Family tradition was born and continued this year.  We love it and look forward to it each year, and it does make Christmas Eve much more relaxing for those of us who cook and clean up. 

After reading this Christmas Breakfast Casserole Recipe at this blog,  I decided to try it.  Actually, I have made breakfast casserole before and it was a hit.  iI was an easy and hearty breakfast again this year.  I made it on Christmas Eve, then put it in the fridge and popped it in the oven when I got up Christmas morning.  This picture was taken on Christmas Eve when I was putting it together, before it was baked.

This was our Christmas night dinner.

Ham, macaroni and cheese, fried potatoes and green beans were delicious and just hit the spot.

I didn't do a lot of baking this year, as I really am trying to lose about ten pounds and also eat healthier.  I did however make these candy pretzels,which are quick, easy and yummy.  I admit I have been snacking on these since I made them.  Josh and Charly have been enjoying them too. 

I splurged and bought some of this yummy Popcornopolis at Costco, just for Christmas and I may or may have had the some of the cheesy popcorn for lunch (along with a few candy pretzels) ;-) 

• Christmas Movie Marathon

Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas movie marathon.  The first movie we watched was Christmas Jars. It is a story about helping others.  I love the idea of filing a jar with spare change all year and then giving that to someone in need at Christmas time.  

After Christmas Jars, we watched this movie, The Christmas Shoes...

...and finished the evening with this short movie A Candle in the Window, which is a true story.  This one was our favorite of the three.  

Christmas morning, after opening our gifts, we watched this movie - one of our favorites, An American Christmas Carol.

• Christmas Day

The weather forecast promised us a "white Christmas," but it was actually only a light coating of snow that was gone by mid-morning. 

Charly wanted me open this present first -  a nativity made out of Olive Wood.  It is beautiful and I love it.   It is such a great addition to my nativity collection. 

Charly's big present was this home arcade of Centipede.   This is similar to the games he used to play at the grocery store for a quarter a play during the 1970s and 1980s. Charly already has one home arcade console of the game Galaga, but now we will have two arcade, which will help make our downstairs family room a family fun room!  That is also the room, where our new Christmas present to ourselves, our electric fireplace will be.  

Josh slept in until mid-morning, since he has been getting up early every day to go to work.  We opened our gifts late in the morning. 

Here are Charly's gifts, in addition to his game console.  I got some gift cards, the olive wood nativity  pictured above, and the electric fireplace for the family room.  

Here are Josh's gifts.  His big gift this year was half of his college tuition for next semester. 

Christmas night, Charly and Josh went to see this movie.  I stayed home because a three hour movie is just too long for me.  I welcomed a bit of alone time to read and do other things I want to do. 

• Lunch with an "old"  friend

Although my friend (the woman at the bottom of this family picture) isn't old (afterall, she is my same age), we had not seen each other for almost 30 years until this yesterday.  We originally met when we both lived in Central California and went to the same church congregation (ward) and worked with the children in Primary (children's ministry) together.  We were both pregnant at the same time and switched off watching each other's children when we went into labor.  We have kept in touch through Christmas cards all these years, but now she lives only 30 miles away, so we got together for lunch yesterday and had a delightful visit and catch-up.  I think we will do it again soon!  I didn't take any pictures at lunch (too busy visiting) so I am cheating by using this my friend's family picture that was on her Christmas Card this year.   I am so grateful for good friends. They truly bless my life.  

• Date Night

Charly had been wanting to see Seussical at Hale Centre Theater,  in Sandy, Utah, and someone (me) put tickets to it under the tree, so tonight we had our date night to see this awesome musical performance.  It was so creative and fun.  I am thankful for my husband and the enjoyment we have doing things like this together.  

• A Productive Week

We took some time to relax on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but we also got a lot of things done.  We had some technology issues to resolve.  I needed a new phone battery and we had to update and resolve issues with other technology. That took some time, but we got it done. 

Charly got his new video game console assembled.  Now he has his own little video arcade in the basement family room.  

Here is Charly trying out his new game console.  I hope he will enjoy these games and the good memories of playing them as a young man back in the 1980s.  I am grateful for a good week, when we had some down time and also accomplished a lot.

• Friends who keep in touch

I think we have now received all the  Christmas cards we are going to get this year.  Our door is full.  I counted and we got 41 cards this year, which is down a lot.  We used to get almost 100, but I am so grateful for the friends and family who consistently keep in touch through the years.  

This is my list of of favorites for this week.  I always have a hard time keeping my list to just five things, but it is good to be able to see so many positive things in my life each week.  I am grateful that participating in Friday Fave Five gives me the opportunity to do that!