use your words

the Walker house in all it's glory.....

as you will see, we're the least civilized when it comes to food.....

however we do redeem ourselves fairly well in other areas :)

 Matthew's juice when he had a horrible virus :/

 Daniel's leftovers

 leftover nacho fixings identified

 Again with Daniel! Thin mints are a coveted commodity once a year.....

 hydration is important (note my dc on the right.....yeah)

 love notes AND warnings decorating the fridge

 grad school consolation and more love :)

my very most favorite, from Matthew - xoxo

this old guitar

 Remember that song by John Denver?

It was one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar, and a fitting title for this blog post.

 When I recently went to southern Utah, I was standing in the garage of a home we own.

I happened to look down, and there in it's case, was the very first guitar I ever owned.

I hadn't seen it since my first years of college - I never knew what happened to it.

Needless to say, I was surprised and delighted - more so than I can express!

 My father bought that guitar for me when I was 14.

He and I drove down past Los Angeles somewhere, to a store a friend of his owned.

I tried out a few guitars and then saw this one hanging on the wall. 

I knew it was my guitar the second I saw it. 

It was a little more expensive than the others, but my dad was sweet and gave me his approval. 

I think I smiled the whole way home :) 

It's one of my favorite memories of just my dad and I. 

That was 36 years ago.

 I had many wonderful experiences with that first guitar.

Like the song says, it introduced me to some friends of mine, and brightened up some days :)

 So naturally, I brought it back home with me.

John surprised me by putting new strings on it for me, and I polished it up once again.

 I loved that guitar for many years, and still love it now.

But what I love about it the most, is that I have sons who can play it beautifully (Davy here)

I feel that it has not only come home once again, but come full circle as well :)

oscars, roscoe's, and countdown to 21

 Davy had an Oscar party on Academy Award night.....

Being the movie snob that he and his lovable-but-highfalutin friends are.....

he was not particularly excited about this affair, yet he wanted to watch so he could enjoy his agony.

So he threw an "overly-excited Oscar party", meaning everyone had to overreact to every lame thing.

And not only that, they had to dress as any character from one of the nominated movies.

EVEN OSCAR HIMSELF SHOWED UP!

 Now, these kids are no dummies..... they not only moved in an extra couch and two extra chairs,

but Daniel split our sectional couch in two and put one up on cement blocks to create levels!

(was he away at college too long or WHAT)

He had lots friends dressed up as fun characters..... they ate lots of food and laughed & cheered.

Davy was one of the dinosaurs from "Tree of Life". Alrighty then.

It turned out to be an extremely fun AND VERY LOUD EVENING :)  

 Which brings us to the next day, DAVY'S 21st BIRTHDAY!!!

So naturally he wanted to go to Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles to celebrate!

yayyy :/

I gotta say though, I absolutely *LOVE* the above and below photos!

 Awww..... look at that handsome Davy face!

 WHERE DID THOSE YEARS GO?!?!? :D

 Being the budding film maker that he is, his REAL present is an old Super 8 movie camera.....

But of course we had fun getting him some other cool thingies too..... and some cheesecake :)

Yeah, I guess 21 might be okay.....

:D

more love for Uncle Gerry

I know I already bid farewell to my beloved uncle, but I wanted to post some pics of the day.

 As sad as we all were, it was such a beautiful day, in every way.

(many thanks to Shannon Grogan for sharing some of her photos with me!)

My most favorite photo of all... my sweet Aunt Jeanne accepting my uncle's flag... so touching.

My cousin Robbe is on her left, and Jenny is on her right (Shell's brother & sister).

Misty (one of Shell's daughters), me, and Shell :)

Me and my precious Aunt Jeanne - I sooo love this photo :)

(Shell's husband John took this pic for me - thank you John!)

 Shell was in charge of her dad's display - she did an AMAZING job!!!

 xoxoxo

(my Uncle Gerry taped life together with duct tape, hehe)

Most of the adult family members that could be rounded up..... several kids too.

My Aunt Jeanne & Uncle Gerry had 5 kids, 21 grandkids, and 27 great-grandkids -

quite a legacy of love :)

~

My brother Ric wrote a very sweet and heartfelt article in honor of Uncle Gerry.....

if you'd like to read it, click -----> HERE <----- especially if you're a motorbike/car fan :)

service

 Several weeks ago our family did a great project together!

We made bagged lunches for our community homeless shelter.

We signed up through our church, and it was a great experience!

~

On average, the homeless shelter serves 30 people per night.....

Because of the cold weather, the number had risen to 70!

So here's what we did - it was easy, and we can't wait to do it again:

 First of all, we gathered almost everything together in one area -

A typical lunch was a dated brown bag containing:

*a simple sandwich (I used white bread and only turkey due to possible allergies)

*a piece of fruit (I used a selection of medium sized apples)

*a bag of chips (again, I purchased a selection)

*a bag of cookies (we bagged our own Chips Ahoy - 4 per snack baggie)

*a napkin

AND we added a bottle of water for a drink, separate from the lunch bag

 As soon as everything was set up, it went REALLY fast!

We arranged everything ASSEMBLY LINE STYLE!

And with my husband and boys helping, those lunches were done in NO time!

 Dated lunch bags ready for apples & chips & napkins

 MORE lunch bags ready for the goods :)

 GO, GUYS - GO!

They worked so fast it was hard to get pics!

 We decided to fold & staple the bags so there were no spills -

here are some of the finished bags ready to load in the car and deliver!

My Daniel and I - he helped me do all the shopping.....

I couldn't have done it without him and my other guys :)

Thank you, family! Let's do it again soon!

~

Hey peeps - if we can do it, you can do it!

Contact your local shelter or other worthy local cause, and find out what you can do!

winter porch

 AND IT'S ABOUT TIME - SHEESH!

It took me a looong time after the holidays, to even think about my porch - I'm not even sure why.

Usually my porch is a favorite thing of mine to do, but I felt overwhelmed and under motivated :/ 

Several weeks ago, some ideas finally floated into my head - and boy was I grateful!

I needed to get outside and DO something, and golly, it was a fun project (thank you John for helping!)

My main mantra was: Color, Texture, and Levels.

So this is what I came up with - - - 

(and a new gnome... I mean a gnew gnome)

TA-DAAA! :)