Go first to Meet the Parents

The most important post in this blog is the one in November called 'Meet the Parents'. Somehow it shows up last and it is getting missed. Since I am new at blogging I don't know yet how to move it. So please go to November and click on that one. The marathon is really not important compared to what it was like to meet the parents of the baby Collette is carrying.

Grand Canoyn Hike Oct 17th

Sure you look all perky now! How will you feel in about 10 hours? Adam and Arlene Stuart with Kerstin Lancaster (friend) at the South Kiabab trailhead begining their descent into the Grand Canyon.
Arlene and Adam are veteran GC hikers, especially the hike organizer Adam. He has done it so many times he could do it in his sleep but we are glad he stayed awake! AND he stayed with us to make it a super fun experience. The first timers were Brian (back row) Kerstin,Shawna and Alyse (front row). They all did remarkably well hiking down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom and up to the top via Bright Angel Trail in about 9 hours.
Verteran GC hiker Adam is helping his mother lighten her load. He went through my pack and said you don't need that, and you don't need that, and you don't even need SO MUCH WATER! (Hey Adam,the water was a little scary to let go of!) THANK YOU ADAM
YOU MADE IT A FUN TRIP FOR ALL OF US!!!

Meet the Parents Weekend

On Halloween Friday Oct 31st Vaughn and I drove to Gilbert Arizona.The purpose of this trip was "Meet the Parents" of the baby girl Collette is carrying as a surrogate mother. We arrived just in time to go 'Trick or Treating" with Maya and Ella.

The Green Faced Witch is me. I couldn't resist putting on makeup and costume in the car so that I could surprise them when they opened the door. Maya and her friend Joee were scared and ran crying for comfort to their mothers.I felt sad to see how afraid Joee was. Her mother, Trisha, talked and talked to get her to realize I was Maya's Grandma. She warmed up ovever the next two days and lovingly called me Grandma everytime she saw me. Hopefully there will be no lasting trauma for her.

Collette's girls were not afraid and realized quickly it was their Grandma. We had a good time enjoying great food and company at a Halloween party Tony and Collette gave for about 60 people Adam, Kris and Tiersa and Kris' parents Carolyn and Warren were among the guests.


Sunday, Nov. 2nd Collette and Tony hosted a Bar-B-Que for our family so we could "Meet the Parents", Michelle and Nigel Murtagh from San Fransico. It was definately worth the trip from Utah to meet them, to see their faces and feel their spirits. We loved them right away!!! We loved hearing their story. It is easy to see why Collette could not get this idea out of her mind after meeting Michele and hearing her story.
L to R is Maya,Tiersa, Vaughn (in background) Michele with baby Rushton, Nigel, and Adam's friend Shawna.



Jaycee in Michele's lap Collette and Ashlyn (in back)
Nigel said that their friends in San Fransicso are so excited for Collette to come Nov.13th for 2 baby showers because they want to meet the 'Angel' that would grow a baby for them. They are in awe that she would do this for them.



We loved seeing Michelle and Nigel with their hands on Collette's tummy waiting for their baby to move. Michelle was surprised to see how active her baby is and asked," Does she move this often usually or does she just move 3 or 4 times a day?

The next day they watched their little baby (on ultra sound) open her eyes, yawn and put her little arms behind her head with fingers laced almost as if she was lounging in a lawn chair. They were simply thrilled. Michelle said, "I just can't wait to meet my baby, is that normal?" The name they like best so far is Grace. "Grace's" heart, brain and body seemed to be perfectly formed and now she is just going to gain weight and get strong for delivery around Feb. 1st.

It was a great trip. Now we can picture where Adam lives in his new apartment in Scottsdale, have great memories of seeing the kids in their Halloween costumes, saw our wonderful children and their spouses and met Michele and Nigel AND we had a great visit with each other on the way back home.

Family Get Together

Grandpa with the youngest two grandchildren... Ashley's little boy Kevin on the right and Tiersa's girl Ella on the left.
We had a birthday party for Arlene's friend Kerstin during the Priesthood session on Saturday night. We made her wear a crown and ate pizza. We really had fun and made sure Kerstin knew we were happy for her on her special day.
Tiersa, Arlene and Carolyn ran the Marathon on Saturday and we bought silly string to spray all over them at the end of the race. There was still some left so we played with it a little once all the guys got home from Priesthood, Vaughn got up in Ashley's face to tell her she was making a mess so she squirted him right in the face and continued to do so until it was pretty much gone. The results were pretty much priceless as no one usually "picks" on Dad. He got her back by pinching her arm which she hates, but she says "It was worth it".
The Marathoners. Carolyn ran it in 4 hours and 58 minutes, Arlene ran 6 hours and 8 minutes, and Tiersa's time was 4 hours 21 minutes. These three weren't able to run last year because of injuries/pregnancy and we thought that Arlene wasn't going to be able to run this year because of an injury, but she did it any way. We are so proud of them.
Tiersa's been hobbling around the house all day with her sore marathon bones, muscles, jointsm and everything else. I'm sure it is hard to have two kids and all those sore parts.
Here's Collette's belly bump. We think it's pretty cool that she's a surrogate Mother for her friend Michelle. It's going really well even though it is starting to get hard with her four little munshkins running around. She is having a girl and is due on Feb. 1st.
The girls had a tea party outside and invited Grandma to come out and picnic with them. They look pretty comfy. Arlene is such a trooper for sitting on the hard ground with them even with her soreness.
All the kids went on the deck to get out while we made Sunday night dinner.

Our New Blog

So this is Ashley talking... I am attempting to get the Stuart Family up on a blog per Dad's request... so here goes. It's Sunday afternoon and we are all about to sit down to family dinner. We have Barbara, Brandon's family, Cameron's family, the Endsleys, Jay and the kids and soon Travis's family will also be here. We have been having a wonderful time this weekend and hope it continues over to tomorrow for Labor Day.