I'm complete!

Ty baby is home!!!  What a joy and what a relief to have the family together again.  It has felt like forever since the last time we were together but how grateful I am for the sons we have been blessed with, who are willing to do hard things, sacrifice, and choose to do the right thing even when it's not the easiest thing. We are so proud of you Ty and the man you have become!  

Like Connor, Ty was excited to return to Utah first where more extended family and friends would be around to welcome him home and he'd get to also see the project I've been working on since before he left...our Utah home! Sadly Sage was unable to be there because of school but she was anxiously awaiting his arrival back in Florida a few short days later where we would spend the Thanksgiving holiday together and Ty would be back in his favorite state...the sunshine state!

We were so grateful for the family and friends that came to the airport!  Many were unexpected with his arrival being smack in the middle of the day but how happy it made Ty.

After celebrating with everyone at Chick-Fil-A, we made our way to Heber to show Ty the house.  Granted it's not fully furnished but his room was ready and waiting! Next, we were off to Grandma and Grandpa's so he could share more about his mission experiences and some of his favorite candies, teas, and of course the gift he could hardly wait to give to Grandma!  haha!

Ty showing us all the steps involved in making "mate".  And we thought the Starbucks frap had a lot of steps...The jury is out on if it was as much as a crowd pleaser as Grandma's gift was.  :)

Back in Florida! How cute was this sign Sage and her friend made!  And of course Nova was super happy to have his buddy back home.

He wasn't exactly greeted with the hot weather Florida is known for but the sunshine was out so so were the skis!

Thanksgiving 2023!  Have to laugh at this photo because this was after the movers had packed and moved over 200 boxes of stuff to the Utah house.  There was no furniture moved but anything valuable, sentimental,  special, or something we had several of, went...including our nice flute glasses that we bring out for the holidays, most of my nice serving dishes and all our holiday decor!  There is still plenty of stuff here but realistically I see us spending the holidays more in Utah than Florida after this year.  

No lack of holiday decor would stop us from getting in the holiday spirit or taking our annual photo with Santa.  Thankfully everyone entertained me once again by being great sports!

The people (and pet) that matter most!  

A little of this and a little of that...

Everyday life in the Roddy family...

It was about five years ago Ty, a newly licensed driver found himself in a fender bender in the Rover in the Windermere high school parking lot.  Fast forward and Sage, a newly licensed driver, has now found herself in a similar spot...a fender bender also but this time it was in the Windermere elementary school parking lot, where she parks for rowing, but unfortunately her fender bender involved a police man....  Lesson learned, make sure if you are going to re-park your car after pulling in that you double and triple check that no car is racing behind you at the same time.  While she assures us she looked before reversing,  she didn't reverse fast enough and a cop who had been nearby working the pedestrian cross walk "raced" past her as she was reversing, causing her to clip the back end of his car and damage her fender too. The unfortunate part was the cop who could have left it as an accident with her being at fault and responsible, decided to also give her a ticket, which was so disappointing considering if she had reversed into any other person our insurance would have covered it but no ticket would have been issued. So cheers to higher insurance costs at the next renewal... :(

Fast forward another couple weeks and I get a call from a panicked Sage who had me on speaker phone as she explained that she had once again had an "incident" with a police man.  This time she had been pulled over for speeding.  She claimed it was because she wasn't use to driving the Escalade but thankfully this police man was extremely nice and gave her a warning but asked her to call me so he could let me know the reason he was just giving her a warning... (he could see she had recently been in an accident and cited) so was kindly letting her off the hook with the understanding that I would work with her to be a safe driver... ! But hooray for kind police men!

Someone is about ready to begin their sophomore year at BYU!  It's Connor!  Fall 2023. Only thing missing in this photo is Ty.  Countdown until Ty returns home.

Always love getting in a little golf with Jack when I'm in Utah!

While the majority of my visits to Utah have only included visits with family since the majority of my time has been spent working on the house, how nice it is when I have a moment to meet up with dear friends like Gina, one of my close friends from college!  Here we are experiencing the hike she takes daily behind her home!

Sage and I celebrating my birthday!  

Teagen heading to the temple for the first time!  We were so happy to be there to support him at this exciting time as he prepares to serve his mission!  While we were sad Sean, Amy, and Steve couldn't join us I know it meant to world to Sean that we were all there.

Everclear with Jack and friends!  Anyone who knows Jack knows he loves the band Everclear.  He feels like they speak to him, so how fun it was to watch them perform in Kamas, the next town over from us in Heber.

So after the concert, both Everclear and the opening band, the Pink Spiders had booths set up outside the venue for meet and greets.  As we waited in line for Everclear the poor Pink Spiders had no one approaching them. While I had never heard of them and certainly wasn't looking to have my photo taken with them, it was hard to watch them stand at their booth with no one approaching them while  everyone seemed to be standing in line to meet Everclear.  So after a little peer pressure from Aaron and Jack, Jen and I decided to congratulate them on a well done performance.  Apparently they were the back up opening band filling in for the original opening band that caught Covid.  Good times!

Nothing beats the beautiful fall colors of Utah.  I love this photo I took of my mom on one of our drives through the Provo canyon this past October.

BYU football!  How fun it was to run into some old friends from our New York days.  It had been forever since I had seen Melinda and a couple years since the Howard's had stopped in for a visit when they were out in Florida.  Love seeing old friends AND a BYU win.

Meeting Connor's mission president!  How wonderful it was when one of Connor's mission buddies called to let him know that their mission president was in town in Provo and would love to see Connor. How nice it was that we were in town at the same time so were able to meet this wonderful man and his wife who were so kind to Connor and such wonderful examples of servants of the Lord.