Happy Sweet "16" Amelia Arlene

My name sake turns 16 today.

We share the same middle name.

It all started with my Great Aunt Betty Arlene.

Then my mother, Janice Arlene.

Then me, Gigi Arlene.

(several cousins, Becky Arlene and Iris Arlene, and I think a few more)

Then came our Amelia Arlene Crenshaw.

Happy, happy, happy, Birthday!

Loves ya, Aunt Gigi

Cousin Love

Aunt Sissy and Amelia

This picture was taken last summer in Utah.

Amelia is my brother's daughter.

She is 13 years old and she will be going with us to Utah for the funeral.

She wrote the following on her facebook and it

was so simple and beautiful I wanted to share it

with yall, my friends.

One Of The Best Aunts I Could Ever Have

"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see".
Hellen Keller
Helen Keller said this quote some time ago. It makes me feel like life is better now for Aunt Claire. Aunt Claire said to me a couple years ago that she thought that I didn't love her as much as my other aunts. She had that so wrong. I loved her just as much and maybe even more. What I didn't love was that I couldn't communicate with her like my other aunts. But that's life. And I got use to it. I put myself through the learning how to finger spell just so I could communicate with her. And I was happy to do it.

Now when I think of her death, I just think "God needed her more than we did". That makes me feel a lot better just like the quote. We didn't lose Claire "Sissy" Leigh Crenshaw Anderton. She was just a couple of steps ahead of us. Now everyone else has to catch up with her.

We love you Aunt Claire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Claire "Sissy" Leigh Crenshaw Anderton

January 20, 1959 ~ December 31, 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Funeral Services will be on Wednesday Jan. 5th

Visitation at 11:00 AM and Funeral at 12:00, .

Salt Lake Valley Deaf 1st Ward - 760 E 700 S. SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84102

Family & Friends will gather after services for informal visit at the church.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My parents, Sister Carla, Amelia and myself will be making the trip to Utah. My brother got there on Saturday and joined my sister Jill and Nord, Sissy's husband.

Thank you for all your sweet thoughts and prayers.

I think it's gonna be a long week.

Laundry Mat

My Mid~Week~Blues this week is our local "Laundry Mat".

For other Mid~Week~Blues click over here.

We have a really nice Laundry Mat in our town.

I love to go early when there aren't very many people there.

It is always clean and the people that

work there are very helpful and nice.

You can even play games while you wait

or watch one of the 5 flat screen TVs.

I introduced the "Laundry Mat" to my two nieces


this summer at different times.

This child had never been to a Laundry Mat

and I so think it is one of those necessary life skills.

As you can tell by her chicken in hand

we were there around lunch time.


Funny how those nieces have to be fed too.

This child was trying to catch up on her summer

reading list before school started the next week!

She had been to a Laundry before while on vacation.


A sucker was enough to keep her pacified.

The good thing about the whole experience

is that you can do 6 loads of wash in 22 minutes!


Then dry and fold all 6 loads in about another hour.

I LOVE it!

( My washer went out this summer and we are trying to remodel and I didn't want to get a new one until all that was finished and ready for a new washer)

Overture to The Barber of Seville

I went to the big city last night.

Went to a spring concert.

My niece Amelia, plays the violin with the

Armstrong Atlantic Youth Chamber Orchestra.

(She is on the 3rd row to the left of the conductor, 4 seats in.)

They were wonderful and I enjoyed it so much!

I was in such a rush to get there that I forgot her flowers.

Darn.

Live Entertainment

We had surprise visitors come to our Crenshaw Christmas party.

The Savannah Crenshaw's brought their very good friends with them this year.

Lisa and her girls wanted to surprise me and boy did they!

It was a most delightful surprise.

Come again any time Lisa :)

We were fortunate to have live MUSICAL entertainment!

(We always have family entertainment but not of such high quality.)

These girls did an awesome job of a variety of Christmas music,

I was very proud of all of them.

Deborah and Amelia are best friends.

Amelia is my niece.

Da'Nette is Deborah's older sister.

This is Lisa, the mother of Da'Nette and Deborah.

This is my Brother Sanford aka "Barney's Friend Chris" and his wife Sheri, the parents of Amelia.

Kudos to these parents for doing what it takes to get their daughters to and from music lessons and putting up with the at home practicing that it takes to be such accomplished musicians. They are wonderful young ladies.

We enjoyed it so much!

Annie

Harry and I took Shelby last evening to see my niece, my brother aka "Barney's friend Chris's" daughter, the Princess, in her 5th grade musical production. They did selected songs from "Newsies" and "Annie"! The Princess wore the curly red wig and red dress. Yes that 's right folks she was "Annie"! She did her family "PROUD"! I would like to take a little credit for her having the staring role. Thank you, thank you very much! She has watched the movie "Annie" at my house no less than 50 times if not more, since she was 2 or 3 years of age. She was WONDERFUL and I hope her father puts some pictures on his blog today and I will steal them and put them over here on my blog. (DONE see above) We took her some flowers and I let Shelby take them to the stage and present them to her. Shelby was so excited to see the Princess perform. She told us she wanted to get on the stage and do that too. I'm just not sure that the world is ready for Shelby yet?

Shelby was so funny on the drive home. I read 6 of her favorite books and then she told us she wanted to read them to us. So she opened the books and sang them to us. On about the 3rd book, Harry told her that it sounded like she was singing the same book over and over. We are not really sure what she was singing. I'm just sure it was Italian. She finally grew tired of singing and let me read again. After 4 more books her little head fell over to the side and she was out. I carried her in and put her in my bed so we had a sleep over. Fun good times!