Christmas Card

Well, as hard as I try, I failed once again to get Christmas cards out this year. And from the number of cards I've received that either means that 1) I no longer have any friends, or 2) I'm not the only one slacking this year. I'm going to hope it's #2 (at least that's what I'll tell myself).

So, you know in the fall when everyone starts thinking about their Christmas cards and making appointments to get their family pictures taken? That wasn't us. We were too busy enjoying life. We waited until December, in the middle of a snow storm. And then it was too late to get cards ordered, so we're skipping the USPS this year. I know all of my loyal blog readers are well versed on what we've been up to this year, so I can skip the obligatory "year in review" letter as well. Anyway, the point is that in spite of my lack of effort and tardiness, we still love all of our friends and family and want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Thanksgiving - Ft Lauderdale

See, I told you things would start to slow down. November was a pretty quiet month around here. We only went on one field trip, to the BYU planetarium. I'm not even signing up for any in December. The biggest excitement around here was the opening of the new Adobe building in our neighborhood, followed by the outlet malls the following week. Oh yes, we did have a "field trip" to the outlets on opening day. The girls had been saving up their clothing money for a while, waiting for them to open.

We made a trip to Afton for Thanksgiving. On Friday we went over to Idaho Falls because their museum was having a King Tut exhibit that we wanted to go see. I knew a lady who was organizing a trip. She was going to get a charter bus to drive up, but that didn't pan out. Sophie was completely bummed about not getting to go on a bus. That kind of ruined the whole trip for her, but we still went. I thought it was pretty exciting that we could see so many of King Tut's personal artifacts.

Saturday everyone woke up sick. Isn't that a part of spending the holidays with family? I'm beginning to believe so. Sophie was the only one in my family puking. Chloe got really sick later, but she never threw up. Just had a fever and sore throat. We still managed to squeeze in a birthday party for Elsie. The bug didn't seem to last too long, and everyone (other than Chloe) was feeling well enough to go to the parade of lights. Brandon and I stayed home with Chloe. She got a LOT of sleep, and was feeling pretty much normal the next morning.

Sunday we went to sacrament meeting with my parents, but then Brandon and I left to head home. We left the girls behind to play for a week. Brandon and I went to Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday. He was in conferences all day and evening, so I just hung out by myself. Very nice and relaxing. Just what the doctor ordered (I'm my own doctor!) We came back on Saturday, and my parents brought the girls back on Sunday. My body sure liked that eastern time zone. It still wants to go to bed at 8:00 mountain time. I don't mind. I prefer early to bed, early to rise. But I don't know what Chloe's excuse is - she was SO tired yesterday. She fell asleep on the floor during our lunch time. I finally went and woke her up around 4:00 so she would be able to fall asleep that night. I guess my mother worked her to death.

SURPRISE!

Last I left off I said I was going to get to Saturday's big event, but I really shouldn't skip Friday. It was a very full day. You see, we (Chloe & Sophie) had this surprise party planned for Brandon, and they needed me to help pull it off (I have money and a car to get to the stores). I spent the morning getting all the last minute shopping done, but of course, I forgot one major ingredient. We ran over to the neighbor's to borrow a can of sweetened condensed milk. Then we made a cake, blew up all the balloons, got the treat bags put together. I still needed to make the pie, but there just wasn't time. On top of everything, Brandon decided he wanted to come home early that day, so that made us really crunched for time. I think he could sense I was a little stressed when he got home, but I couldn't tell him why! I just had to get to work making a giant soup for our ward activity. Normally I wouldn't have put that kind of pressure on myself, but knowing they were having a chili dinner I wanted to make sure there was at least one vegetarian option, so I signed up to bring one. We let the girls get a few treats (5) from the trunk or treat, and donated all the really nasty ones to their friends!

Saturday morning was again a little stressful. I had told Brandon I needed him to come with me to run an errand, but he wasn't understanding that he needed to come when I was ready. He kept dilly dallying. Plus, I got three phone calls that morning! That was kind of a heads up that something was going on. I never get phone calls, so it was quite out of the ordinary. Once he figured out something was up, he was happy to oblige with my demands.

We went for a walk, and hung out at Cabela's while the girls threw everything together at home. When I got the phone call from Sophie that everyone had arrived, we headed home. Brandon confessed that he was nervous because of the time sensitivity of everything, he thought there might be people showing up. I told him not to be nervous, so I had him for a second, and then we turned the corner and he saw Jason & Shalee's van parked right in front of our house! His nerves came back. But he was still really shocked when he saw everyone else who showed up (My parents, grandma, Lark, Nigel, & the Stephens family).

I think the party was a hit. The girls had a blast. They planned a lot of fun things. The food was good. Oh, I forgot to mention the pie. I had to make it Saturday morning (with him at home). The sweetened condensed milk my neighbor gave me was bad, so we went to another neighbor. They didn't have any or any evaporated milk. I already had the crust laid out on the counter, so in a hurry I made up a substitute (dry milk mixed with coconut milk). I had no idea if it would work, and since I don't eat pumpkin pie I didn't even try it, but nobody seemed to notice my creation. I guess it worked.

So, after the party we all went out to eat at Sweet Tomatoes. I knew it was Kellie's favorite, I knew my grandma liked it, and I knew Brandon was a fan, so I made the suggestion. He didn't turn it down, and we all had a great time. Our guests all had a long way to head home, so we said our goodbyes there. And I'm going to add a great big "THANK YOU" here, to everyone for coming. I know my girls are cute, but I'm amazed at what people will do to make them happy. And I know Brandon sure appreciated everyone who came.

Pictures of the party can be found at this link:
https://plus.google.com/photos/104575878071086913858/albums/5804563025122208705?authkey=CIXh3JmozpvnGg

The Latest in Our Lives

I have been way too busy the last couple weeks. This is the time of year things should start slowing down, so I will look forward to that! We have had an unusual amount of opportunities to see our old friends. A week ago Saturday (the 20th), I did a photo shoot in Centerville so I took the girls with me. I dropped them off at their friends to play while I worked, but I ended up hanging out as well -- before and after. The girls had so much fun! I was having a hard time pulling them away because it was so fun watching them. I kept feeling bad for keeping them up so late, until I would remember it was a Saturday, so it was ok.

{video will be uploaded here as soon as I can sort through all the ones they took and find the best one}

On Tuesday we had a field trip to Cornbelly's -- a pumpkin patch/corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. It was so flippin' cold! I wished we hadn't gone. Sophie was determined to make the most of it. She still wanted to do everything she could. Chloe was ready to head to the car. We tried to be good sports and follow Sophie around. I know we cut it way shorter than we would have in nice weather, but Soph still got to do a lot.

Now that my computer has taken about 30 minutes to upload those 3 little photos, I can move on!

Wednesday we went back to Centerville. I had signed up for a class at my old bread store, but they called me the day before to tell me they canceled it. Bummer! I had already placed an order with Bubble & Bee that I had to pick up, and I had told my friend I would drop off her pictures from their photo shoot, and I had told the girls they could play with their friends again. If it wasn't for the B&B order I would have just canceled the whole trip. But we went. The girls actually got to play with both sets of their friends, and we were able to make a trip to the pumpkin patch to load up on pumpkins we would need later in the week.

Thursday we went back for the follow-up visit with Sophie's orthodontist. We received some really good news -- she won't need to have the surgery to put the chain in to pull her teeth back into place! That was all we prayed for. She wasn't sure it was good news, though, because she's still going to need braces. I knew that was coming, so I didn't even bother to pray to get out of that. They're probably going to start her next summer, but she'll just get done that much sooner than most kids.

And that brings me to Saturday... but I'm somewhat of a scheduler {ok, I'm very anal about my schedule}, and it is past my bedtime. I will be much happier if I wait to finish that story up another time. And it will be fun to leave you in suspense!

Ron Paul

A little after 11:00 this morning Brandon IM'd me. He sent me a link to a story announcing Ron Paul would be in Orem today -- at 1:30. We kindly thanked the news reporters for being so prompt with the announcement. Brandon had a meeting at 1:00, so there was no way he could make it. I sat and debated back and forth about whether I should go, but I finally decided I just had to. I'm supposed to be teaching me children, and what better education than getting to go see someone like that speak. Doors opened at noon, so we quickly threw some lunch together (a jar of peanut butter ended up on the floor), and took off. It was really fun. While standing in line, a truck pulled up right in front of us and starting passing out all kinds of free stuff -- t-shirts, books, posters. I got a book (Latter-Day Liberty, looks pretty cool)! I was going to post some pictures I took, but then I just saw the story on KSL. The video summarizes what we saw, and if you look at their pictures, they're just as fuzzy as mine would be. Several people in the video are ones we met in line waiting to get in. That was fun for the girls to see. They were sad we didn't get in any shots, but I told them that's what they get for refusing to stand up and shout and wave. I did a good job of embarrassing them :)




http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22597067&nid=148&s_cid=rss-extlink

My Less Miserable Birthday

Another year older -- and wiser too? I'm not sure about that. But we did have fun celebrating. My birthday was kind of a chaotic day. Well, a little bit. My landlord had to come work on my garbage disposal, and the whole day we had someone here fixing our radon problem. That brought more excitement than usual. We still got most of our work done. I ground some wheat so we'd have flour, but I didn't want to make dinner. I was sure Brandon would want to do that for me, but then we found out the girls weren't willing to help him, and we were so short on time that I pitched in and did a lot. We barely got dinner made when we had to shove the girls out of the house for one of their activity days. They ate their dinner on the way, while Brandon and I sat down to a peaceful meal. I'm not sure what he'd had at work, but he actually never touched his dinner. He ended up putting it in the fridge for lunch the next day, but I still enjoyed our conversation while I ate.

Brandon and I watched a movie (October Baby) while the girls were gone, and I took a few phone calls. After they got home we quickly opened gifts, and then headed out for my birthday ice cream.

My real celebration came a couple days later. I had requested a trip to see Les Miserables at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. My parents offered to pay for our hotel as my gift, so they brought grandma and came along. We met them in Provo on Friday for lunch, and then drove down all afternoon. We went out to dinner, and then made it back to the hotel with a little time left for swimming.

Saturday after breakfast we ended up at the Frontier Homestead State Park. They had some cool quilts my mother was excited to look at, but the special part was they had one quilt on display honoring someone's 50th wedding anniversary. They had made the quilt to match the 6 dresses of their 6 daughters from an old family photo that was on display. But while we were there, the mother and all 6 daughters came in to get their picture taken next to the quilt. That was pretty neat to witness. We checked out all the carriages and pioneer houses they had.

Then we made time to stop by the pumpkin festival. Sophie had seen a sign for it and was very interested. They had all kinds of games for the kids: ping pong toss, pumpkin seed spit, cake walk, eat the doughnut off the string, balloon animals. And they got to pick out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. Chloe won the grand prize when she spun the Wells Fargo wheel, and got a frisbee and a full size candy bar! Sophie also landed on a space that awarded her a candy bar, but she opted for a pen instead. Kind of surprising, huh? They had so much to do, but we were in a bit of a rush. Had to get to lunch before our show started!

We had a very delicious and filling lunch, then went straight to the theatre. The show was very good. I've read the book, Chloe has listened to it on CD, but Brandon and Sophie had no background. After a couple discussions I think Brandon now understands the storyline. Here's a great big thank you to everyone who made my birthday special.

Oh, one last thing: do you have a cool bank? I do. I've been very happy with my bank, ever since my old one got shut down. What a blessing! But look what they sent me for my birthday -- what kind of bank encourages you to be less materialistic? One that I'm happy to do business with.

Moving Van

Yesterday we took a little break from school and went to Logan to help Ross and Melanie move. I miss the days of owning such few things. We had them out in such a short time. My van held almost all their boxes, and my dad took the furniture in his truck. He had to go back for a second trip, while I escorted my mom to the Verizon store. Sure made me appreciate Ting even more! Then we all got to go out to dinner. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday. Oh, and we got some Nigel time in :)