Thanksgiving

This year we had a small Thanksgiving. The married siblings all alternate years in coming to our house. This was the off year. So there was just Mom, Dad, me, Ben, and Mary Ann and Jared (Jared's family lives too far away) I also invited my friend Liz from Connecticut to join in the festivities. It was a yummy dinner, and there was lot's left over. I was in charge of the rolls, and I'll admit, I was a little nervous. I'm a foods teacher, and I know how to cook a lot of things, but bread is my weakness. One of my co-workers gave me a new recipe to try, and it's magic!! I made my best rolls yet. They were soft and fluffy and tasty. Usually my rolls are hard and solid. These pictures don't do them justice, but I was sure proud of them. Dad and Mary Ann couldn't stay out of them before dinner. There were lots left over, but you wouldn't know it. Ben took a whole bag of them with him to Cedar, and when we got back from shopping on Friday, dad had finished off the rest. Oh well, I guess I'll have to make them again.

Black Friday

For some reason, my family has a tradition for the girls to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. The stores are packed, and we get up SUPER early to be sure and hit ALL of the good sales. We each usually find a few Christmas gifts, but normally end up spending more money on ourselves than anyone else. We used to go together with my mom and all of her sisters, but our party was getting way too big, so we decided to go our own ways and then just meet up for lunch. We ran into the the other half of the party at Shopko. As you can see in the picture, we don't get much done when we're all together.
It was a VERY LONG day. The kids we had with us were troopers. They were so good. However, by the end of the day they were tuckered out. If I'm being totally honest, so was I, I just couldn't get away with napping like they did. I don't fit into the shopping carts.

I was carrying Heather around and she fell asleep. It didn't take long before I had to put her down becuase she got too heavy. I didn't have anywhere to put her, so I just dropped her in the cart. She didn't budge. She slept with her feet up in the air for a good 30 min.I turned around after putting Heather down, and found Luke sleeping in the cart as well.
Cousin Jim (he didn't come shopping with us, just met up for lunch. He's smarter than us girls) and Mary Ann at lunch. You can see most of the rest of the party in the background.


More of the party at lunch.

Kareoke

This last weekend we had a fun branch activity. We went up to Victor, Idaho where one of the girls in my branch has a lodge(well her parents do anyway.) It was pretty boring until they pulled out the Kareoke machine. I was nominated to go first. I don't know why. It turns out that they couldn't get the kareoke machine to work, so they were just going to give up. I went and grabbed the mic., and started messing around with some of my friends. Next thing I know, they turned on the music and wanted me to sing for everyone. It was rather embarrassing. I made a total fool out of myself....but what's new? They put on "Leader of the Pack" And I"m sad to report, I couldn't remember the words. I used to sing that song all the time.
Fortunatley my friend Jamie came and bailed me out. We ended up singing a couple of different songs together because no one else would. Finally we got some of the boys to sing.
This was my favorite thing hanging on the wall of the lodge.
Some of my new friends. Gina, me, and Brooke. We were cold, so we were snuggling on the couch. They built a fire for us, but it hadn't warmed up yet.
I couldn't spend the night with them, so I rode up with one of the guys from the branch. We left at about 1:00, got home at 2:00am, and I had to be to the school at 5:30am for wrestling concessions my club was in charge of. So I went from 5:30am - 8:00 pm on three hours of sleep. I was exhausted when I finally got home. I sat down on the couch for a min. and then woke up at 10 am the next morning, just in time for church

Curls

So my friend Brooke decided she wanted to try and curl my hair with egg whites. We had heard about it from several girls, and decided to try. Be beat the egg whites into foam, so it was kind of like putting mousse, in my hair. It makes your hair feel pretty gross though. It curled up a little bit, but not as much as we were told it would so she decided to put it up. This was the outcome. The funny thing is that we had to go to a ward activity after, so I had to wear my prom do. I got a lot of strange looks, like "who's she trying to impress?" I just told them I was trying to get ready for my wedding. No, this isn't an announcement. I have to wait for Andy to get married first.

Little Black Box

Who knew that a little black box could bring such happiness? I finally got internet hooked up at the house. It's been really nice. Although I was trying to make a secure wireless network.....and I did, but I made it so secure that I can't even use the wireless. So now I have to go back and undo what I did, and figure out what I'm doing wrong. Oh the joys of technology!!

Home Improvements

Well, the house is finnaly coming together. We've got Jessie moved in, and the boxes all put away, and we acutally still have room to walk. I even got my room clean. Mom and Dad are the only ones who will really appreciate these pictures, because they saw the house before.
I also got a new washer and dryer. Now that I have a renter, I figured it would be okay to splurge and buy a new washer and dryer instead of remodel and make room for the others that I was given. I got rid of the other washer and dryer the next day, so it's really nice. I finally have a kitchen!!

Candids

Just a few candid shots from this weekend.

Ice Cream Party

After the baptism we went to Susan's house for soup. After the soup we had ice cream for dessert. Our only downfall with that was that we let my dad dish up the ice cream. He has a hearing problem, and doesn't know when to stop.

Baptism

Today Kevin was baptized. I can't believe he's old enough for that! It was a nice service though

New Roommate

I got a new roommate this week. Sadly, I don't have a picture of her, but I do have a picture of my house the night she brought over all of her stuff. She has a LOT of stuff. We figure it's the perfect combination. I have the house, and she has the furniture.

Happy Halloween

Me dusting with my duster(Janelle).

My Halloween costume this year was pretty awesome. I was a housewife, Brooke was my basket of laundry; Janelle was my duster; Lisa, my ironing board; Gina, my static cling. It was pretty awesome!

Another trip to Rexburg

I decided to take another trip to Rexburg to visit this weekend. Almost as soon as I got there, Ethan started asking me if I wanted to come out side and see him climb up the stairs. I couldn't figure out what stairs he was talking about. We went out back and he started climbing up the chimney. Then he asked me if I wanted to climb them too. He does it a little easier than I do. His feet aren't as big.
Then we went out front and put his training wheels on Kevin's old bike so Ethan could have a big bike too.

What a great rider! He biffed it a couple of times. Knocked his head pretty good once, but he's okay. We tried to find the helmet, but no luck. Everytime he would fall, he would start screaming "I NEED THE HELMET!!" It was funny.

Viva Las Vegas!!

This last weekend some friends of mine decided to take a road trip to Las Vegas, and invited me to come along. It was awesome!! We had so much fun! I have put some pictures here, and I'll give a brief narration of our trip through pictures.

The mighty five! Here we are, Janelle, Brooke, Gina, Lisa, and Me, ready to head out on our road trip. We left Thursday evening around 6:00 and went all the way down to St. George, Utah. We got there about 1:00 in the morning.

Friday morning we got up early and went to a session in the St. George temple. It was really nice. It's a beautiful temple. We then headed to Vegas.





This is kind of out of order, but we also drove down to Primm, Nevada on the border of Nevada and California to ride this awesome, AWESOME roller coaster. In 1996 it was the highest and fastest roller coaster in the US. It goes 90 miles/hr, and drops 225 ft. It was so high, and so awesome! Well worth the drive!!
We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner one day. It was really good. I broke my bet with Katie, and enjoyed every bite of my mixed berry crunch cheesecake. It was delicious! It was Lisa's birthday, so they put a candle on hers, and sang to her.
Gina had left over cheese cake for breakfast the next day!

Janelle hurt her ankle really bad when she went skydiving, so she was having a hard time getting around. I carried her on my back for a while, be soon I was tired, and her arms were tired from hanging on. So she was just going to sit and wait for us to finish our tour of the casinos. We didn't like that idea, so we went into the next casino, and borrowed a wheelchair. We found that people are really nice when they see people in wheelchairs.

Three of us had the chance to go see Phantom of the Opera while we were there too. It was incredible!!! Worth every penny. It was like watching a movie. The scene changes were awesome. The music was outstanding and overall....I want to go again!!!
We spent Sunday night at the Belagio watching the water show. My favorite was the show to Viva Las Vegas. It was really neat.
We filled up with gas for $2.29 in Las Vegas. I had to take a picture so that everyone would believe me. It was awesome. Too bad they aren't that low anywhere else we had to fill up.

Pres. Monson came to speak at what we thought was a YSA activity at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway (where they have the Nascar races). It turns out it was really a scout jamboree of somesort. It was a good talk though. The odds were in our favor with regards to the boy/girl ratio......too bad they were all too young for any of us.
We also fit in a session at the Las Vegas Temple. Incredible. Very pretty!

What's Las Vegas if you don't eat at one of their many Buffets? We ate really well. It was good. We ate at the Fiesta Buffet in Henderson. The girl with the glasses is Melissa. We stayed at her house in Las Vegas. Lisa had some friends she used to work for that came to dinner with us at the Chessecake Factory. They invited us to come over to their house on Sunday for a BBQ. So we went. It was fun. They had a slot machine, pin ball machine, air hockey, and a pool table at their house. They made us Strawberry Daquaris (I have no idea how to spell that, but I'm sure you get the idea) They were super nice.
Over all it was a way fun trip, and I didn't want to go back to work on Tuesday very much. Oh well, we have to be able to pay for these trips somehow.