Happy Turkey Day!!

This fall has been sort of weird for us. We moved, we went on a few trips, I've already had a church luncheon.... It's been busy. So when I thought about Thanksgiving, I really just wanted to relax.

Last year we had lots of people over and this year, we don't really know anyone. It was just going to be us. Then Dave remembered we have family here in Washington. What? His uncle and a few cousins live here. So we decided we'd better invite them for Thanksgiving. Time to get to know them a little better. Turns out they were planning on inviting us over. So I didn't end up having to do anything. It was really nice. We had a fun time getting to know new cousins and the kids had a blast playing games (bingo was a hit) and winning prizes.

The next day Dave left for Utah. His mom got married today. She married a great guy Bill. I wish them the best and happiness in their life together. Dave is the only one who got to go, because the cost was outrageous to fly and it wasn't a long enough weekend to drive. 7 hours or less is my limit for a 4 day weekend.

I hear everything went perfect and it was wonderful! Sorry we missed it, but Lorraine will be moving here to Washington. Our kids will have all their grandparents within a few hours of here. That's never happened before so it should be new and exciting.

I am truly grateful for all of my blessings. I have a wonderful husband that takes care of me. He treats me so great and does so many things for me. He works so hard and provides so well for us. I have 4 wonderful kids that are so beautiful, funny, crazy, smart, aggravating, loud, messy, and wonderful. Some days I think I want to change them, but when I look at them I realize what great little individuals they are. Ok I do want to change their messiness but that will take time.

I am thankful for the roof over my head. I am thankful I get to live in such a beautiful place. I am thankful for my freedom to do what I want, and raise my family the way I want. I am thankful I get to worship how I want, where I want.

I am thankful for my parents. They are the best parents anyone could have. They have taught me so much. How to be generous, how to love others, how to help others. How to appreciate the beauty in all things. How to be a hard worker. Although it still makes me laugh when they call in the morning and I'm still in bed they ask if I'm feeling ok. This is usually around 8:30. On a weekend. :)

I have so many blessings and sometimes I forget to show my gratitude. Not because I'm not grateful, but because I think I let the business of life take over. I am grateful and I have been blessed beyond belief. I thank all those in my life, friends and family for being there for me.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I now need to get my motivation back and get my Christmas up this week. Wish me luck!

In Paradise

Dave and I had the opportunity due to his wonderful job at AFLAC to go to Paradise. I mean Hawaii. It was so much fun. We had a blast. We started our day flying out of Seattle at a nice hour of 9am. When we lived in Idaho we almost always left at 6 am and had to fly somewhere else to catch a direct flight. Not from Seattle, we had a direct flight to Hawaii.

This is good and bad. Good because only one flight, bad because longer flight. Shorter than direct from Atlanta, like we flew last time. 10 1/2 hours. No thank you. Seattle was only 5 1/2. Anyway it would have been even more wonderful if we were in first class but alas we weren't that lucky.

I think we were just lucky to be on the flight we were because we were the last row. Which isn't bad if you are only on an hour flight. But 5 1/2 gets a little long when you can't lay your seat back. But really it wasn't too bad.

The bad part of the flight was the person sitting next to me. No not Dave! The other person. Actually it wasn't even her. It was her dog. Yep, a dog. A Shi-tsu. So you can now have dogs on flights so long as they fit under the seat in front of you. Of course you can't tranq them, because what if something happened during the flight, so you have to listen to them yelp. This dog didn't yap for very long. This dog decided to break his carry case and tried to escape. So what do you do with that dog on a long flight? You hold it. You hold it on your lap in it's carry case, because that's the rules and let it snort and pant on the person next to you. That would be me. I got sprayed a few times ( can you say gross?) and it's breath not so great.

Anyway it was heaven when we landed in Honolulu. We rented a convertible and headed to our hotel.
Aren't we cute? This weekend consisted of many activities and dinners. It was fun. On our free day we decided to hike up to Moana Falls. At least I think that's what it's called. It was truly a gorgeous hike.
It's amazing the green and beautiful flowers that grow in the tropics. We have lots of green but not so much the tropics.
The next picture was on our hike and reminded me of the kudzu that grows all over everything in South Carolina.
Some of the roots from the trees we hiked over. They made amazing patterns. They also made the perfect stairs for the muddy trail.
These trees were so pretty and so many. A very beautiful canopy. Heavenly Father truly is amazing.
Here is the waterfall. Yeah, not much to look at. The hike was definitely the best part.
We had the opportunity to see one of our favorite people from Arkansas while in Hawaii. Our wonderful babysitter Elizabeth has moved to Hawaii to go to BYU Hawaii. She came over and had some breakfast with us one morning. It was so great to see her. She was 14 when she started babysitting our kiddos and has never met Abby.

We had another outing on our last day and went to the North Shore. We went to the Dole plantation and had pineapple ice cream. VERY Pinappley. Then we went and had lunch at the shrimp trucks. After that we went to Matsumoto's Shave Ice. Delicious. Craig and I are sporting the blue raspberry tongues.
Here is Dave and his buddy Damon at one of the shrimp trucks. Really scary, but according to everyone, DELICIOUS. I thought the onion rings were awesome.
We also had a few dinners. One night was formal. It always makes it fun to dress up and feel fancy. We had the chance to see Sheryl Crow. She has great music. It was fun, the food wasn't so good so we went and got pizza after. I think I ate pizza 3 nights in a row. Good thing I like it. But I don't think I ate pizza for a couple weeks after I got home.
I'm holding my name tag if you are wondering what is in my hand. We had a wonderful time there. It was truly nice being with my sweety. It would have been even better if we had a king bed instead of 2 doubles. It was sort of weird sleeping in separate beds but I know we wouldn't have gotten any sleep if we shared a double. You definitely get used to your space when you have a king.
Here we are. This is us. I think we are pretty cute.

Welcome to the ward

This week I had visits from both the primary presidency and the Relief Society presidency. They were both very nice and we had good visits. Too good I think. The RS asked me if what I liked to do. So I told them. Read, cook, entertain...

They took that to mean I would be great to host and be in charge of the RS luncheon in 2 1/2 weeks. What? Ok. I guess I'll figure something out. I'm going to do soups and rolls and maybe a salad for lunch, but they want me to have an activity. Like making pies or something. I'm not good at that but I thought maybe we could do homemade cranberries, which is totally easy or a cranberry tapenade. It's like a relish.

If you have any ideas I'm up for anything. I guess there is no better way to meet people them have them over for lunch.

Maybe no one will show. Of course then I'll think it's because of me. :)

Halloween 2011

Halloween fell at a really crazy time this year. We had just moved, then Dave and I went to Hawaii and then the family went to Disneyland. We arrived home on October 30. That's right the day before Halloween. Never fear we snuck in an hour to pick out costumes and this is what we ended up with.I don't know why the picture is so dark but the one below was taken a week before halloween so you get the gist of our costumes. Noah is a werewolf. Jacob is a ninja. You can see him if you look really close at the picture. He blends into me. Stealthy like a ninja. Sydney is Princess Jasmine and Abby is the cutest Cinderella ever.
That big black dot on my forehead is a spider attached to my witches hat. I figured I was self explanatory since I'm a witch most days.
Here they are again. This time with the grumpy cinderella. If you are wondering where Dave is it's him taking all the pictures. But I did find one of him in his costume at a different event. Can you guess what he is?
If you can't that would be Slash from Guns 'n Roses. He looks pretty good. This year he got the sleeves for his arms so he looks all tattooey.

We met up with some people from church and did a couple streets of trick or treating. Then we came home had hot cocoa and everyone got 2 pieces of candy to eat. It was a fun night. I'm glad it's over and I can put the Halloween decorations away. I only have a few weeks before it's time to decorate for Christmas.

Preview of what's to come

Ok since we moved I've only posted once. That is because I think we've been gone as much as we've been here. Poor Dave was only in the state a total of 9 days last month. How crazy is that. So this is my preview of what is to come. I might actually get some pictures in there too.

First off we have our trip to Hawaii. Second we have our trip to Disneyland. Third we will have our Halloween. And last anything else that was forgotten in the mix of trips and moving. I will try to post some pics of the new house too.

Today I'm just trying to get the house cleaned up, the Halloween put away, the laundry done, dinner made, a visit from the primary presidency and scouts. I wonder if I can fit anything else in there? Probably...the stuff that just happens. Hope you all have a fabulous day!!!