Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Matt and I traveled to Utah where my parents rented a couple cabins in Aspen Grove. We stayed there for a few days and loved being in the mountains, all together and with tons of space.
Here is a picture of all of us.


Matt and I


Some people went on a hike to a waterfall. I started but got scared because it was cold and snowy, so I turned back to sit in the warm lodge.


We also had a race between Grammy and all the grandchildren.


Then Jeremy decided to throw some people in the snow. I didn't get any pictures of Kelsie, but I did get Kammi.


Thanks Mom and Dad, we had a great time and are looking forward to when we can do it again.

Goodbye Elder Leafa

Elder Leafa was transferred this morning. He has moved on to Longmont. Before he left he gave us what he called a speech. It is from his Samoan culture to do speeches. I hope you enjoy it, because I did.

The Missionaries

Towards the beginning of October the missionaries moved in with us. At first we were a bit hesitant. Now we love it. It is so interesting talking to them daily, feeling their spirit, learning what being a missionary is all about, and having someone that will empty the dishwasher living with us.

Here are our elders, Elder Slezak and Elder Leafa.

It is especially fun because Matt's brother is currently on his mission to Samoa, and Elder Leafa is from Samoa. We tell him stories and pictures from Andrew and make Elder Leafa home sick. These elders are happy, work hard and are always laughing and giggling.

I totally started laughing today when I went into the garage and saw this
Who knew that missionaries had weight benches and weights, and why did it just show us today?

Another thing that I think is so hilarious is that they drive a minivan. I have never seen missionaries drive a minivan. It is so great, these two young guys in a mom mobile. It is nice because they put their bikes in it, but they said that all the other elders have cars with bike racks on them, and they have no idea how they were lucky enough to get the minivan.

Winter Storm and Halloween

A few days before Halloween we had a big snow storm. came down and didn't stop for two straight days. On the first day, I was out shoveling and when I was about three fourths of the way done, the missionaries pulled up. They ran over and said I was not supposed to get started without them and stole the shovel from my hands. After they finished they took my shovels "to go build the kingdom of God."

The next day I shoveled all by myself, and the snow was heavier, higher and our driveway is huge. It took me two and a half hours to shovel it all. The whole time I was trying to figure out how we could afford to buy a snow blower.

Here is a picture of me shoveling
Our trees and driveway.

Look how much snow we had, and it was wet and heavy.


This is a picture from our kitchen to the deck, it was awesome how the snow was blown up on the door.

For Halloween we went over to some friends house. It is interesting how Matt and I are in similar in random things, like neither of us really like to dress up. Whenever Halloween comes around we don't know what to do when it comes to dressing up, and are in no way creative with costumes. This year, I just borrowed a bunch of stuff from work and we dressed up as a surgeon and a patient. So creative, I know.

WICKED!!!

My best friend from high school and maid of honor, Angela, and her husband Ben, came to Denver for the weekend. This is the second time that they have done this and we love it. They stay for a couple days and we hang out, play games, tour the city, and this year we went to the musical Wicked. Of the four of us, only Angela has seen the show. I loved it. It was great and in great company.

Sorry this picture is so dark, you are not supposed to have cameras in the theater and so we took it without a flash to be sneaky.

Lily's Baby Blessing

Matt and I were able to travel to Wisconsin to be present for Lily's (Matt's sister's baby) baby blessing. She was a beautiful little girl and we really enjoyed our time.
For some reason I never took a picture of her all ready in her dress, but I did get this one of her from he back while laying on Matt.
It was funny because while all the men got up and walked to the front, Ally, who is three, decided to follow them up, then proceeded to make her way into the middle of circle standing under Lily the whole time.
While in Wisconsin, there was a mustard festival, which we were able to attend. They had more kinds of mustard than one could ever imaging. They even had mustard custard which I had to try. It was very interesting, it started creamy like custard and ended with a burning mustard kick. I decided I didn't like it. They had different cars in yellow, a big wiener mobile, and more.

Matt's parents with a yellow car

In this little town they had all sorts of fun shops and troll stuff. Here is Matt and I with a troll statue.

Inside the store we found this great hat

We gave Sarah some pretty bows to put in her girls hair, but Ally had more fun putting them in our hair, and found it especially funny in the boys hair.

Girls Camp

As a teenage girl I LOVED girls camp. It was filled with camping, hiking, repelling, rifle shooting, going down a huge slide, playing in the creek and anything else we could think of. Since becoming a nurse I always wanted to go to camp as the nurse, well this year I got the chance. It was a great week. At first I was like what am I doing as I sat there thinking of what I could be doing at home, then I realized that I should enjoy my time. I spent the week in the wilderness helping where needed, reading, taking naps, and doing as I felt. It was great to have no direct responsibilities besides being available for potential injuries (which, thank goodness were very minor). Here are some fun pictures of the girls in our ward, also since I am the 12-14 year old Sunday school teacher, they are also some girls from my class.


The first year girls with our bishop, sitting on the "chair" that they made for him. Is it just me or is he sitting backwards?



While there, I could not stop thinking about my times as a young women at girls camp. Not only did I remember all the activities and fun times, it also brought back all the memories of how my testimony grew. Here are some pictures of my years for a trip down memory lane.
Tammy and Me

Rifles

Requel, Candace, Jill, Me

Repelling

Slide with Requel and Jill

Jill, Requel, Me, Melissa, Tammy
Berry, Sara

Kandis

Treating my blisters

4th of July

This post is a bit past due. The 4th of July has always been my favorite holiday. I am not sure why, but some times I feel that it was the great time I had as a child celebrating the birth of our country. Growing up in Idaho we had this routine that we did every year and us children all love it. When talking about our favorite holidays, many of us say the 4th of July, then follow up with the same reasoning. Fourth of July in Idaho meant a beautiful summer day. It started with a parade, then swimming at Rigby Lake, a BBQ, and ended with a great fireworks show. I loved all of these things.

This year for the 4th of July we went to my parents house, but the holiday has greatly changed since they no longer live in Idaho. Yet, the vacation was still relaxing and fun. Matt, Kammi and I, along with Sharon and Spencer and kids went to Utah.

One of the first days we were there, Pam and Sandi and Jeremy came down. That evening we headed up into he canyon and roasted hot dogs.

After dinner Cale encouraged us to go hiking and we found this big boulder to climb on.
Debbie, Sharon, and Kammi:

Carli, Spencer and Cale:

Debbie and Matt:


The weekend was filled of fun activities including, golfing, fireworks, swimming, snowies, more. Here is a fun picture of Matt and Cale on the trampoline. I liked this picture because it took when Cale was really high and I think it kind of scared him.

One last thing we were able to do is attend the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. I loved this and here are some pictures of us afterward. (As you should be able to tell, it was kind of bright)
Cale and Carli
Cale, Carli and Danielle

Sharon, Spencer, Danielle, Matt, Cale, Debbie, Carli, Mother, Pam


Me and Matt

The Yard

Matt and I decided to work on the yard a bit this summer. Last year we "let it go" and that was a big mistake. It became a jungle back there and made the work to fix it much worse. It had a grassy area, with no sprinklers and we always forgot to put the sprinkler out there to water it and then the grass died and weeds came. Then there was a rock garden, in one corner their was a square, blocked out with bricks that had all rocks in it. We decided we wanted to put in a sprinkler system so that the grass would no longer die and to take out the rock garden and make the grass area larger. When Matt's parents, Nathan and Natalie were all in town we solicited their help to removing all the rocks. It was great of them to help, as that is a horrible chore. Here is a picture after the rocks were all removed. (Unfortunately we have no before pictures)

Then we spent the next week planning and preparing. I got to till the ground and it was so much fun, I was pleasantly surprised. Then the morning of installing the sprinklers came. We again solicited the help of others. A guy in our ward, Steve, has a pipe puller, so he was invited. Here he is with his machine.
We have power boxes in our backyard, therefore power lines run right through the middle of the yard and the pipe puller couldn't be used all the way across. Some other friends from the ward came and helped build trenches. Our yard is not big so the work didn't take too long.



















We were very thankful to all those that came and helped, we could not have done it without all the help. Especially to the Huber's who stayed all day long and got all the fine pieces put together.

We then put some seed down and this hay stuff so that the seed would not blow away. Now we just have to wait and see it anything grows. I will keep updating with pictures. Hopefully it will turn into a nice back yard.

Then I just like this picture of Kammi, sitting waiting to get to work, she has been a great help going out with us every night working till dark with us.