Monday, November 4, 2013

Happy Birthday Jared!!

At the cabin last December.

Well, it's official.  Jared and Tricia are not coming for Thanksgiving.  We are going to the valley to have dinner with Darrel and Trina, and Sheri and Ian.  

I went shopping at Sam's Club for the Young Women's dinner we are having next week.  I bought New York strip steaks, steak sauce, Olive Garden salad dressing, bacon bits, croutons and steak knives.

James and I had lunch with Adam at Jersey Mike's today.  He just happen to come by as we were ready to leave.  We always enjoy Adam's company.  He is excited about going to Disneyland this week with Kim and Brian.  We are also going with Evan and Rowan.

This afternoon I went shopping at the local Dollar Store for cheap baskets to put rolls in for the YW dinner.  Afterwards I went to Walmart to get black spray paint so I could paint them black since our color scheme is going to be black and white.  

When I got back to the house I watched You Tube videos on the TV with Stacy and Michael.  They have something called chromecast which connects the internet to the TV.  

Lauro worked in the living room in Chandler getting the walls ready to paint.

It rained here and there was snow in Vernon.  Sorry I missed it.

Facebook finds:

 Drea Boles and Karin Gonda Westerman

at Karin's wedding reception in March.

Our Chandler friends the Ellsworth's.

Adrienne, Audrey, Dane, Marisa, Grady and Mike.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Almost up.

James bore his testimony in sacrament meeting this morning.  It was sweet!

  

I am a little disappointed in my visiting teaching efforts for October.  I talked to Rosie Lauritzen on the phone, caught Linda Diewald in the grocery store, and texted Lannie.  I can and will do better!

Today in Sunday School Brother Wilhelm shared with us that he started his fast yesterday afternoon by going to the temple.  What a great idea!  We are going to do that starting next month!

We have a new couple in our ward, James and Sharma Taylor.  I never thought I would be in the same ward as James Taylor.  We introduced ourselves to them today.  Sharma says she grew up in Snowflake but she wouldn't remember us because she is probably at least ten years younger than we are.

We broke our fast this afternoon by having goulash and stir-fry veggies, a rare combo.  

James left for the valley a little after 2 this afternoon in order to make it to Alex Braddock's Eagle Court of Honor.  I didn't leave until around 4.  I did the dishes and took a nap.  

I am so glad that James went to Alex's Court of Honor because Alex gave him the Mentor award.  He also got to visit with many of our Chandler friends while he was there.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

I love living in Vernon!

This morning at 9am we had our young women's breakfast to recognize those girls who had completed the challenge to read the Book of Mormon.  Those attending: Diana Curtis, our Young Women's president, Trenda Wilhelm, Shelly Applegate, LeeAnn Hunsaker, Kilee Hunsaker, James and myself.

Shelly, Diana Curtis, Trenda, LeeAnn, and Kilee

I love these young women and Diana too!

James made us some delicious sausage gravy and we had the gravy over biscuits.  We also had blueberry, banana nut, and almond poppyseed muffins, a nice fruit tray and some orange juice.  Everything was most delicious.

After breakfast we went around the table and had everyone talk about one of their favorite Book of Mormon characters and scriptures.  It was the spiritual part of our get together.  James participated too!

After breakfast I gave each one of the young women their gift bag and told them how proud I was of them.  LeeAnn and Kilee went home and Trenda, Shelly, Diana, and I played ping pong until all of the balls were gone.  (They went over the railing to downstairs.)  James took Shelly on a Razr ride and let her drive and then we took her home.  Diana gave Trenda a ride home.  It was a fun morning.

James cleaned most of the kitchen and I finished up.  I was so exhausted that I crashed on the couch while James went out to work on the CAT.  He still can't fix it so he will probably have to call someone.

This afternoon we started our fast that we would be able to sell our house in Chandler. 

This evening we watched "The Thanksgiving House."

Friday, November 1, 2013

Morning skies:

Wait, are those cows in our yard??

James had another meeting at Horne Auto today.  This project he is bidding involves tearing out some concrete slabs in front of their entrance.  The snow gathers on this concrete in the winder and the concrete has begun to deteriorate.  The slabs will be torn out and then a heating system will be placed under the new concrete.  If the Horne's accept the bid for the heating system James will start the job on or around November 12th.

I did some shopping at Walmart today.  I got a gift bag for the four young women who finished reading the Book of Mormon.  In it I put a tube of fancy hand lotion and a huge KitKat bar.  I also wrote each girl a note telling her how proud we, her young women leaders, are for honoring her commitment to read the Book of Mormon.  

I called and ordererd two bean burros and two green chili burros from LaCasita and James picked them up.  Charlotte, our waitress, wanted to know where his "lady" was.  She is so funny!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

 Happy Halloween everyone!

The low this morning was 21 degrees, but at least there isn't any wind.

I love this quote by President Hunter.

I have discovered the Mormon Channel app for my phone thanks to my friend Karen Schneider.  Today I listened to an interview and song by Brooke White.  I also heard a story about a little boy names Ryan who is helping to raise money to build wells in Africa.  He started the project when he was 6 years old. Wow!

James had an appointment in town at 10 am today with someone concerning the Horne job.  I didn't go because I felt like I had too many things to do to get ready for our Young Women's Book of Mormon breakfast on Saturday.  Also I set a goal at the beginning of October to index 200 names and as of this morning I still had 67 to go.  I did finish!  I worked on a Maine cemetery project which was fun because the names were type writeen and therefore very legible!

James and I continue to read the Book of Mormon, a conference talk everyday, and we are re-reading Victoria Holt's "The Mistress of Mellyn."  When I was a teenager my grandma Strickland, Nannie, let me read her copy of The Mistress of Mellyn.  She is the one that got me started on Victoria Holt's books.  What do I like about them?  There is always a mystery to solve, some romance, which isn't too racy, and usually an old English manor to explore.  The Mistress of Mellyn contains all of these elements!

Max is learning how to cook.  This week he helped his mom make baked ziti for dinner.

Master Chef Jr. here he comes!

Guess who learned to ride a two wheel bike?

It's Miss Ruby!!

Since it's Halloween I wanted to post some Halloween pictures.

James and I took the left over candy from last night's Mutual 

activity to the Vernon Park where the Vernon School

was having a carnival.  While there we saw this monster:

Colter Hunsaker

Some more Halloween characters:

Michael the Fat Man, can dance!

 Halloween in El Paso.

Trick or Treaters,

Joshua, Evan, and Max.

Joe and friends, Carter and Cash.

 Max and Addy at the ward Trunk or Treat.
Max is a businessman and Addy is an angel. (She really is!!)

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

It was cold and windy today with scattered showers.  George Wallace came to help James get ready to level our road to put cinders down.  James is having problems with getting his tractor started.  A rat got into it and built a nest.  She (the term James used), chewed two fuel hoses in two and now the nest is soaked with diesel and Ms. Rat had to move out. 

George Wallace give so much service in our ward.  He told James about building a kitchenette and condo complete with satellite TV in his shop for an 85 year old homeless man.  The man's job is to watch George's place when George is gone.  They guy says he's never been happier.  George is such a great example of someone who gives Christlike service.

This evening at Mutual we taught the young men and young women how to index.  Blaine Curtis was our main go-to guy.  I, along with Diana Curtis, have been called on a five month mission to index 50 names a week.  She is the zone leader and I am the district leader and we have five missionaries called: Coty Iannoli, Kilee Hunsaker, LeeAnn Hunsaker, Shelly Applegate, and James.  Tonight I worked with Shelly and Trenda.  It was fun.  Afterwards we gave out these bags of candy that I put together.

Bags of candy for Halloween.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

I got ready for a visit from my visiting teachers today.  I carried boxes upstairs and downstairs, cleaned the floors and put out more Halloween decorations, including my favorite talking pirate picture.  I am calling him Hagoth.

Alicia and Colter Hunsaker and Diane Gillaspy arrived around 10 am.  They were here for over an hour.  As soon as they left James hurried me out the door because he said he was meeting someone at Horne Auto around noon.  We stopped at Lynda Tanner's and dropped off a book about how to handle adversity. 

James realized he wasn't going to get to Horne's in time so he called the guy who had been there for awhile and talked with him on the phone.  Well that was easy.  Now we can go on to the important stuff like LaCasita, Walmart and Home Depot.

James called Jason today.  He said he and his wife debated for a long time but they decided not to buy our house, mostly because the master bedroom is not separate from the other bedroom.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

James had a meeting tonight at the stake center.  It was on the new youth curriculum for Sunday School.  Since he is now over the Sunday School he was one of the presenters.  It's funt to see his enthusiasm for the program!

Facebook Finds

Sheri got a great picture of this owl in our Chandler neighborhood.  

She said there were two, but the other one flew away.

Paul posted this picture of Joshua 

enjoying a butterfly.

Adam and Joseph at Lion King.