Friday, November 6, 2015

Happy Birthday Evan!

Posted by Sheri on Facebook

He looks so handsome and grown up!
Today is also President Uchtdorf's birthday.

 

The big news on Facebook today is the controversy over the Church's new policy regarding children of gay couples.  They can no longer be given a name and a blessing and in order to be baptized and receive the priesthood their bishops have to write a special request to the First  Presidency.  Some people have jumped to conclusions and are not supporting the new policy.  Elder D. Todd Christofferson held a press conference to explain the policy.  James and I will support the First Presidency in whatever policy they establish because we believe they are inspired of God.  Some members are so upset they are asking for their membership to be removed from the Church.  This is a real challenge and only time will tell what will happen.

I had leftover tortolenni for breakfast  It was delicious!  

James and I went to Arby's to get brisket sandwiches for lunch and then we ate them at the park across Willis Rd.  It was a beautiful day to eat outside.  

I picked up Alex at school today and then went shopping at Walmart.  I went to Chase and National Bank to make deposits and then James took my car to Erik so he could replace the tail light that James broke.  

This evening Alex and I went to Peter Piper Pizza to pick up pizzas for Evan's birthday party.  

Evan working on his Star Wars ship

Ice cream eating contest with weird utensils.  

Rowan won! Bryce, Joshua, Evan, Rowan, Gavin, 

and Grandpa.

Happy Birthday Evan!

Just like Rowan and Joshua, Evan

loves the chocolate cake from Costco.

 Ben carrying his mom around the house.

James having a serious conversation with Alex.

It was a fun party and we are so grateful we could spend time with family!

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, November 5, 2015

I woke up to snow this morning!

I got up around 5am to find snow all over the ground.  I packed last night for my trip this morning so when I got up I took a shower and got dressed.  Now the fun begins.  I have to go out to the pump house and turn off the pump and water.  My snow boots were on the front porch and filled with snow so I had to use my tennis shoes to go out to the pump house.  The task is done.  Now to load my car.  As I open the garage door I see that my car is covered in 6" of snow! 

 Mud on the bottom, snow on the top.

I also notice that my front passenger tire looks a little low.

Instead of leaving at 6 as I had planned, it is closer to 6:30.
I have an appointment at the arthritis center at 10:15.  Hopefully  will make it on time.
I had to stop in Heber and put air in one of my tires. They got more snow here than we did in Vernon.

I love the trees when they are covered with snow!

I had to make another stop at the Circle K in Star Valley.  I am ten minutes later for my infusion at the arthritis center but no one seems to mind.  They look at me funny when I tell them I had to clean 6" of snow off my car.  

James and I went to lunch at Olive Garden after my appointment.  My new favorite dish is the beef tortolinni.  

It tastes better than it looks

Cathi and Terry have invited us to stay with them and that is where James has been staying since he came down on Tuesday.  I was going to get a motel but they are family and we are welcome in their home.  We have our own room and bathroom and access to an office for our computers.  Who could ask for anything more.  A bonus is their cute dogs, Indy and Ladybug. Thank you Cathi and Terry, we appreciate you so much!

 Ladybug

After lunch we took a nap and got ready for our birthday date with Evan.  He wants to take Joshua and Rowan with him so we go pick them up before heading to the Chandler mall.  

Of course our destination is the Lego store.  

I sure do love this boy!

Grandpa helping Evan

Joshua makes a suggestion

The three boys make individual characters.

 A Star Wars Battleship

After shopping we all went to the food court to get something to eat.  Rowan and Joshua got pizza, I got orange chicken from Panda, and Evan and Grandpa went to Subway.  Evan ate a footlong sandwich.  He was really hungry!

We had such a fun time with these three boys and we are so glad that they are such good friends!  Tomorrow is Evan's actual 9th birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Happy Birthday Jared!

Jared and Emmy reading scriptures on his phone.

Jared and his kids when they visited us this summer.

Anna and James from a few years ago.

Jared did not get his card from us on his birthday as I had hoped he would.  It finally came on Saturday, November 7th.

It rained all night here in Vernon and it's still raining.  There was some flurries of snow too.  I wish James was here and I had a fire!

I found these two pictures back in July while I was looking for pictures of Jared:

I am going to miss this home!

We lived here for 39 years.

We moved in a few weeks before Jared was born.

 Our new home in Vernon.

I paid some bills, and ordered our Disney tickets and did some other desk work this morning.  

Kilee came this afternoon and washed the inside windows while I finished cleaning out the entry closet.  

 Kilee washing windows

My new clean closet

When I took Kilee home it was still raining and the roads were very muddy.  Now Lexy is covered with mud for our trip to the valley tomorrow.  

For dinner I had a can of chicken and rice soup.  It tasted good on this cold wintry day.  I also had a cup of Pero with chocolate and whipped cream.  

This evening I hemmed James's new pants for him.  He is in Chandler trying to unclog Sheri's plumbing.  

I watched a couple of Christmas movies this evening:

"Cancel Christmas", and "A Carol Christmas." 

 

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Sheri's quote:

3rd Nephi 24:10:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

James left for the valley this morning to work on his job, so I am "home alone."

That big white box on the trailer is the freezer my dad gave us.

James unloaded it all by himself onto our back patio.

I still have the entry closet to work on and windows to wash, so I have plenty to do.  I looked outside and saw the big freezer sitting all catawampus on the patio, so I went out an moved it and arranged the rest of the furniture on the patio.  It looked pretty good when I finished.  

Kilee was suppose to come over after school and help me wash the windows but I got a call around 2:30 asking if she could come at 6:30 instead because she wanted to go to her sister's game.  I said that would be too late to wash windows but I could find something else for her to do.  

The windows were really bugging me, and since it was a nice day, I decided to go out and wash the outside ones and then when Kilee came she could do the inside.  I washed all of them except one on the back patio where James had stacked some wood and I couldn't get to it.  Wow! What a difference clean windows make!

James is staying at Cathi and Terry's in the valley.  They have a bedroom, bathroom and little office at one end of their house that they don't use.  It was Cathi's mother's room.  That is where he is staying.  It was so nice of Cathi to invite us to stay with them.  She says her house is our house and she wants James an I, when I come down, to feel at home.  She and Terry are a very gracious hostess and host.

Laura called today to make sure it was all right for Dave, Terry, Nathan, and Chris to stay at the cabin when they come up to go hunting.  I said they most certainly could.  Kim and Brian are planning on coming up that weekend but that should not be a problem.  We will be in the valley until Saturday.

I watched two movies today.  The Three Gifts, a Christmas movie, and The Walton's Thanksgiving Reunion.  Both were good.

Kilee never came.  She called and said she would come tomorrow.

 

Monday, November 2, 2015

Three earthquake tremors were felt in the Phoenix area last night.  The center was near Black Canyon City and the largest measured about 3.2 on the richter scale.  Sheri didn't feel it because she was asleep, but Ian did and so did Darrel and Trina.  

Lots of these jokes on Facebook

James heard an elk answer him this morning so he went out with the Razr to look.  I stayed home and listened to conference talks and my scriptures.  I listened to Elder Christofferson, Brother Durrant (ponderize), Elder Keetch, and Sister Stephens.  

I keep wondering why James is gone so long.  He finally gets back and reports that he saw 29 elk.  Elk fever lives on!

  He has a broken tine

Today I started to clean out the entry closet we store cleaning supplies in while James unloads the truck and trailer.

My work set up

Around noon James and I left for town.  I told him we needed to get a card and gift card for Jared's birthday.  We listen to our scriptures on the way and finish our book, "Bonds of Loyalty".

We were both hungry so we stopped at Persnikkity's for lunch.

A yummy place for breakfast or lunch

James loved the philly cheesesteak sandwich he had last week and wanted another one.  I decided to try it to.

This time he had it on toasted wheat bread

Mine was delicious, especially with a little

catsup on the side.  The side salads were good too

with the jalapeno ranch dressing.

On to Walmart to get Jared's card and giftcard.  We signed the card and headed to the Show Low post office.  James took the card in and made sure we had enough postage and that it was properly sealed.  The giftcards were a little bulky so the attendant made sure the card was going to fit through their mail slot.  It barely did.

The evening we watched the cutest Christmas movie on the Up channel.  It was called "Angel in the House".  The little boy who played the angel reminded me so much of Evan.  He was adorable.  James makes me a most delicious drink while we watch our movie.  He uses Pero, stevia to sweeten it, and then adds some powdered hot chocolate mix.  It is very tasty and I look forward to it and my movie every evening.

 

Sunday, November 1, 2015

One of my favorite months!

Sheri's quote:

Elder Holland in his talk "Lord I Believe" says,

"When problems come and questions arise, do not start your quest for faith by saying how much you do not have, leading as it were with your 'unbelief.'  That is like trying to stuff a turkey through the beak!  Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have.  I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have.  Sometimes we act as if an honest declaration of doubt is a higher manifestation of moral courage than is an honest declaration of faith.  It is not!"

I was up at 4:30 this morning to finish preparing my lesson.  It is about Cornelius and Peter and taking the gospel to the Gentiles and all the world as the Lord commanded.  I felt like I was prepared.

James helped me put on my new shoes.  They do hurt my feet a little but I checked and I can't get them in a wider size so I will just grin and bear it.  

An announcement was made in sacrament meeting today regarding the refugees coming into Europe.  We were encouraged to donate to the humanitarian fund to help these refugees.  I saw this on Facebook:

 

I loved Brother Scott's testimony today.  He talked about how the refugee's from Syria fleeing to Europe could now be taught the gospel.  He also bore testimony of the Savior!

 I am grateful to belong to the this church!

 Everyone in my Primary class, except Zemira, bore their testimonies in sacrament meeting.  I told them in class it was important to remember to bear testimony of the Savior.  Hopefully they will remember.  

I am not sure if it was the Halloween candy or what but our class was very rowdy today.  It didn't help that today was Joely's birthday and Isabelle was there to celebrate with her.  Joely brought a bean bag and begged me to let them play a game, so after class  they played hide the beanbag.  They were rude to Braylin who tries to get attention by saying rude things.  When he was out of the room I told them they needed to practice being more kind to him.  

Zemira did give an answer regarding Peter's symbolic dream of seeing unclean animals and how it applied to the Gentiles.  I was proud of him.  I don't think he has ever answered a question in class before today.

Ashten is excited that her brother, Kendall is coming home from his mission on Wednesday.  She really didn't want to read scriptures today but I talked her in to it.  Talena was the best in class and was the most reverent.

Denice Hall did singing time today.  I think Alicia went to visit her mom in Utah who is dying of cancer.  It was lots of fun songs and Denice made it even more fun.  

Lannie Gillespie did sharing time.  She told the story of the Good Samaritan and then gave the kids an assignment to do 5 acts of service before our next Primary in two weeks.  It's a contest and the class who does the most acts of service gets a prize.  The kids were pretty excited!

We came home from church and watched a movie, "The Wishing Tree", before breaking our fast.  

I also worked on my blog, read scriptures and listened to several conference talks.  My favorite was the one by Pres. Eyring on the Holy Ghost.  James took an extra long nap.  

We watched two more Christmas movies: "The Best Party Ever", and "The Ultimate Life."

Kim took family pictures today for the Trezise's.  I love this one of the boys:

So handsome and lovable,

all of them!

Saturday, October 31, 2015

It's President Uchtdorf if you please!

Happy Halloween!

Reporting in from Texas,

James, Emmy, Anna, and Molly

The following are not my grandchildren, but I

thought they were pretty darn cute!

Such a cute idea for twins!

This reminded me of the year Sheri was Raggedy Ann

and Jared was Raggedy Andy.

 James went down to the breakfast buffet here at the Springhill Marriott this morning and he brought me back three different breakfasts.  The first was a cinnamon sugar muffin with strawberries and whipped cream.  The second was biscuits and gravy, and the third a blueberry waffle.  I ate a little bit of all of them.  This food is much better than what we had at the Comfort Inn! 

James went to work this morning while I stayed at the hotel and worked on my Primary lesson.  We left a little before 11am, which 

was the checkout time.  James dropped me off at Sheri's and I went to the soccer game with Ian, Sheri, and Evan.   Alex went with James to clean out our unit at Central Self-Storage and load everything into our truck and trailer.  

The boys lost the soccer game but I won with Lola! Sheri was holding her and she held out her hands for me!  I sat between Sheri and Stacy.

Rowan comes home with us.  We stopped at Winco to shop and see if they had anymore one cent pumpkins left.  They didn't.  I got James some chocolate covered almonds.  

James drove up at Sheri's just as we go home from Winco.  I gave Rowan and Evan a hug and James and I headed for home.  We read our scriptures and from our book on the way home.  Of course we stopped at Burger House for tacos and burros.  

We stopped at the post office before going home and I was surprised to see the new shoes I ordered were already here!

They fit, I just wish they were a little wider.

James unloaded the suitcases and our personal items but will wait until Monday for the rest of the load.  We watched a really good Hallmark movie called "Freshman Father" before having our fasting prayer and going to bed.  It is hard to believe that tomorrow is November first.

Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treaters

The Hall's.  The witch, Ashten, is in my

Primary class.

Jon, Logan, and Lexy

Christina and her family