Favorite Things

Although I do love cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels

these are some of my favorite things . . .

The story of the Three Trees

The Nativity

Different nick-nacks that remind the reason of Christmas!

Our simple little Christmas tree.

We've had this for years and set it up in a corner even when we have a real one.

And most of all friends and family!

(I'll have to find a good picture for here)

2010 Thankful Tree

Our tree looks rather squarish this year. We missed about five days and I think that would have "rounded" it out.

(in no particular order)

We are thankful for:

Patience

Remote start on the car

Friends & Family

Vicks Vapo Rub and grapefruit juice

The new WalMart

Jason & Andrea

Massages every week

Missionary moments

Temples

Homemade PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps

The weather (experiencing 4 seasons)

Taste buds

Nyquil

Our home

Good appropriate humor

Home and visiting teachers

FHE

All the many birthday gifts and wishes

Emily

Good neighbors

Buster, Belle, and Sage

Journals

Jesus Christ

Jacob's laugh

Jobs

Eyes

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Ears

A happy marriage

Tithing

Puppy breath

A new car

and

The Thankful Tree!

Testosterone Day

When men get together with A LOT of guns . . .

This is a 50. cal sniper rifle. Apparently it has a loud bang and a big kickback.

Jake's friend, Jake, holding a tactical shotgun brand new just out of the box.

Jake's favorite gun.

Too many guns not enough shooters!

Click here to see video

. . . they come home happy!

Wow it has been awhile.

It's been too long. Here's a quick update of our lives.

I'm working graveyard this rotation at work. It's not as bad as I thought it would be but not something I could do more then 4 months out of the year. It's a busier time of year during grave because of the football games and Halloween. Come January the only adjustment I'll have to make is sharing the bed! Right now when I come home from work Jake is getting up. I jump in bed and when he gets home from school I get up. We spend the day together and then I'll head off to work and he heads for bed. The sun hits our window at all hours of sunlight. I woke up a couple of times with the biggest headache. I felt like my eyes were staring straight into a light for 7 hours. The solution: an eye mask. I never thought I would be able to sleep wearing it. Surprisingly when you're so tired you really don't care and your eyes love you when you wake up. Apparently Jake doesn't have a problem wearing it either. I came home from a Dr. appointment to find him wearing the eye mask napping.

We went to the only WSU football game they won. We ended up nabbing some great seats away from the Student Section. We were under the press box with older Alumni, which was nice because in the Student Section you end up standing the entire time! It was fun but probably because they won. We haven't gone to another game since and they haven't won since.

The day was perfect and there was only a slight breeze!

It's very rare that WSU has the ball this close to their end zone!

It's a Kodak moment when the score looks like this!

Showing school support!

We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, and herbs. We had plenty of tomatoes. Because of the chilly weather we had to pick them red or not. We have a box of green tomatoes that slowly change to red. It will probably hold us over until Spring. We planted the bell peppers and the jalapenos in the same bucket. We think they cross bread! Ha! Our bell peppers were spicy. We didn't get very many bell peppers but we made out like a bandit with jalapenos. The herbs grew well too. Our spices are well stocked. We had a frog family living in our pepper plants. They had cute babies.

As the Activities Leaders for our ward this is our "busy" season. We had a great Halloween Party but now begins the adventure of Christmas. We didn't carve anything fancy in the pumpkins this year.

Fall is officially here and we love it! I love finding the perfect leaf.

Our newest addition came in the color of red. As an early birthday present we finally gave up on the Honda and bought a new car. I feel a little more comfortable driving on the two lane highway to Spokane, Lewiston/Clarkston, or the Tri-cities with functioning airbags.

We have a lot to look forward to in November. The Thankful Tree, Harry Potter, snow, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday.

july is gone and august is here!

And again I post with no pictures because 1) our computer had a major malfunction and the more recent pictures are gone 2) I’ve just been too lazy to take pictures.

I’m not so sad that I lost the few pictures I had on that computer. There weren’t a lot and most of them were random. What I’m more sad about is losing all my iTunes. My music is gone. Lots of money gone. The classics: Wilson Phillips, Amy Grant, Tears for Fears, Johnny Cash . The later: Match Box 20/Rob Thomas, Ben Folds, Goo Goo Dolls, Good Charlotte, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill. The latest: Kris Allen, Michael Buble, Plain White T’s, John Mayer. Oh I could go on. Sadness. The lesson learned. Use Time Machine today, not tomorrow.

On a happy note:

We have community BBQs all the time. The invitation is pretty much to anyone and everyone. We provide the grill they provide their own meat. We’ll sit around and chat for hours and eat until we’re about to explode. It’s nice to live in an area where you actually get to know your neighbors.

We had a great Pioneer Day on the 24th! Surprisingly the wards up here don’t participate in the traditional get together celebration. Being the Activity Leaders and have helped with the best Pioneer Day celebration in Las Vegas (North Las Vegas Stake has the best celebration in Las Vegas – hands down) we couldn’t pass this chance up. We had homemade stews, rolls, side salads, dutch oven potatoes and desserts, more desserts, lemon aid, and homemade root beer. We had people playing their guitars, kids on the playground, sack races, kick ball, and a cupcake walk. Some families even did a small “trek” in the wooded area. The turnout was amazing and everyone had a great time.

Jacob is a year older. We celebrated in style . . . presents, dinner with the folks, cobbler for dessert, ice cream cake for dessert! He played golf with his buddies and relaxed at home. That following weekend we had a birthday BBQ which was no different than any other except there was cake!

Jake’s parents brought up some peaches! Yahoo! We managed to get them all peeled and frozen before they went bad. We’ve already had some yummy peach enchiladas and a smoothie every morning. We are going through them quick! They also brought zucchini but that was gone within a couple of days! Our tomato plants are getting HUGE. There are tons of tomatoes but they’re still green. Ugh. I’m a very impatient farmer. We do have three bell peppers growing too! Our herbs have been harvested this year and we should be stocked up until next.

Well, I think that’s all I can think of. Maybe next time I’ll post a picture or ten.

~duck face~

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Hiking Kamiak Butte

Two weekends in a row we hiked Kamiak Butte. It a very pretty hike. One weekend Jake and I just went by ourselves. The next weekend we went with a group of friends.

heading to the top

a view of the wheat fields

almost there

jake, garret, valerie, jaimie, nayt, and bronx the dog

the trail runs along side of the mountain so there is a nice panoramic view along the way

jake at the top of the main hike. there is a summit where you can go to the very top.

at the top of the summit.

nayt, bronx, jaimie, valerie, garret, and jake