Pre and post thanksgiving catch up!

The day after we moved in (and it was raining!) we woke up to SNOW!  I've pretty much already explained our crazy week with being sick and trying to unpack and getting over to the other house to clean so I won't re-hash that.  Although I probably HAVE repeated myself a bit...I apologize ahead of time for the repetition.  The day before Thanksgiving (Wed) Clif and Lindsay came to see us!  They were in town for her brother's wedding on Tuesday.  It was fun to see them for a little bit and we took pictures of them for a project we are doing for Joel for Christmas.  They were good sports and sadly it's the ONLY pictures we got of them!  We appreciate them making the drive down from Bountiful to see us.  They are busy, busy with school in Clovis (and Visalia) so even if we only see them for an hour or so, we will take what we can get!  We spent Thanksgiving afternoon at the Gonzales' home.  We took just a few pictures.  Isn't it funny that with all that yummy food, the kids have so little on their plates!!  Pretty sure they all had a good slice of pie though!  I think the picture of Makayela with the olive and Eric on the couch after dinner are the epitomy of Thanksgiving.  ha ha...thanks for indulging me Eric!  The little boys traced their hands and made turkeys...Carson was so cute tracking Jacob's hand for him.  Then the day AFTER thanksgiving my sweet friend Kelly Laing from Clovis dropped by to see me!  She had Peyton with her and it was such a joy to see them!  They had come to UT for Thanksgiving and she made the effort to drive up from Springville and pay me a visit...even amidst our sick-i-ness and our mess of just moving in!  Peyton used to always come to my house and play with my dinosaurs.  I had them out and ready for her!  She was still shy and wouldn't talk to me, but she DID play with the dinosaurs.  That's how she remembers me...the lady with the dinosaurs.  She would not look at the camera...but it was sure fun to have her and her mom come see us and our new house! Again, I didn't get a picture of Kelly.  My sick brain just wasn't working that week!! This will be the Thanksgiving to remember (or not!).  Loved Jacob's pilgrim hat.  He made it at preschool and wanted to wear it to dinner!  When Ryan Winiecke got back from his trip to CA he brought us some cute snowmen candy bars from his mom and dad.  Along with Bishop's homemade fruit leather and beef jerky!  YUM!!  What a treat!  He also brought us some huge avocados from his grandma's tree!  It's been fun having Ryan stay with us...I am sure he will be more than happy to leave us in a couple of weeks and get back to his own family!  Happy Thanksgiving 2014!

Thanksgiving 2014

In the middle of a moving mess...Amanda and I being sick...and suddenly it's Thanksgiving.  We were very grateful that the Gonzales family invited us for Thanksgiving!  We told them that morning that Amanda and I were sick and weren't sure if we should come...they insisted that it would be fine.  So we went to Springville and enjoyed a lovely meal with them and Eric and Randa's family.  (Gonzales' are Randa's parents).  LynnAnn's homemade rolls tasted especially good.  We stayed and visited for awhile and let the boys play with the kids.  Then we were ready to go home and rest.  This is the only decorating I did for Thanksgiving!  I did get out my brown velvet pumpkin and put it in the middle, but took the picture before that.  I made the plate for Lindsay.  Clif and Lindsay came to Utah for her brother's wedding (on Tuesday) and they borrowed a car and drove down to see us Wednesday night.  It was fun to see them and visit for a little bit.  They just had their 2nd annivesary!  Hard to believe how fast time flies.  I am thankful for my family, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the life and example of my Savior, and all the blessings that seems to come to me every day even though I am so far from deserving of them!  We are grateful to have a place to live (even though this house has lots of strange quirks that will take getting used to!) and to have a son serving a mission.  We are truly blessed in so many ways!  It's been a crazy time and strange to not have our own thanksgiving at our house, but we have so much to be thankful for!  We did buy a small turkey and we cooked it on Sunday.  We also went over and finished sweeping out the garage at the old house and putting the finishing cleaning touches on the house for the walk through Monday morning.  Finally feeling a little better and will be glad to have that part done!  

Moving, cleaning, moving...ugh!

Well, the time has come.  Time to pack up, clean the new house, clean the old house, and rake all the leaves at both houses!  So much work!!  Everyone helped...thank goodness!  Eric's family came over and helped us one day.  They raked leaves and Eric helped move things to the new house in his truck.  Then at the new house, they raked some more leaves!  And Eric (who is afraid of heights) got on the new roof and used a leaf blower to clean the rain gutters!  Wow!  It is crazy to have two messy houses at once.  On the 22nd, Some wonderful men came from our ward to help load our truck.  They had it done in record time!  They even moved the chicken coop!  They never knew that wrangling chickens was part of helping a family move!  They did a quick and good job!  Brother Anderson brought the horse trailer again and a couple other brtethren drove their trucks (with said chicken coop and other paraphenalia from the garage) and came to our new house.  All this in the morning with a threat of rain!  They set the chicken coop back up and Bro. Newman brought the chickens in his goat cage in the back of his suburban.  It was quite the enterage driving to the new house!  There was another family in the ward moving so we excused the men with a huge thank you and a donut and let them leave to go help the other family now.  We had called our new bishop for help unloading so felt confident all would go well.  It started to rain.  That should have been our first sign that it wouldn't go that well.  NO ONE showed up from the new ward.  I called the new bishop only to get an answering machine and left a message that we were here and needed help.  NO ONE CAME.  So the 3 of us and Ryan Winiecke (who has been staying with us since August and had to move with us - I feel bad about it!) unloaded the truck in the rain.  One of Amanda's friends came over and helped and then when Dale came to bring the boys home he helped with the last few things.  Oh. My. Goodness.  What a mess!  We took the Uhaul back over the old house for one last load of the outside stuff (rototiller, fireplace, lawn chairs, etc.) and then after unloading that stuff, took the uhaul back.  What a day!  We didn't know whether to be mad, disappointed, or what, but we weren't having very good feelings about our new ward!  About 9 o'clock in the evening the new bishop called me.  He apologized that he had dropped the ball and he took full responsibility for no one showing up.  Promised me that it is a wonderful ward full of good and kind people!  We felt a little better after that, but boy we were so tired and just felt like we were in a huge mess (we were!).  The boys had been sick and Amanda was getting sick too...by Monday she was really bad, a cough so bad she couldn't breather.  I also got congested by Tuesday and it was all we could do to go back to the other house and do some cleaning.  Very little unpacking was getting done. Dave and I went to Sacrament meeting on Sunday but then came home to relieve Amanda from the boys and let her get some rest.  It has been a crazy week.  We are still working on the other house trying to get it ready for a walk through on Dec. 1st and we are trying to unpack and then there's Thanksgiving in there...well, let me just say we are TIRED and there's no way around it, it's going to take us awhile to settle in! And the LEAVES...at this new place...we can never get them done by ourselves. It's not going to happen!  John had hired a young man to come and help so he comes an puts in a couple hours after school.  It's making a dent, but no where close to being done.  Amanda used a leaf blower and cleaned the back hill down to the back patio...but there's still a ton more and then the actual bagging of the leaves...sheesh!  More about that project and the new house in another post.  We have been here one week.  We think we will really like the sunroom, and the family room.  The kitchen is big and nice too.  Amanda's bed won't fit in any of the small bedrooms so she will use the basement family room as her bedroom.  The fireplace doesn't work so it's just a pretty room for her.  Pretty crazy times since we got the keys to the new house on the 7th.  Glad we are here but wish we were settled!

 David, Makayela and Kai raking leaves at the "old" house...this is nothing compared to the new house!  We sure appreciate their help at BOTH houses!  

 And of course we have Zander with us during the week...keeps packing and cleaning interesting!  He sure loves the kitties!

 Chicken wrangling!  Amanda shows them how it's done.

 Messes at BOTH houses!  And of course Dave had to clean out the garden spot.  Jacob had fun helping him with that.

 Some pictures of the new house before it is filled with all our clutter!!

Piano movers extraordinaire...

We are getting ready to move.  We knew the day would be coming, but here it is!  Dave's brother John bought a house in American Fork but isn't ready to move up here yet so asked us to rent it until he is ready.  The rent is cheaper and the Ruses will soon be home from their mission and we would need to move anyway.  So done deal!  In another year or so Amanda will be graduated and hopefully working, then we will all know where we want to buy a house and move.  Hopefully for the LAST TIME.  The dreaded part of our move is always the piano.  Dave wants to sell it every time we move!  I don't blame him. But it's my piano and I love it.  We called our home teacher and asked if he could round up a few people to come and help tip the piano over so Dave can fix the bottom.  It is broken and drops out and drags when we try to move it.  He wanted to fix it once and for all.  So these sweet guys came over on Thursday evening and tipped it down for us.  It only took a couple of minutes and only a couple of fingers got mashed.  (barely).  We thanked them profusley and Dave was able to get it fixed right up!  THEN, Saturday morning the same guys and a couple more came to help us move it.  Oh my goodness...we can never repay them for what they did!  Hal Anderson brought his horse trailer (what a nice trailer by the way!) and the men heaved it down the front steps and rolled it into the trailer.  Strapped it in and then followed us over to our new house to unload it.  That's where it got REALLY tricky!  They carried it up the little grass hill to the front door.  Now, up the stairs.  The grimacing faces were enough to make me want to cry.  They were heaving with all their might, one step at a time.  I was just waiting for someone to get smashed against the wall or put a back out or something.  How do you thank someone for doing such extreme labor?  We are so grateful for all their help and I am sure they are glad to see us and our piano go!  Thank you, thank you thank you!  Paul Larsen (our home teacher), Hal Anderson, Jack Reese, Jesse Fowlkes, Brad Halverson, Greg Stewart (he came just in time to help load it!) and of course my own sweet Dave who has survived another move of that monster piano.  The rest of the move should be a piece of cake compared to this!  It looks real pretty in it's corner of the new house (which we are renting from Dave's brother John).  Dave says we will offer to leave it with John and April when we move again in a year or so!

Winter has arrived!

Our first snow day!  It "flurried" all day and actually stuck!  It looks very pretty from my kitchen window.  As long as I am inside with the heater running, I like the snow.  I guess it's official, winter is here!  (even though the rose busshes still have new buds on them!)

Veteran's day = my birthday...

November 11th is always my birthday...and it's always Veteran's day.  It's a special day that I feel connected to my Dad.  I am honored to be an Army Brat and grateful for his many years of service to our country.  The day started with me coming out my bedroom door and it was decorated with crepe paper streamers!  Compliments of Amanda and the boys.  Then we got to go to David's classroom for Grandpa to share a turkey tale (read a story and leave a tie for their turkey "tail").  After Grandpa read the story, the teacher asked if any of the kids had any questions for David or his grandparents.  Wouldn't you know one of them asked how old we are!  David said, "my grandma is 52 today!" How funny that we had the conversation at breakfast so David knew the answer!  So the class of cute little 1st graders sang happy birthday to me.  It was a fun morning!  We did go out to eat and of course I got lovely gifts and messages all day long.  Thank you everyone for spoiling me!  Love and miss you Dad.  This is really YOUR day.  Ashley made this neat collage of Dad.  I love it!

Halloween 2014

Amanda made their costumes again this year, and as usual, outdid herself!  They are characters from The Lego Movie...David was Emmet, complete with the "piece of resistance" on his back.  Jacob was Lord Business and Amanda was Wyldstyle.  Thursday we got to see Jacob's preschool class in all their costumes.  It was cute.  On Friday we all went to the Halloween Parade at David's school.  We saw some very cute and clever costumes.  Our favorite was David's of course.  We made Jack-o-lantern quesadillas for dinner and we carved/drilled some pumpkins for the front porch.  The drilling was easy and quick and made great light shining through.  It was fun!  The boys painted their pumpkins with some friends last week.  We had beautiful weather for trick or treating and enjoyed getting out in the neighborhood.  It's all over by about 7:30 and I am perfectly happy with that!  Zander came to see us in his dragon costume.  Then mostly neighborhood kids.  It was a fun night.  And we have plenty of candy around here to last us until Christmas!  Fun that Halloween was on Friday too...we could sleep in and just have a relaxing weekend!  I got my wicked blocks done this year!  Sent a set to Ashley and Lindsay, and made one for me and Amanda too.  They were fun and turned out cute...I think.  We did put a finial on the C blocks finish them off, but I took the picture before those got put on.  Happy Halloween!

Then this morning we got a picture of Joel!  With Bert and Mary Poppins!  And he's with an Elder Austin who is not his companion so they must be on splits.  Love getting random pictures of Joel!