New's Years Resolutions and New Years Eve.

I always have a really hard time coming up with new goals, well its really easy to write them down but it is tricky to fit them all in. I often feel that there are like 5 goals that I always want to be working on, every day, every year but I get tired of saying these are my new goals every year. Then there is the whole issue of individual goals and family goals with Mark. Most sources I have read (Well, I actually do not think I have read any but I have heard it said...) indicate that to be happy you need to be balanced spiritually, mentally, and physically so maybe that will be my overall goal and then all these little details will be how I achieve that. Since there are specific things I can do to accomplish them I will I will go ahead and write them down so I can refer back to them. Here they are in no particular order.

My New Years resolution: To be spiritually, mentally and physically balanced

How to accomplish this:

Spiritual:
1. Read my scriptures every day for 20 minutes and write down 1 thought and 1 question.
2. Have scripture study with Mark right after dinner
3. Read 2 talks on lds.org each Sunday on chosen topic
4. Keep a journal, I will write in it every Sunday, I will type it up in a word document instead
of a notebook because they are too hard to store.
5. Family History: this is the big one. I have been very unmotivated to do my family history.
these other goals I have done before but I have never been willing to write this one down
because I knew I wouldn't do it but this is the year.
I will do indexing on line
I will write my own history (so far) based on the 52 questions where I answer one question
a week.
I will input my own family names into new.familysearch.org
6. Hold weekly family night and family council.
7. Attend the temple twice a month

Mental: a lot will be focused on relearning all I learned while earning my history degree
1. I will read more non-fiction books at least one a month
2. I will read more historical fiction books at least one a month
3. I will read over my history notes
4. I will try lots of new recipes
5. I will try to learn more about the world and current issues.
6. Mark and I will live within our budget. Actually we will try to live under it so we can put
more into savings.

Physical:
1. I will eat smaller portions at meals and less sweets....
2. I will use my Wii Fit 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes
3. When Mark and I play tennis I will try to improve and really play not just rally
4. I will learn all about what to expect and how to have a healthy pregnancy ( I am not pregnant but I would like to be, so I guess that is a goal too)
5. Start out family!!
6. We will be more prepared, we will increase our food storage and supplies.

2009 is going to be a very busy year!! Luckily I have the whole year to work on these things and once they become habit I know I will be happy. Fortunately I am already doing some of these things. I love structure and order so keeping these goals will be all about finding a time or routine that I can fit these things in because it is a lot! That is another thing with goals, they really start to add up!! The point is to be trying to improve myself. Time to go make up a schedule so I can fit these things in.

And here are some photos from New Years Eve. We went out to eat and saw Valkyrie, then went to a friends house to play games and wait for 2009! It was a fun night.

With the traditional Martinelli's. Its a good thing we stopped at the store and grabbed some on our way to the party because nobody else at the party had brought any, what would New Years Eve be without Sparkling Cider?



Our New Years Eve Kiss!



Shooting off the poppers! Happy New Year!

Christmas in California!

Mark and I just got back from spending 9 fantastic days in California! We flew home in the 21st and went straight to my parents house in Yuba City. We stayed there until Christmas Day and then we drove down to spend time with Mark's family in Turlock. Since we were in Egypt the last 2 Christmas's it was really great to be home with our families this year. While we were home we baked cookies, went to In N Out Burger (delicious!), visited with old friends, got some great frozen yogurt (Greeley is seriously lacking in the frozen yogurt department) and had fun hanging out with our parents, siblings and their families. We had a couple of rainy days in Yuba City which I enjoyed and the other days we had beautiful warm (55-60) degree weather with lots of sunshine. Here is a sideshow of the fun things we did while home. Most of the pictures are from April's parents house in Yuba City. I was really happy to get some updated pictures of my siblings and parents. We also took some of my nephews and niece, Cade, Cameron and Lisa.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

FYI: My siblings from oldest to youngest are: Derek, Katie, Davin, Susanna and April. Katie has the 2 boys Cade and Cameron and Susanna and her husband Ryan have a little girl Lisa. My brother Davin is married to a great girl named Tara, and of course you know Mark my wonderful husband.

We are so glad that we went home. We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas in Colorado!

Since Mark and I are in California Christmas day we decided to have an early Christmas morning at our apartment in Colorado together. We opened our stockings and our presents from each other and I made the traditional Orange rolls that my family always has. Fortunatley I bought two cans because the first batch did not turn out and it would be catastophic to not have these when opening Christmas presents. Even when we were in Egypt we had them because some friends with Commisary privlegdes were kind enough to get them for us. The first batch was way underdone so we put them back in and then we burnt them, good thing for second chances!

Aprillee with her Wii Fit! I am so excited to use it when we get back.

Mark with the presents. We ended up getting a few more then planned, we are just tying to help the economy!

This picture is for my dad, his favorite part of Christmas morning is seeing all the wrapping paper from the presents on the floor. I do love Christmas! Below are the Christmas Traditions that Mark and I like to implement into our holiday season. I really do love traditions.

1. Read and act out the Nativity Christmas Eve with lots of songs and have a short testimony meeting after.

2. Bake and decorate sugar cookies to take caroling.

3. Read a Childrens Christmas Story each night from December 01 to Christmas Eve, each year we will buy a new story to add to the collection.

4. Type up a Christmas Newsletter each year

5. Drive around and look at lights, handing out an award and bag of candy to the best decorated house.

6. Decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving

7. Have Pillsbury Orange Rolls and Hot Chocolate for breakfast Christmas morning.

8. Open one present on Christmas Eve. Mark and I are planning on buying our kids three prestents each year, one that they really want, one that they really need and one that reminds them of Christ. We will see how we do. So it would be nice to open the one the reminds the of Christ on Chirstmas Eve.

It will be fun to do these traditions with our kids and to add new ones over the years.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

All I want for Christmas.. are my wisdom teeth back in!

*Caution: Viewer Discretion advised due to a gross picture of Aprillee's teeth*

Friday December 12 2008 is a day that will live in infamy in my life (at least until I have children). At 10:45 am, sweet, cheerful April walked into Dr. Mellin's office here in Greeley to get her wisdom teeth out. While she did not expect this to be a pleasant visit she had hoped it would turn out a little bit better than it did. Today is day 5 after the extraciton and I feel like crap! I have been lightheaded and weak and sick to my stoamch since Saturday. Here are some lovely pictures of me trying to recover.

This is me the day I got my wisdom teeth out. Not a happy camper. I was really sleepy because of the anesthesia and spent the day in bed with ice packs on my cheeks well, for at least for as long as I could stay awake. I wasn't in too much pain this day because I slept most of the day, since then it has been a different story. Mark has been a total sweetheart though and taken really good care of me. No real surprise there though. He is the best!

One of the worst side effects for me has been the drugs they prescribed. I apperantly do not react well to Viccadin. On the bottle it says "may cause dizziness and drowsiness". In my situation there is no maybe about it. I actually think this is a common occurrence but I am not a fan of the stuff. What is annoying is that not only does my jaw hurt like crazy but I feel lightheaded and nauseas too. Today I went back to the Oral Surgeon because it hurts so much and found out that my fear of dry sockets was not without reason. It appears that is where I am headed. Bummer! Why couldn't my mouth just heal normally? So he put in some amazing mediacted things called dry pakcets and I feel like a new person or at least a live person again... I am going back Thursday to have these taken out and then he will put some new ones in. I am a little nervous though because we are flying to California (Whoo-hoo!) on Sunday and was hoping I would be completlybetter by then. Hopefully Thursday I wil go in and my mouth will look amazing and I will be feeling all better.

Its been little difficult to be in the Holiday spirit since I had this surgery. Here is me with my annoying teeth in front of our tree. Notice the red sore on my lip, yep that is from them strectching my mouth open to take out the teeth. The surgeon is actually a very nice man who has a crappy job! (Although he probably likes it)

Here they are! Actaully, they had to break one of them to get it all out and the weird thing was that one of them actually had 2 teeth fused together. Yes I am special! Sorry if this picture grossed you out, you were warned. I guess I really do not want my teeth put back in but they sure have been a headache. Hopefully I can go to work tomorrow and I will feel all better.

Your fabulous Prize today is ... This handsome furniture set!

I used to love watching the Price is Right. Its too bad that we didn't win this furniture on the Price is Right, that would have been fun. Instead, Thanksgiving weekend we decided to take advantage of the sales going on and go look at furniture, also fun. I knew that I wanted a 2 person, aka a "Cuddle" chair, (I do love to cuddle!) and probably a couch and love seat. When we got to the warehouse I immediately spotted this set and loved it. We walked all around this warehouse looking at different sets but nothing was as great as this set. This place is huge, 2 enormous floors of furniture! There were some pretty wild sets but not too many cuddle chairs. It was very helpful that Mark and I have similar taste in furniture and that Mark was in the mood to look at items because it was a really big store. Something that I have noticed about myself is that I get a picture into my head of exactly what I want and rarely find it. While this can be discouraging it is also helpful because I spend less money! But luckily we did find this great set.

I LOVE this chair!! Something that we found really annoying though is that ottomans are always priced separately than the chair which really bugs me. And the ottomans always cost almost 1/2 as much as the chair. I told that salesmen that I found this really annoying and he said that the ottoman is the least bought piece of furniture and I said, " if you included it in the price of the chair people would buy more." (seemed like a no brainer to me but I am not a salesperson) But he didn't seem to think so.

Its a good thing we did not get a couch and love seat because they never would have all fit into our apt. (And we didn't need to spend that much money.) When we sat on and looked at the furniture in the warehouse it didn't seem quite so big because the place is so big but in our apartment it looks a little crowded but we do not care, we don't plan on living here forever so we will just enjoy it even if it looks a little funny. I also learned from this shopping experience that I don't even really like love seats, I would rather have 2 of these chairs, they are just so comfy. In case you cannot tell, its a lovely olive green with a light brown trim. It also came in dark brown but that was a bit too dark for us. We still need to buy a kitchen table. We are borrowing our friend Bethany's but we can wait awhile for that. I asked the salesperson if they have sales for most holidays and he said they do, maybe Presidents Day? We will see, probably not though.

Our beautiful tree and how we got it

Welcome to our home!
(I made this wreath last week to hang up on our door. I was quite pleased with how it turned out.)

Yesterday I got home from school and told Mark that we needed a tree! So we decided to go and cut one down from a tree farm but first we had to collect some help. Our friends the Depsain's have 2 cute little boys, Hyrum and Noah who are 4 and 2 and we thought they might like going with us to choose a tree. The Depsain's are moving this week and are trying to pack up their house so we thought it would be helpful to have the boys out from underfoot for awhile and did I mention that they had twins at the end of September? So we went over and grabbed the boys and headed out to the tree farm. We were racing against the clock because the farm closes at dark and that happens at like 4:45 so we took off as quick as possible. We got to the farm and jumped into the tractor to be taken out to the trees. As you can see, the sun had pretty much already gone down. Have you ever picked out a tree in the dark? Its a little tricky.

Noah, Hyrum, and April



After much (albeit hurried) searching we found a tree that we thought looked like it would work. We weren't really sure because as you can see its quite dark so we were hoping for the best. We seem to be a little off with our timing for outdoor activities. When we went to the pumpkin patch it was too dark to take pictures too, oh well.



Riding back to the house with Noah. It was fun to go out and pick our tree. I did it once with roommates at BYU-Idaho and had a lot of fun but Mark and I had never cut down a tree together so now we have.

As you can see our tree is quite bushy, so we gave it a "haircut" to thin it out some. There were also some gaps so we used floss to "rearrange" some of the branches. My dad would be proud, he always spent so much time wiring up branches and our tree growing up had perfectly spaced branches. We didn't have any wire but thankfully we floss and had each just gone to the dentist so we have a good supply of floss, good for so many things! Growing up we always had really tall thin trees, that had a lot of spaces between the branches so it was a little weird to decorate a tree that was so bushy. I felt like I didn't know how to do it.

Mark with our tree all lit up.

The finished product! I put up one picture with the flash and one without just so you can get the best effect. It was so fun to decorate tricky but its always fun to decorate a Christmas tree. Most of our ornaments are from Egypt so it was fun to think about where we got them. They are mostly glass though, so they are really hard to see. I think that theme trees are so pretty but I like having all the different ornaments because so many of the ornaments have special stories behind them. Come on over and we will give you some hot chocolate and tell you the stories.

Let the Holiday Season begin!!

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving I put up all our Christmas decorations and later that day we went up to Estes Park in the mountains to watch the Estes Park Christmas Parade with our friend Faye. Estes Park is a cute little mountain town about an hour away from where we live in Greeley. We drove up and went out to eat at this delicious BBQ place and then walked down the street to watch the parade. We stopped at a cute little chocolate shop and got some delicious peppermint hot chocolate and walked down to the parade route. As we were waiting for the parade to start it began to snow!!! It was beautiful!! I was so excited. I have been hoping it would snow in Greeley but it hasn't. I think that snow is magical and I love it! I know that I have not lived it in that much so I do not really understand the annoying parts of it but you have to admit that even if you do not like winter falling snow is one of the most beautiful things ever! Our favorite "exhibit" in the parade was actually by the US post office. They made little green elf shirts and carried the white letter boxes. They had a "drum major" (the person who leads a band for all you non-marching band folk) and they did this little routine with their boxes. It was so cute. I think we liked it so much because they seemed so proud of themselves. It was so cute and I do love getting mail so I am partial to the US postal services. Here are some pictures from the parade. We have such a hard time getting good pictures in the dark. Oh well.

Here we are with our peppermint hot chocolate! Delicious!

This float reminded me of the White Witch from Narnia, I wonder if that was their inspiration?

A creative twist on Goldilocks and the 3 bears



T' was the Night Before Christmas float. I am not sure if you can tell but I thought this float was so cute because they hung big pieces of candy above the bed like they were dreaming of it. Cute!



And of course here is Santa and his Sleigh! Merry Christmas!

Is the turkey upside down?

We had a nice Thanksgiving here in Colorado. This was only the second Thanksgiving that I did not go home to California for. (minus the 2 in Egypt, so I guess I should say since I have been living in the United States but that sounds weird) Our friends the Lyman's (Brett and Lori) were kind enough to invite us over. We had all the traditional foods and then played lots of games. I made tons of rolls and a huge green salad, unfortunately with all the other good food to eat the salad was over looked so it looks like we are going to be having a lot of taco salad this week. Mark and Brett were in charge of carving up the turkey. Which leads into the title of this post.

Mark and I got to the Lyman's and walked into the kitchen to drop of our stuff and Lori asked Mark if he knew how to carve a turkey. Mark was more than willing to help out and went over to Brett who looked really confused. He said that the last time he carved a turkey there was a lot more meat on it so he asked Lori if the turkey was upside down. She said that she didn't think so so they kept trying to find some meat with little success. After a few fruitless minutes Mark suggested that they turn the turkey over just in case it was upside down. Low and behold, there was the meat!! Brett looked much more confident and he and Mark finished carving the turkey and it was delicious. So my purpose in posting this was to give you the hint that if your turkey seems to have very little meat try flipping it over there is no meat on a turkey's back!

Ta-Da!

We are THANKFUL for:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We decided to make a list of what we are thankful for it might not be all inclusive but we will try to get close. Some are a little on the silly sounding side. We started on Monday for FHE and this is what we came up with in no particular order:

Our eternal marriage
Testimonies
Family
Freedom
Good Health
Education
Egypt
Jobs
Food and shelter
Rain Storms
Seasons
Thumbs
Nature: flowers, trees, waterfalls and mountains
Pork Chops
Holidays
Books
Libraries
Scriptures
Internet
Pictures
Organization
Mail
Ice cream
Friends
Music
Parks
Jesus Christ
Camping trips
Traditions
Mark's chocolate chip cookies
Each Other
April's Cinnamon Rolls
Limes
Safety
The feeling of being at peace
Opportunities to serve/help others
Dishwasher
Ziploc Bags
Gatorade
Agency
Temple
Compliments
Memories
Travel
Airplanes
Revelation/Inspiration
Forgiveness
Toothbrushes
Chap-stick
A good nights sleep
Laughter
Cleanliness
Lotion
BYU-Idaho
Tennis
Frisbee

We realize that this list could go on forever! We have been given so much. Life is so good! Hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving. Don't forget to give thanks!

Birthdays!

I had a great birthday yesterday. I loved getting so many emails and cards in the mail. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. Getting mail is one of my very most favorite things! I love to send it now that I am home. I am not sure what the deal was but I was just really excited about my birthday this year. Maybe it was just because I was home and not in a foreign country. We opened presents in the morning and Mark made me breakfast; my most favorite orange rolls that we only got to eat on Christmas day growing up. Since I have not been at home I have them on my birthday now too. Sometimes it is so hard to not buy them when I am at the grocery store but traditions are worth it! We went to the store Saturday night to pick out my ice cream cake and we found one and grabbed it without realizing that it was actually an ice cream pie so that was pretty silly but it still tasted great.

The preschool class I work with made me this crown and poster sized birthday card. I walked to the door and it was taped up in the door frame. It was cute. One of the teachers made me cupcakes too. It was really nice and a great surprise. The teacher who made the crown wanted to put 16 but the other teachers said it was too young so she settled for 21. I was such a good sport that I wore my crown all throughout the school so everyone looked really surprised that it said 21 (or maybe it was because I was wearing a silly crown...?) I did my best to correct them first: that I was actually 26 and second that I was not going out to party that night since they originally thought I was 21.

Cute pajamas Mark bought me and off to the side (right) you can see the way cute Christmas wall hanging that my oh so talented sister Susanna made for me.

Birthday Pie, next year we will check the box closer but it was still delicious.

NOVEMBER 23 2007
Last year for my birthday Mark took me over to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula and we went snorkeling and climbed Mount Sinai. It was a great way to celebrate my 25th birthday. So here are a few pictures from last year.

Dahab is an incredible place to go snorkeling. We went to a place called the Blue Hole and you walk down a little ramp and put your head in the water, start swimming and there were the fish! We saw so many amazing kinds and so many of them. It may sound funny but if you ever plan a snorkeling trip go to Dahab in Egypt! It was truly incredible! I am not sure if you can tell but the water was such a pretty blue and so clear.

This is when we started hiking back down. We hiked up at 2:30 in the morning so we could get to the top by sunrise. It was so so so cold!! And dark too so we waited to take a picture. It was a cool hike. At the top there were all kinds of Christian groups from all over the world having little sermons. Well they were actually singing and praying really loud and were very distracting but, I hope that it was a nice spiritual experience for them. To each their own. We just enjoyed the view and thinking of what "might" have happened there. It was well worth it.



After the hike. Mount Sinai is out in the middle of nowhere so we stayed at this little Beduoin camp. These are the headdresses the locals wear.

AUGUST 09 2008
And finally I decided to go ahead and put up pictures from Mark's birthday in August we had just moved to Colorado and our friend Bethany took us to Casa Bonita a Mexcian (duh, huh) restaurant in Denver. We didn't really go for the food, honestly its not that good but for the atmosphere. They have a live Mariachi band, cliff divers, and old arcade games. It was a fun trip.
We did actually get Mark a ice cream birthday cake!

Bethany, Aprillee, and Mark outside Casa Bonita



The Birthday boy! (handsome man that he is)



Mark stomping the spiders! (hard worker that he is!)



Look at the form!
(Mark is such a good sport and so fun to be around, everyone feels comfortable around him)



Bethany and Aprillee racing. As a side note, I stink at these racing games! I spend most of my time running into the walls or going the wrong way!

Mark wouldn't really approve of those side comments but I just appreciate him so much! He is a wonderful husband and friend.

BYU at Air Force

We got to go to another BYU game this weekend. Mark's dad came to visit for the weekend so we got tickets to the BYU/Air Force. It was a lot more fun than the CSU game. We were by BYU and Air Force fans and they were all just good sports. BYU won 38 to 24. It was a beautiful day, a bit chilly but great for a football game. BYU scored 3 touchdowns in the 3rd quarter so that was exciting.

Air Force's mascot a falcon challenged Cosmo the Cougar to a handstand challenge and Cosmo kicked his trash. It was fun. They stayed in the handstand for a really long time. I was impressed. I wish I would have got a picture of it but here are the cheerleaders anyway. They were doing some crazy stunts!

A beautiful day for a football game!

We took Mark's dad up to Estes Park Friday night. We went out to dinner at this really good BBQ place we really like, Smokin' Dave's. Estes Park is a lot like Jackson Hole, WY if you have been there. It was too cold to stay outside and take pictures though. Maybe next summer... mid twenties and windy is not so fun. I also had a personal triumph this weekend. We have this game that is the LDS version of Settlers of Katan and I won! I have never won this game. We played it every now and then in Egypt with some friends and I always lost. I am not a competitive person at all but I really wanted to win last night. I wont' let it go to my head though. So we had a great weekend.

CTA California Teacher's Association

As most of you know Mark and I both got our degrees in History Education. Each state and each school district has a union to support teachers. As most of you are aware public education in the Untied States is really struggling for various reasons one large reason being the lack of funding. During this election season, (I am so glad its over!) CTA donated 1.25 million dollars to Proposition 8. (Which if you aren't aware was an amendment to California's Constitution that would effectively ban all marriages that were not between a man and a woman) Putting aside all feelings about Prop. 8 (whether you were for or against) I am so irritated that CTA donated this money to this cause! I have been trying really hard to just forget about it but I am clearly not there yet so I thought maybe writing about it would help me vent my frustration and move on. I mean really, I do not teach in California nor plan on teaching there anytime soon so its crazy that this is bothering me so much. That said here we go:
My mom has been teaching in California the last 20 years so since I have been trying to learn all I can about CTA's donation I asked her where on Earth they got that money. Most articles I had read (and I have read A LOT) talked about the money being used from teachers dues but I wanted to make sure I knew what the story was. So I talked to my mom and she said that the money donated came from CTA's political fund. When a teacher joins the union part of their dues gets put into a political fund. Okay fine, my problem is that they would dare use this money on something that according to everyone against Prop 8, has nothing to do with education. Again and again those voting NO on Prop 8 claimed that this ballot would not effect education in any way so why the heck is the state teachers union donating money toward defeating Prop 8?? In my opinoin there are a hundred worthier causes to put this money toward.
As I have been reading articles on the donation and people's reactions it appears that CTA has completely shot themselves in the foot. CTA put the money towards defeating Prop. 8 and because of that lessened their chances of getting support for future ballots that actually have to do with education. Many people wrote that the next time CTA tried to gain financial support for an educational ballot they were not going to support them because they put this money towards something that didn't have anything to do with improving education in this instance. They also hurt their own position against Prop. 8 because many teachers who were undecided about which way to vote decided to vote yes on Prop 8 because they were so angry that CTA used the money for this while they have no funds for their schools. They further hurt themselves because many teachers have decided to pull out their membership in CTA and only be a part of the local school district union. Now I am fully aware that there are thousands of teachers in California and plenty of them will remain in CTA and are glad that they donated the money to defeating Prop. 8 but I don't blame the other teachers for pulling out their membership or as some did, asking that their money be taken out of the political fund.
Now while people taking out money or discontinuing their membership shows their anger that CTA did this (which I totally agree with) it also hurts education in the future. Now they will have less money and support for true causes that will help education. Stupid CTA!!! It is so irritating that they took so many teachers money on such a controversial and emotional cause that supposedly "will in no way affect education". Many people have talked about how this measure will effect education and so forth, but there are just so many things that the money could be put toward. Here are a few ideas that the money could be used for: these were "hot topics" on the CTA website:

No child Left Behind, charter schools, class size reduction, health care, school funding, schools of greatest needs, school and student safety, special education, teacher shortage, testing and accountability, vouchers.

These are only a few of the topics they could have put money towards or even better worked to put to a ballot to use money from the political fund for! Like I said, I read a lot of articles from a lot of sources and could have of course found only that ones that people were angry in but I find this not that likely. We can only hope that President-Elect Obama holds true to his promises to help education we sure need them!

BYU vs. CSU!

Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado
We had heard that BYU was playing CSU here so we decided to stop by the stadium today and see if there were tickets left. There were so we went ahead and went to the game. And BYU won! People keep telling me that CSU had a really bad team but they did a good job. It helped them that BYU made several errors as well. We were right in the student section in the beginning and it was a little to intense for me so we moved over and enjoyed the game much more.

In the calmer section, great for a picture.

The final score was 45 to 42. The funny thing is that we left during the 4th quarter when it was 31 to 28 and we got into the car and all of a sudden both teams started playing really well! BYU had two really fast touchdowns and CSU scored another touchdown or two. So we missed all the best action. Oh well. We are glad that BYU won! I was wearing green, CSU colors but had luckily brought by BYU-Idaho sweatshirt. It was fun to go. We certainly didn't expect to go to a BYU game here in Colorado! Go Cougars!

Until next year...

I am having so much fun this fall! We went to the Haunted corn maze and 2 Haunted houses and between us we have carved 5 pumpkins! The preschool class I work with also went to the pumpkin patch. And we have had the most perfect fall weather. People told me when we moved here that it usually snows by Halloween but it was like 72 degrees yesterday. I love it so much. The pictures from the time Mark and I went to the pumpkin patch and corn maze didn't turn out, it was too dark but here are some cute ones of the preschool class and our latest pumpkins. With the preschool class we went on a hay ride, and bounced on this huge blown up "pillow" and picked pumpkins. There was also a "corn" box instead of a sandbox. It was a great field trip.

So this is what the sky looked like when we arrived at the pumpkin patch BEAUTIFUL! But not conducive to picture taking. Mark and I both agree that there are beautiful sunsets when mountains and clouds are involved. We always thought that Idaho had such pretty colorful sunsets. Colorado's are looking quite good as well!

Mark at the pumpkin patch, this was the only picture that kind of turned out but we had to go in the evening so we could go to the Haunted Corn Maze, who wants a non haunted one in the daylight? Just kidding they are fun too.



This is the preschool class that I work with. Cute kids for the most part! The student that I work one-on-one with is in the back row with the pumpkin on his head, Sonny.



The Giant Corn Kernel box who needs sand?



And finally, Mark with 2 more pumpkins that we carved. Notice the big large piece spider, that was the one I chose, very simple! And yet Mark still totally beat me and his was a lot more complicated. He did it in like an hour. Oh well.







The finished products. Happy Halloween until next year...