A new Christmas tree

So I'm going to make you wait till next year to see it, but last night James and I went up to Target and perused their Christmas clearance isles at 75% of it's hard not to find something you "need". Well we found a tree, a beautiful prelit 7 and 1/2 foot tall blue fir. It's VERY pretty -we debated between it and a "Norway" pine that was more green in color other than that I think they were the same. James and I liked them both (but not enough to get them both -although at 75% off maybe we should have...) the boys all liked the blue fir. As the box was opened when we bought it I had James set it up -just enough to check to make sure everything was there. It's so easy to set up all you do is plug each section in to the previous one and the branched all fall down into place! -you've got to spread the smaller branches out a little and make the tree look the way you want it to but it's a lot easier, bigger and more realistic looking then our last tree -not that it was a bad tree it served us well for years and will be kept as a back up (retired from active duty). I mean our little Charlie Brown-esque (as James calls it) tree was nicer than anything we could find in the Northern Arizona woods last year when we went up to cut our own tree down... which was a fun and funny adventure of it's own.

CHRISTMAS!

It's HERE! The boys favorite day of the year (followed in close second by their own birthdays...).
So Santa brought them a wii, and it wasn't on any of their wish lists or letters to Santa. So James, with encouragement from his friend Jon, decided to tell them that he was asking Santa for a wii, but that he was worried that Santa wouldn't get it for him and so he asked them if they'd all forgo getting any presents for each other, or from us and EVEN from Santa so that they could get him a wii... Yeah he's on the naughty list...
The best part was Tylor saying to him, "well, Dad... I don't know a wii is kind of expensive..." with that you might want to lower your expectations look on his face. Priceless.
Here's our Charlie Brown-esque tree with all the gifts around it and under it (our living room isn't all that big so it's actually kind of nice that our tree is small...)


Here's the wii in all it's boxed but not wrapped (Santa should have wrapped it...) glory. Oh and don't tell the boys but Santa may have played the wii a few times -he got it back in May... and that's all I've got to say about that.


Here are the boys opening presents and/or showing them to me for a photo op...






So normally it takes the boys a day or two to clear their new acquisitions out of the living room, this year because of the physical movement involved in playing the wii (especially for Ryan -whom we'll need to record some of his bowling, tennis, and boxing events, stay tuned...) they boys cleared out the living room before James even started thinking about starting Christmas dinner. Here's what the remainder of the day looked like.

Christmas Caroling

So a tradition from my family that may well date back to Dickens time is to make cookies and go Christmas caroling and hand out plates of the cookies. There are however a few rules with this activity. First, there has to be rice crispy treats on the plate, second the recipients of the caroling/cookies needs to include the home and visiting teaching families -hey how else am I going to count them as visited in December?
Anyway it's something that Carmen and I have always done, whether it's been on our own or with my family or Carmen's family and pretty much every year that we've gone up to Portland for the holidays we've gone caroling three times -on our own before we left, with her parents on the Sunday evening before Christmas, and with my parents on Christmas eve.
So this year I wanted to try something different, I wanted to explore my Willy Wonka side and try my hand at being a chocholatier... So we were looking around for different recipes and we found that in a cookbook I already owned that was called the spirit of Christmas cooking, there were a BUNCH of candy recipes. So we tried a few, gum drops, a "never fail" divinity, camels, peppermint smores, peppermint patties, peanutbutter balls (dipped in chocolate of course) and chocolate covered cherries. It turned out that the recipes made a few more than we'd anticipated... we ended up making 13 cookie plates and sending a box of goodies to my mom so she could try out or creations, my sisters (as part of their belated Christmas present from us) and we still had enough that we had our fill, but not the boys they wanted to make more of EVERYTHING!!!

Chocolate Covered Cherries


Peanutbutter Balls (foreground) and Chocolate Covered Pecan Camels (background)


Walnut Carmels (top container) "Never Fail" Divinity (second from top container) Peppermint Gumdrops (middle container) Raspberry Gumdrops (second from bottom container) and Orange Gumdrops (bottom container)


Frosted Sugar Cookies -because it's not a cookie plate without at least one type of cookie on it after all...


Not pictured but included on the cookie plates: peppermint smores, almond bark, peppermint patties, fudge and the rice crispy treats... yeah I think that's all...

Yeah the families on our list made out like cookie (or should I say candy) bandits. The only problem is that next year I'll have to either top it (not likely) or ask for new home teaching families because I don't want to disappoint them with a sub par cookie plate... I've set the bar too high...

End of Soccer Season

Saturday December 13 was the end of the soccer season. All three boys played soccer and they were all on different teams. So yes our Saturdays for the past couple of months were booked... but I can say that we made it though, pretty much in one piece. Each team had their own end of season parties. Here are the boys getting their medals or trophies.

Ty with "coach Steve"

Kyle with coaches Redweaun and Jason

Ryan with coach Kim

I can swing

I was at the park with Ryan when he started swinging by himself. So here he is.

Christmas Devotional

I have to say I Love having the Internet. We were able to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional from our home (on BYU TV's Internet site). The boys all had pillows and blankets because we were sitting on our bed -they didn't pass out but James was willing to put odds on them falling asleep... as the computer is in our bedroom and so in order for all of us to watch it we were sitting or laying on the bed.

Getting ready for Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving, we started getting ready for Christmas. On Friday we had Tylor do his service project for the family. It was cleaning the carpets (with Dads help). While the carpets were drying we took the boys to see Madagascar 2. We all enjoyed the movie.
Then on Saturday we got our tree out and set it up. Every year we think, we should get a new one as we're setting it up -it's a little Charlie Brown-esque. But then we price them out and decided to look after Christmas, but the nice ones are never still there when the clearance prices get good -75% off, I guess we're asking for too much...
Kyle, Ryan and I put the tree together. James was helping Tylor finish up his book report that was due on Monday. I do have to say the project for the book report turned out really good. Ty had to make a shoebox diorama, so we went to the DI and got some 5 cent toys to supper glue in it. Ty needed a dragon, a guy (not a knight but just a young boy) a girl and a horse, we were able to get all three, we just had to rummage through the big toy bins... Where James found about 2 dozen decent shape titleist golf balls (they're like over two dollars a ball at the golf shop -no they're not that special...).


Anyhow, we got the tree up and decorated, and now we can justify the Christmas music we've been listening to for about a month...


This is the only picture I took of Kyle. He was goofing off. Or maybe trying to hide under the tree. This was before James started putting on the lights.

















Ryan set up one of the nativity sets that we have. This is how he set it up. Oh and that look on his face... well that's his "other" smile -yup, not my favorite either...









Here are the stockings that James and I found back in July at the Disney outlet in Ontario CA. In the center of the snow flakes there are little mickey faces. I also bought the tree skirt that matched the stockings, of course...

Band Concert

Tylor had his band concert tonight. He is warming up before the concert.


Here are some of the songs the sixth grade band played.

Western BBQ

Basha Elementary school has a western BBQ once a year. The parents can come and eat with there child. So this year I ate with Kyle and James ate with Tylor. After they've eaten, they do some of the dances they've learned in "PE". To accommodate the entire school all the grades eat at different times, that's why I ate with Kyle at 10:45am and James ate with Tylor at 12:30pm. Here are some of the dances the boys did. Tylor's gym teacher told the sixth graders that now they were set for life for weddings as they've learned the chicken dance, the electric slide and the hussel, all wedding reception staples... So apparently we short changed the guests at our wedding as we didn't have ANY of those dances...

Visit from Yuma

My brother Trevor and his wife Mayumi and their two girls came up for a visit. We were able to have dinner with them on Friday night and hang out for a little bit. They came up to see the boys soccer games. Tylor's game was at 8am. Ryan's game was 9am. and Kyle game was to 2pm. They got a little distracted comming to Ty's game, as the price of gas in Yuma is like 20 to 40 cents more than here... But the boys loved having them come to the games and we really appreciated it too. Thanks guys!

All I want for Christmas is...

Kyle's two front teeth!

So a little more than a week ago Kyle lost one of his front teeth. The other one has been insanely loose, but he's refused to really wiggle it, he said it hurts but I think it was because it feels odd not so much hurts. Anyway today after church I convinced him to lay his head on my lap and let me look at his tooth with this piece of dental floss in my hand... what? no I didn't lie to him I only wanted to look at it AND maybe wrap the floss around it and see what happened. Well now he's missing both his front teeth... so he cannot "wiss you a merry Chrissmiss"

Halloween

So last Saturday (the 25th of October) the ward had a trunk-or-treat. Tylor went to a friends birthday party so we only had two little ghouls with us. Here they are eating hot dogs. Side bar -so we save every Halloween costume -no I don't know why either but it makes it nice as we only bought one costume this year, and the boys were different things at the trunk-or-treat then they were on Halloween night when we took them trick-or-treating with friends in the neighborhood.
Here's Thomas the tank engine and Harry Potter...

And here's Anakin Skywalker (yes we're still way into Star Wars), Spiderman and Spiderman, Guess who's who...

Oh and the Spiderman costume Kyle is wearing is the ONE costume we bought this year. He's too big for the one Tylor wore when he was 7!! Ryan's "wearing" it, it's just a hair big on him...
Ryan wanted to be batman again but the costume from last year didn't fit him and we couldn't find another one -at least not on Halloween when he decided that's what he wanted to be...
So a note on weather, for those who don't know, it's W.A.R.M. in AZ pretty much 9 to 10 months out of the year. So we don't even bother to take jackets with us trick-or-treating. In fact James was in shorts and we were both warring flip-flops...
So because of our "balmy" weather real pumpkins don't really last outside, they sort of go bad overnight. Here are the boys (including their dad) carving our pumpkins on Halloween afternoon.

Primary Program

On Sunday, the boys had their primary program. I have to say they all did a great job. All three boys had their parts memorized. Yea!! This was Tylor's last primary program and Ryan's first. So I was able to watch the program with all of my kids in it. I love to see the work that all the primary kids put into their parts. The Primary presidency made invitations for the kids to hand out to Friends and/or family. James and I asked the kids who they would like to invite. They all asked the people that they wanted to come. At first they wanted to asked their grandparents but as both sets live in Portland, OR, we suggested that although we were sure they'd love to come it may not work and maybe the boys should think of other people to invite. Ryan asked his friend Jacob for preschool. Jacob and his mom, Dawn, came to the primary program, Ryan was very happy to see them there. This was the first time that they had been to the LDS meeting. Jacob and his mom both really enjoyed it so good job little missionary Ryan!

The kids a practice on Saturday with pizza afterwards. The only problem was that the pizza didn't show up until a half an hour after the practice ended... So some of the kids were a little disorderly by then, but what do you expect.

Congratulations Trevor and Mayumi

Congratulations Trevor and Mayumi! They both completed masters degrees, Trevor in Information Systems and Mayumi in Business. The commencement ceremony was last night at 7pm. We drove down after school -making it just in time. But because of the boys first soccer games of the season this morning we didn't stay and turned around and headed for home at 8:45PM last night! We rolled in here at about 11:30 or so. But we were /are really excited for them as it's a huge accomplishment especially with two kids and both of them working on degrees and with full time jobs! Congratulations again! Thanks for inviting us celebrate this accomplishment with you.

Soccer season starts again

Yes! The soccer season is in full swing again. The boys had their first games of the season today. They are all on different teams.





Ryan's team is called the Killer Whales (because their uniforms are black with white letters). It is really fun to watch 4-5 year olds play soccer. They sometimes look like swarming bees around the ball. Ryan got to play goalie for two quarters. He was really good at it. For one quarter, he got to be a forward. He is not afraid of the ball or the other players. That is why he makes a good goalie, even though he is one of the smallest kids on the team.

Kyle's team is called the Flaming Snakes (they chose the name before they knew what color their jerseys would be). Kyle's team had a double header today, and Kyle made a goal in the second game, YEA!!!! And we are going to buy a shade thing, like a patio umbrella or something. Because it was to hot in the sun at two this afternoon. It was 97 today!
Tylor's team is called the Raptors. Ty did not get to vote on the team name because he was not at the practice when they chose. He was with us driving to and from Yuma. Ty was a mid-fielder when he played. He was able to make some good plays. He is becoming quite a soccer player. Tylor's pictures are further away because they play on a regulation sized field.

Tylor's first campout (as a scout)

So it took a little while for the 11 year old scouts (aka Blazer scouts) leaders to get their act together enough, and I'm speaking from experience. We kept wanting to plan a camp out but it just didn't happen UNTIL I posed the question to the boys. "When and where should we go camping?" we couldn't go soon enough was their response and they were open to suggestions for locations. As all three of the wards that meet in our building don't have large youth organizations, the cub and boy scouts meet together, and do activities together -as I'm sure Ty would have had a lot less fun if it were just him and me, my knowledge on video games is dreadfully deficient to maintain a lengthy conversation on the merits of... yeah I don't even know. Anyway, we had four of the seven boys commit AND make it to our designated rendez-vous for the caravan /car-pool up to the campsite. Sidebar: One of the things that is considerably different living here than anywhere else we've lived is that you almost have to drive for two and a half to three hours to go camping, otherwise there aren't any trees (saguaro and other large cactus are NOT trees) AND there isn't any water. So we drove up northeast of here to a little "hamlet" about 20 miles east of Payson called Christopher Creek. The campsite was just under the "Mogollon Rim". Here is what the forest service says about the "Mogollon Rim" and no I have no idea what it's called that name...
"The Mogollon Rim is a rugged escarpment that forms the southern limit of the Colorado Plateau. It extends across the entire forest and provides excellent views within Plateau Country and Desert Canyon Country as well. Dropping as much as 2,000 feet in some areas, the Rim provides some of the most far-reaching scenery in Arizona."
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/mog_rim/rec_mogollon.shtml
So anyways we were down below that looking up at a section of it along Christopher creek. Which must be spring feed because it has water in it year-round.
To assure that we weren't setting up camp in the dark we decided to meet at the church at 2pm yesterday and head up. I figured it'd be at least 20 mins before everyone was there and ready. But I was wrong, we were pulling out of the parking lot at 2:10. We got there and picked a campsite by around 5pm. The boys went down to the creek to throw rocks in to see if they could get each other wet. We had to drag (almost literally) them back up to camp to help set up tents (to fill Tenderfoot requirement #2) and then start a fire (Second class requirements #2e and 2f) and finally put the tinfoil dinners together and cook them (Second class requirement #2g). The best part is they didn't even know that they were going through a check list of requirements they just thought they were being given free reign of the campsite...
After dinner and clean up we had a campfire -Ty was the M.C. as that was one of the two requirements he had left for the communications merit badge. Then we played a game, it doesn't really have a name it's kind of like capture the flag but there wasn't a flag. How it worked was that the boys (and /or the adults -we had several variations on different teams over the course of the couple of hours we played this game) would go up the dirt road to the latrine (about 100 yards from camp) then they'd have to try and sneak back into camp without getting caught by the team "guarding" camp. So it was a no flashlights roll around in the dirt and brush kind of game -perfect for boys of all ages. I have to admit I enjoyed it as much as they did.
The weather held (I was a little worried as there had been forecasts of thunder storms for up in that area this weekend -along with high winds) we did get some strong winds but the tall Ponderosa pines kept it from really being a problem for us -other than a pine needle or two in our food -but it's fiber so...
This morning the boys worked on a slew of requirements for first class as they cooked breakfast for the adults. They did good, they just aren't going to win any neatness awards -it's going to take a pressure washer to get the pancake batter out of every nook and cranny on Br. Conways folding camp table...
We then did the requisite ax, saw and knife training (basically the "Totin'Chip"), and the boys had to have another round of splash each other by throwing rocks in the stream game before we left...
Well that's about it, I'm glad we did it. I think some of the boys were becoming disaffected with scouts as if it was just this Wednesday night I don't get to play video games thing, now it's cool, for a little while...

The dentist

Ryan has been to the dentist one or two times before. But this time he had three small cavities in some of his back molars, so he had to go back to get them taken care of. Ryan was excited to see the dentist again, maybe because it was Noah's dad. Ryan knows Noah from primary. While we were there, they took a picture of Ryan in the chair. Ryan did really good at the dentist. They used the "sand blaster" to "drill" out the cavities it apparently doesn't hurt -because it's the heat from the drill grinding into the teeth that makes the teeth hurt, so they say. Anyway here is the photo of Ryan in the dentist's chair with "shades" on...

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma Macki

My parents came down to visit us here in Arizona. They came down during fall intersession from school, the schools here are on a "modified" year round schedule. The weather has cooled down from the summertime highs but it was still over 100 every day they were here. They arrived on Saturday, September 27, in the afternoon. That evening, I and my mother got to go to the women's session of conference. I really enjoyed listening to the speakers. And that left James and my dad with the boys for the evening. I know they would be fine. The boys enjoyed having their grandparents here. Tylor liked that he was able to get his reading done before breakfast by reading to grandma or grandpa, everyday. I really appreciated that as he tends to follow me around in the morning so that he can check that box off on his daily chart. We played board games with them on Sunday afternoon after church. I don't know how many different games the boys got out and played with them but it was a fare number. Then on Monday, we took them to one of the local swimming pools where we like to go with the boys. The boys like the waterside, lazy river, diving boards and whirl pool, and we (James and I) like that it costs us about $5 to get the whole family in. But that's because there are so many pools here that they have to have a lot of stuff and be cheep in order to get you to come there rather than fall in the one in your own yard. Kyle when down the big waterside for the first time. YEAH! Then of course it was hard to get him off of them after that. We had a great time at the pool, that was partially due to the fact that no one was there. We often had whole areas to ourselves.

On Tuesday, we took them to the zoo. We walked around for about 2 hours and only saw 1/3 of the zoo. If you go to the zoo with Kyle or Ryan, they only look a the animals for about 30 second then move on to the next animal. Unless there is a button to push, then they will stay long enough to listen to the short (1 min) recording. Then Kyle always asks a question about the animal, because the recording peaked his interest.
I rented a stroller for the zoo so I would not have to carry Ryan around as he still finds excuses to not walk when we're there. I got a two child stroller, so Kyle could get in too -which lengthened the amount of time we could stay at the zoo. At one point in time, Ryan was pushing the stroller with Tylor in it. I should have gotten a picture of that, oh well...

Ready for church

Here are the boys just before we walked out the door for church today. In the picture below, if you had not notice Ryan is wearing two ties. He could not pick which one to wear. So we let him wear both ties to church. The teachers in primary saw him with his two ties on because he gave the scripture today in primary. When we picked him up from primary, he only had one tie on though. So I asked him where the other tie was. He told me it was in his scripture bag. Of course I checked to make sure. He never said why he took it off though...

Swimming

I put the boys in swimming lessons again. I asked them if they want to do another set first, Kyle and Ryan were all for it Tylor said he wasn't sure... he said something about homework but it was really about video game time...
We had a lot of fun, but I do have to say it did make our week a bit busier but fun.

Here is a picture of Ryan. He is learning free style swimming. He is getting pretty good at it. Now we just need to teach him to breath while he swims, he currently does the swim then stop breath then swim some more.

Tylor is getting really good. His class was swimming the length of the pool I believe it was 25 meters. He also learned how to do the flip in the water so he can turn around underwater. Needless to say, Tylor was swimming 50 meters at time by the end of lessons (Yesterday).


Kyle is doing very well too. Here is a short video of him "diving" into the pool, in the deep end (12ft). He really likes to swim under water. In fact that's how he usually swims, all underwater then up for a breath of air, and then back under.

Happy (belated) Birthday Carmen!

Well, Wednesday was Carmen's birthday -the ___ anniversary of her 25th birthday.
So last Saturday (on the 6th) I took the boys shopping for presents. Ryan refused to go with me, he insisted on staying here with mom. We went to Target they boys didn't have any ideas -I had one but it was mine, and my only idea so I wasn't giving it to them -yes I was letting them fend for themselves.
Anyways after 20 minutes of pointless wondering they decided that some scented candles were the thing to get her. I got her a movie (the Princes Bride) and then we went to the Disney store to get her this pj set she thought was cute the last time we were there.
Walking into the mall Kyle slipped on the floor -both feet straight out in front of him and wham! right on his rear end -for the next day or so he kept telling us it hurt I don't think he broke his tail bone as it's not hurting him anymore but I really felt for him having taken some hard falls myself.
So we got home -and like a dad who's done this before I'd picked up a present to be from Ryan. So we wrapped them, well OK we put them in gift bags but it's nearly the same, nearly...
Then Sunday morning (the 7th) Ryan gets up early and comes in and asks me what day it is. I tell him it's Sunday, and he says "Is it mom's birthday today?" I tell him "nope, not today, gotta wait for Wednesday."
Monday morning rolls around and when Ryan gets up he comes out to the living room where I am, sits down next to me. Then he looks up at the gifts on top of the entertainment center and says, "Dad, what day is it?", I tell him that it's Monday. He then asks "Is it mom's birthday today?", I tell him "nope, not today we've gotta wait until Wednesday."
Tuesday morning Ryan gets up and comes out and looks at me and asks, "Dad, what day is it?", I tell him that it's Tuesday. He then asks "Is it mom's birthday today?", I tell him "nope, not today, it's tomorrow."
So Wednesday morning, I'm expecting the same routine but true to being a kid he gets up he walks past me (as I'm awake and trying to get breakfast ready) and he goes in and wakes up his mom to tell her that it's her birthday and she can open her presents.
So the reason I didn't post this until like 4 days later is that we put the boys in another round of swimming lessons they're after school and it converted our doable but busy schedule to something absolutely CRAZY! It's a good thing it ends this Friday. I don't know if we can take it much longer, Ryan is so tired that he becomes an emotional roller coaster every day at 6pm...

Ryan's "other" smile

So Ryan brought this fridge magnet home from preschool and when we asked him about what we viewed as a lack of smiling in the photo, he replied "that's my other smile". We told him we didn't think it was as nice or cute as his original smile...
what do you think?

Riding Bikes

Last Saturday we took the boys to the "barn-park" as Ryan calls it -it's real name is Tumbleweed park but it has a huge barn roof over the play area, so it's the barn park...
Anyways here are some pictures of the boys riding around. As you may notice their faces are kind of red... Well we tried to go early before it got too hot but it was still well over 100 when we got there. Alas such is life in the valley of the sun (burn)...

Thanks Ashley!

So Carmen has been asking me how to make the background on her blog (ah -I mean OUR blog) different. She'd seen others with images and various different things and was wondering how we could do that. I looked at the blogger help and it as all on-line helps was NOT much help. So yesterday I just posted a quick question. Ashley pointed me at www.thecutestblogontheblock.com where I learned not only what size to make the background but how to get it to be the background. So what do you think of the new background? too many mickeys or not enough mickeys...

Thunder storm

So Thursday night we had a BIG thunderstorm. The news claimed that it had hurricane force winds above 100 MPH!!! It wasn't really windy here at our house but it was in other parts of the city (it blew the blow up roof off of ASU's practice field -yeah a blow up roof silly I know). In fact we stood out on the balcony and recorded some of the light show. Check it out.

Background

So if anyone knows how to add a background to their blog. Please let us know. It isn't as straight forward as I thought...

Talks in Church

So about a week and a half ago, Br. Strong (the first counselor in the Bishopric) asked James at scouts if we would speak in sacrament meeting. James said yes (UGH!) he then called me to tell me (double UGH! -he should have called first we or more importantly I could have politely declined).
Anyhow I resigned my self to my fate and started preparing a talk. James who has no faith in me taking more than about 12 mins basically prepared a half hours worth to speak on.
We showed up to sacrament about 20 mins early the Wagstaffs (the primary president) had the boys sit with them so we could sit on the stand -which was good for Jenny (the new beehive who was giving her first talk in sacrament meeting as the youth speaker) as I highly doubt she wanted to be up there alone.
Why is it that when you're assigned to speak there's never any ward business but it seems like the VERY NEXT week there'll be like 20 mins or MORE of ward business followed by a letter from the First Presidency and several items of Stake business? I know it's one of those does a tree falling in the forest make a noise if no one is around to hear it questions. But I had to ask.
So things were going along smoothly, Jenny got up and gave her talk. Then I got up. Now here's the deal I don't like giving talks they make me very and I mean very nervous. So I ALWAYS have the entire thing typed out -literally every word I plan to say during my talk is typed out. I get up and I'm just going along, and well I didn't notice so James will explain.
Well one of the elderly brothers appeared to just kind of knock over. There was some commotion in the audience as several members of the ward who are medical professionals by trade went to be first responders. The Bishop got up and asked Carmen to sit down. He then asked the entire ward to please sit calmly as they saw to making sure a member of the congregation was OK. So we all sat there real quiet as a ward, most people looking up at us with quizzical looks on their faces (as he was sitting in the back part of the chapel). Then the paramedics showed up. Now he's been laying down on the bench for at least 10 mins we've got no feel for what's going on -as a ward I don't think. The Bishop was wisely (I might add) letting the people in the ward with the appropriate training to do whatever they needed to do. When the paramedics showed up the Bishop decided that in the interest of letting them do what they needed to we'd adjourn. He said that the adults should go to the Relief Society room, the primary children to the primary room and the youth to either the young men's or young women's room. Although I was worried about the brother who'd passed out (it turns out he's diabetic and hadn't had breakfast and just sort of blacked out or something). I was kind of thinking "did we just dodge the talk bullet?" But alas I was mistaken the Bishop came over and said that we'd pick up where we'd left off in the Relief Society room. Dang! so close!
So we finished up our talks to a reduced audience -think the size of a regular gospel doctrine class as opposed to sacrament meeting.
It did prove to be quite an eventful morning though.

Cleaning the Church

So as our ward is the first (of three) ward to meet each Sunday morning this year, it falls on us (the ward) to clean the building every Saturday morning. James signed us up in priesthood -he also vol entered to be a life guard at the ward swim party that was last night -apparently he's been in primary so long that he now feels obligated to "make up" for lost opportunities to volunteer for stuff.
Anyways we took the boys, and they LOVED IT. If we could only get them half that interested in cleaning their own room...
when we were all done and were about to leave Br. Price (the High Priest who's calling it is to come and oversee and make sure that it gets done right) was talking to James in the hall. He then said "oh no I think that bird is stuck in here". Both of us looked over and saw something very large fluttering around the glass door at the end of the hall. As we walked down there two things became evident. First it was not a bird it was this.


Secondly to everyone's relief it was on the outside of the door. The boys (and that includes James) were fascinated by it, after all who do you think took a picture of it...

Need a battery

If the battery on your car has to go out, having it go out after church is about as good as that gets. There are lots of people willing to help you out. Although the nice thing is that if we had needed to, we could have walked home from church as we do not live that far away, about a mile. It would have taken about 30 minutes to walk it. I haven't had a battery die on me before. The funny thing was that we were able to get to church with no problem didn't even hesitate getting started. I thought your battery would give you some signs that it was dying on you. Maybe it was and I was not listing to my car. But James and I got a new battery on Monday and put it into the van. The car is working fine now. But the heat in Arizona is not nice to the cars battery. Most people say that you will change your battery about every two to three years. So I will have to see if the battery goes out before the life on the warranty does in three years...

First Day of School

Today, all the boys started school. Is summer over? No, the boys are on a year round school schedule. Tylor is in the 6th grade, Kyle is in 1st grade and Ryan is in preschool in the afternoons. Tylor and Kyle let me drive them to school today. So I could take pictures of them. Here are to boys in front of their class rooms. Ryan had the kids camera and was taking pictures of the boys too, some are,.. well they're kid pictures from his perspective with fingers and what not in frame.
And they wanted me to take pictures of them getting off the bus in the afternoon.


So with Ryan in preschool I have 2 hours everyday to myself (what will I do). Today, I was able to talk to a friend on the phone with out anybody asking me questions. I talked longer then I though I had. With my time, I will most likely be helping out in all the boys classrooms during the time Ryan is in class. Ryan has already asked when I will help out in his classroom.





All the boys seemed to have a great day. I hope the energy can last all year long.