Bowling

The day after Thanksgiving we met for breakfast and then went bowling together. It's fabulous that when you put names into the computer, you can also program whether or not the person needs bumpers and they come up automatically when it is that person's turn. So, we had two teams and the kids could be on either team and still have use of the bumpers.
Anyway, the night before the adults (and Garron and Tersa) played a game of "Guestures." At Gumpy's suggestion we played guys against girls. The girls stomped them!! So, when it came to determining teams for bowling, we decided to do 3 teams and our two oldest girls would play with Lolly and Gumpy. But we were only given two lanes and it was again decided that we would play girls against guys. We were down one guy though so Tersa played with them! Lindsay walked away from the first game with four strikes but just couldn't keep ahead of the "King of Spares" (Gumpy) and he beat her by three points! My game improved in the second game and I beat Joel by one point and tied Randy but Gumpy dominated with his spares and beat us by 16 points! The kids did great too and Shinara and Gumpy were the only ones who didn't get a strike at all. It was Keddi and Shinara's first time and after being helped the first time or two, they bowled the rest of the time pretty much by themselves. (Which made for very tired little people by the end!)

To the park

After Thanksgiving dinner we packed everyone up and headed to a park not far from our house. (There are several. It's one of the great things about Vegas.) While the youngest kids played on the equipment, Joel started up a frisbee golf game with the adults and older kids. I got to stay over at the equipment and watch the little ones. But I also took pictures and I love that. Anyway, I never did hear about how the game went but could see them playing. I got some cute pictures. Some of them are fuzzy because kids are constantly moving and it is difficult to switch modes on the camera so quickly! The boys are Cousins Garron (the oldest) and Matthias (not sure I spelled it correctly.). We sure enjoyed having them around. The park was lit so we stayed for a bit even after it got dark. But as you can see, before it did, I captured a beautiful sunset which really finished the day off nicely for me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving at our house included guests this year and we had a blast! Joel's mom (known as "Lolly") and her husband Lee ("Gumpy") came from Texas and were here most of the week. Unfortunately, they spent most of Wed. in the hospital because of the way Lolly was feeling. When they finally got to her and took their tests and diagnosed her, they sent her home but they sure took their time! We were glad she was feeling better and was able to participate with us for the rest of their stay. Joel's sister Lindsay and her family arrived Wed. afternoon from California and we were so glad to see them.
With so many people in the house, some chose to eat our Thanksgiving dinner outside. Thank goodness for Vegas fall and that it was tolerable to do so! The other picture is Tersa and cousin Garron helping to make pies!! They helped Lindsay with that and then got creative with the leftover dough. I will post some more pictures of our activities later. We hope everyone else had an enjoyable Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

We have members of Joel's family coming to be with us this week and we are excited. But it will be a busy one and I won't have pictures or anything for another week I imagine. We are grateful for so many things and have so much to be grateful for but at the top of the list we are grateful for the Lord and our knowledge of and love for Him and the gospel. We are also grateful for the people that surround us and take interest in our lives. Hopefully many of you will be reading this and know that we love you! Have a great week!

Photography

I love taking pictures. And it is great to have
such fabulous subjects to take them of!
They are in a tree at the park we went to. All the same tree, many different perspectives. All the same family, many different types.

Fall hits Vegas

Finally the temperatures have been low enough to start changing the colors of the leaves! This last Friday we went to a park nearby that has a duck pond in the middle of it. I had no idea! We went unprepared for feeding the ducks but the girls had a blast looking and pointing and having the ducks follow them up and down the bank. A couple nearby had gone to their car to get a box of crackers and they gave some of them to my girls. Keddi thought it was fun to get so close to the pigeons and spent ten minutes trying to catch one. It was windy and a bit too cool to have come without jackets but that did not keep them from wanting to play on the playground equipment we found in one area of the huge park. Once they got to playing and the wind died down, the cool air was forgotten and we enjoyed a day at the park.

Mom weekend

It was a mom weekend. Well, just a mom saturday. I got to go to a thing called "Time Out for Women" which is sponsored by Deseret Book with my friend Mandy and some women from her ward. It's a 9:00-3:00 day of talks and presentations given by a variety of people. Our host was Michael McClane (sp?) And speakers included one of Pres. Hinkley's daughters, Virginia Pearce and John Bytheway. It was a great day! A rather emotional one but that's to be expected when everything is designed for spiritually uplifting and encouraging women.
Then I got to spend the evening (till almost midnight) visiting with a high school friend who is in town. She still lives where I went to High School and runs into people all the time. It was fabulous!! And I am going to bring her to my house on Tuesday night to visit again before she leaves the next morning. What a great day.

LOVE FALL

Back to our Utah trip

Yes, we found some fall to enjoy after all. On BYU campus! We went there so that I could show the girls what a college campus (our campus) is like. We didn't go into any of the buildings except the BYU Bookstore and the Wilkinson Center which the bookstore is attatched to. Instead we went in search of some trees that had shed their leaves and hadn't been cleaned up yet. Just south of the bookstore we found some and the girls began to collect them into their own piles. There weren't many and in the end I suggested they would get a bigger pile if they combined their leaves. At first, Tersa played the "I'm too old for this." role and sat to the side listening to her cd player. (Keddi helped to involve her by tossing leaves (three of them) on her.)But she eventually joined in the gathering and then they all jumped in at once and began tossing leaves on each other and covering each other in them. It was almost more fun to watch the passers-by watch them than to see Keddi and Shinara enjoy their first leaf playing experience. (Almost). Uncle Caleb and Aunt Marci came down from Bountiful to see us and met us on campus. Then we went to part of Uncle Micah's rehersal for Vocal Point (A men's a cappella group). The girls enjoyed listening to them and watching Micah sing. Aunt Katy joined us after that and we went to a flag football game that Micah was involved in. Then we all enjoyed dinner together before going our separate ways.

Halloween

I have to admit, it's nice to live in a place that is warm enough at the end of October to allow the girls to go Trick-or-Treating and have the people comment on their costumes instead of having to ask them what they are because they are in coats. Shinara did need a coat after a while but, consider what she was wearing! (And doesn't she look happy!) We went Trick-or-Treating with a family in our ward. The baby is Carter, the girl is Sage and pumpkin -head is Caleb Hone. After going to the few homes in their neighborhood we came to our house for pizza. When they left we hit a few streets in our own neighborhood. Needless to say, getting up for our first day back to school was a bit difficult this morning.