Poor Picture Quality

If you've been noticing my pictures aren't very sharp and are often discolored...you are correct! Our digital camera died earlier this year and I've been using my camcorder to take still shots. Its not the best way to do it but it'll get me by until Santa comes. I hope he brings me a new camera this year! :-)

Feast at the Summers

Our Thanksgiving dinner was very tasty this year! Our dear friends the Summers had us over to their home along with the Gregory family and 4 missionaries. Above is our lovely host Stacy.

Appleton Christmas Parade

Doug, Arissa, Ariana, Allison Stevens, and I went to the Christmas parade the other night. It was one of the biggest parades I've ever been too. It was pretty chilly but we found the museum selling hot chocolate...we were so grateful! We had a great time and decided it would be a new tradition for us. These were some of our favorite floats.

It is that time of year when we think of all of the things we are thankful for in our lives. I did a little digging and found a few quotes about being thankful that I'd like to share.

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

“Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.” (Oprah Winfrey)

“In every one's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” (Albert Schweitzer)

I have had some people come into my life over the years who have rekindled my inner spirit. I am so thankful for them. I am thankful for my wonderful husband who has loved me and put up with my craziness for so these past 18 years. I'm thankful for my children who I love dearly and who are growing up way too fast. I'm thankful for my parents and their example of hard work and selflessness. I'm thankful for good, stable employment that we enjoy and that sustains our family's needs. I'm thankful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and how it blesses my life and the lives of so many of my friends and loved ones. I'm thankful for too many things to possibly list...I'm thankful for you taking the time to read my blog because that shows that you care enough about us to take the time to read this! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Fall Program

Arissa's was the first of our children this year to have their concert. They program was titled "out of this world". She did well remembering the words to all those songs. 1 school program down, 2 more to go in the next month.

Arissa's Party

All of the girls from Arissa's class were able to come to her party. Thankfully it was only 8! They had a great time...my ears were ringing by the time they left. She was given some fun things for her birthday but I think her new fuzzy pink chair and the DS games were her favorites.

HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY ARISSA!!!

Happy birthday wishes to my special Rissy D!
Active
Righteous
Intelligent
Silly
Sweet
Artistic
Mother Nature's gift to Arissa this morning was the first snow of the year that she could go out and play in!

Snowflake Temple

On November 1st my parents and Doug and I went on the 3 hour drive to this temple to do ordinance work for our ancestors. We went to a session in which my Great-Uncle Al Ray was officiating with his wife Edith present. It was interesting, all of our audio was in Navajo; the subtitles were in English. After our session we all went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch then headed back to the valley.

Halloween

Halloween was lots of fun. I especially enjoyed being able to take the kids out trick-or-treating in nice warm weather for the first time in their lives! My mom has her front entry decorated cute for the holidays. My brother Richard cut made the witch and cats you see here. They are backlit at night and looked really cool. Ariana's costume is easy to figure out but Arissa's is unusual...so if you are wondering, she was a barbarian. We went to my sister Lisa's neighborhood in Mesa and went trick or treating with her and her 5 year old son Nate. After that Arissa and Ariana went to Uncle Richie and Aunt Toryi's house and spent the night. Alayna spent Halloween afternoon through the next day at Uncle Aaron and Aunt Liz's house. Saturday afternoon while we were at the Snowflake temple Aaron and Liz took our girls plus their 5 kids plus cousin Emma to the Phoenix Zoo. Brave souls! Dakota hung out at Nanny and Grandpa's all day. The kids had a great time...thanks a bunch to all of you Aunts, Uncle's, Cousins, and grandparents for making this a fun trip!

Target shooting

As part of our desert trip we did a little shooting. Here is Dakota (with my dad helping). Dad has had this 30.06 forever, it is what I shot my first elk with when I was 10! So you know its really old. Here I am practicing with the 9mm, that was hard to get the hang of. I like rifle shooting better.

Desert part 2

Trip to the motherland, the desert part 1

We had a great time in Arizona! One of the first things we did was take a trip to the desert. We went out by Four Peaks and it was during the week so there was hardly anyone out there which was great! We enjoyed visiting, grilling hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire (although it was very HOT), we brought out dad's new ATV and had a lot of fun with it.