Nov 22

Grandma Donna came this week. We had a great visit with her. She was here Tues-thurs. It was fun to hear her stories and have someone to go grocery shopping with and she was so helpful to watch kids when I had to go to soccer practice and drive carpools. She even went on Aaron's fieldtrip with us.

Aaron's fieldtrip was to the Anderson Dairy. We've been there a few times before and it's a cute little tour. It was fun to see Aaron interact with his class. He's a little more energetic than Danny and Rachel were. And he seems to talk and play with the girls more than the boys. At least he did on that day.

We leave on Tuesday for Visalia. I'm excited. And we're going to set up the Christmas tree today so it'll be all ready to go when we get back.

Yesterday I sat down with the kids and we looked for toys on amazon.com because their deadline for sending their lists to Santa is today. I've been so organized this Christmas, it's making things so easy and fun. I saved all the toys in my amazon wish list and when we get back from Thanksgiving I'll order it all and be done! No going to crowded stores in December! And since we've been doing our mvelopes budgeting this year, we've been saving money toward Christmas all year. Our general plan is to spend about $100 per kid. And since we saved it up before, I don't have to worry about how much we're spending--we already planned on it.

Nov 15

Last weekend we went camping again to Valley of Fire. This time we went with the Deans. We had a great time. The kids all climbed around the rocks all evening. We did hot dogs and smores again. Aaron and Seth didn't sleep very well this time, but I guess we don't go camping for the sleep anyway. The next morning we went to Elephant Rock and Mouse's Tank with our friends. The weather was great.

Then that Saturday night was the adult session of Stake conference. That is always so good. They talked about actively watching over our youth and about the economy and how we need to increase our fast offerings if we can. Last year during the same conference I got the impression we should increase our fast offerings then and we've definitely been blessed because of it. I'm sure this time will be no different. We went with the Deans and then went out to Chinese with them after.

Wednesday there was no school because of Veteran's day so Kata and I went shopping. We left the kids home with our husbands and we had the day off. It was really nice.

Yesterday Bob ran another triathlon. This one was in St. George. Two other men from our ward were going and invited him. He had a great time. I'm proud of him. He's such a great man.

And our computer died this week. It's been having problems on and off since we got it, but this week it finally decided not to start back up. Aside from having to spend the extra money to buy a new computer and the time to reinstall programs, it hasn't been a huge problem. About two months ago I set up our computer with an online backup service. We have an external hard drive, but we're not great about using it every day. And I'd been worried about our pictures; if there was ever a fire or something, we'd lose all our pictures for good. So, it's such a huge blessing that all of our files were saved. Otherwise I'm sure this week would have been a lot more stressful.

Grandma Donna is coming to stay with us this week. I'm excited to have her around for a few days. And then the next week we'll go to Visalia for Thanksgiving. And then the month of December is always so fun with all the Holiday traditions. There's lots of fun things coming up!

Nov 1

I taught the combined young women today. The lesson was on taking care of our physical bodies. I think it went well. The young women don't give the same kind of feedback that the RS sisters do. It was a good lesson to teach for me because it really made me aware of how I need to eat better. I've been working on eating more fruits and vegetables. But then this weekend was Halloween, so I've eaten way to much candy, of course.

We had a fun Halloween last night. Danny and Aaron were Star Wars guys. Rachel was a princess and Seth was a football player. We walked down our usual street, plus an extra. So the kids came home with lots of candy. The weather was great too. We had a really cold week. Our Trunk or treat on thursday was cold, but it warmed back up.

Rachel had Hand, Foot and mouth disease this week. That is such a bad sickness. Danny had it a couple of years ago. It gives you canker sores all over your mouth. Danny didn't talk for two days when he had it because he didn't want to move his mouth. Rachel got the canker sores on her throat and tonsils. This was the sickest and grumpiest I've ever seen her. She's pretty much over it now, though. We're glad for that.

My back is still doing great. And I'm able to work out at the gym and have a great time. And my websites continue to stay busy. As soon as I feel like I'm close to being caught up, someone else calls or sends me an email wanting something new set up. I guess if it was the other way and no one was calling, I'd have that to complain about. So I guess I'd rather have it this way; and so far it's not been an overwhelming amount of work. But it's always there; I work at least an hour a day.