More Friday...

Friday was a great day... the wall was finished, the girls and kids came over and we had lots of girl food ... little chicken thingys, pasta salads, jello, cookies, muffins, rice pudding... and crafts... we made our favorite block craft.

Yummy food

Tv watching and Wii playing
The crafting begins

crafts everywhere

Cute guys visit our girls activities

Some finished crafts

Our bedroom wall is all finished and textured...

This project was easy. We had a great company, Matchall Drywall, that I highly recommend. But now the rest is up to us... flooring, painting, shower, moulding, tiling etc etc etc. Wow... I better get busy!

It's Friday...

It's Friday... AND... I have a day off!!!! Yippee yahooo Yay!!!! I SOOOOOOO needed a day off especially after a 13 hour Monday... YUK!! Mike took yesterday off and I took today off to be home while our wall is moved. So I decided since I'm home I should invite all the girls over to eat and craft! They'll be getting here soon. But in the meantime... Here is our wall progress:The great bathroom wall comes down.. you can tell how inky dinky the bathroom was

What a difference... just a couple feet makes it feel huge!

Starting to shape up

This is the bedroom side... Notice the outlet Mike put up high.... THAT'S for our future flat screen TV! Probably WAY in the future... but we'll be ready!

Free food...

I hope everyone has been taking advantage of all the free food promotions that have been going on. Yesterday Trent had several free tacos, (some things I won't eat, not even for FREE!) free donuts and free pancakes. We all know Trent can eat a LOT... so these freebies have been great for us! He will continue to be well fed this week with free burritos and subs. Who knows what is next! We are on a freebie frenzy at our house! Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch was wrong!

Basketball!

Well, it's the weekend and that means... sports! Trent had a couple basketball games... lost one and won one! Here are some amazing pics. Our ward is in blue jerseys....

Teamwork!

Tau Brian
Trent

Andrew

Strategy

Andrew

Brandon

Happy team!

It has started!

It has started and there's no turning back now! Saturday was the official start of demolition! Mike did all the work... but I supervised, took pictures and gave encouragement... Great job Mike!

Last week...

Last week love was in the air!!! ... But it always is in our family!... Trent got asked to MORP, we celebrated Valentine's day and we went to an absolutely lovely ward dinner. Our ongoing stuff.... was of course the eagle project and the remodeling "decisions"! Trent made chocolate covered strawberries... very yummy.... but they weren't for the fam, they were for Taylor. But since I taught him everything I know... I just made my own!

To keep up with tradition and to always keep Mike guessin about what to expect... I had to make a cute breakfast, so I made heart shaped pancakes.... awww how cute.... bacon, strawberries, chocolate covered fortune cookies and ....

... sparkling apple cider! way yum!

Trent was asked to MORP

The eagle project is well under way...

And the remodeling decisions... well... we ARE making a little progress... The boxes of wood flooring have been setting in the corner for a few weeks now... there is the beginning of a million feet of moulding setting in the garage... I think we looked at a hundred paint colors and came up with a lovely shade of BEIGE... we are still checking out toilets to find just the right 'fit' for our family... my "list" of project ideas for Mike keeps getting bigger with each home improvement show I watch... and after four bids, we decided on the company to move a wall... that was definitely NOT a project we wanted to do ourselves... but the rest of the stuff... well... we (mainly Mike) will be tackling those in our spare time! HA!! WHAT spare time?!? Wish us luck... and patience!

More from Brazil...

The first paragraph worried me... I didn't think there was going to be any english! Here are some excerpts:

oi famíliaPor que você quer o baneiro maior? Tudo bem em casa? Transfereiros foram esta semana e eu tehno um companeiro novo. O nome dele é Elder I. Silva. Elder Wardrop foi para Uberaba para ser o líder de zona la. Entao, ainda estou aqui mas é bom porque devemos ter 3 batismos esta semana agora. E eles estao bem firme. ...
Tranfers were this week and I have a new companion. His name is elder i. silva. Elder wardrop went to Uberaba to be a zone leader there. So, i am still here but it is good because because we should have 3 baptisms this week. And they are realy firm.There´s your portuguese for the week but elder silva is cool, he is brazilian and really small. My portuguese will be getting alot better this transfer because that´s all i´ll be talking. Our house went from being with all 4 americans to half and half now. Everything is going good here, time is just flying by i thought this tranfer went by super fast. Parabéns (congratulations) for zach and danny, that´s awesome they got their calls. Something i keep forgetting to talk about, mom, you would love it here in brazil because the avacados here are huge. The one´s you usually in america are about the size a baseball. the one´s here are about the size of a football. There are some avacado trees in are area that people always take the fruit off, but not me. And valentine´s day is not celebrated here. Well, thats about the news for the week the pictures are great and i´ll talk to you next week.Elder lewis

Fun letter from Brazil!

Here's the latest from Brandon. It is a fun letter... the part about salty french toast and McDonalds costing 70 dollars is funny! here's the whole letter... I didn't take anything out this time:

oí family!Esta é elder lewis falando e esta semana passada foi bom de mais! This week was a little different then any other previous week because this week WE BAPTIZED! Woo whoo! It wasn´t Rafael who i think i talked about last week, but we baptized Mateus who is 12 and Sávio who is 14. It´s crazy how much they´ve changed since we first met their family. It´s also crazy how we almost didn´t baptize either. On Sunday they and their sister come to church with us (and other people too but they aren´t part of the story) and we go through church and they liked it and they got interviewed and they passed and they were pumped for that night. On the way back to their house they were singing hymns from during church, which was pretty funny, then we had to go to lunch so we told them we would be back at 5 to pick them up because the baptism was at 6. Got to their house at 5... no one home, 5:30... no one home, 6... no one home,6:30... no one home agian. So then we went home because elder wardrop was mad because every week i´ve been here and part of his last transfer the baptisms we had fallen through the day of. So we went home for a while and then elder wardrop got bored and we went to their house one last time. We get there and they had just got home. So we hurry them to the church called someone to preside over the meeting, elder a. souza and i ran home and i got my stuff and ran back. This is my official first baptism because I did the baptizing! When we were dropping them off at their house after church, when we were leaving elder wardrop said " elder lewis is going to baptize you, is that ok?" they said yes and i was surprised at what he just said. So that was the highlight of the week. We also saw a lot of animals this week too which is different. We saw 2 monkeys which is rare. This was the 2nd time elder wardrop has seen monkeys and he has been out 1yr 6 mo.. It was hilarious because evryone one was going crazy to get the monkeys away from their house and they were just small little guys, about the size of a cat.And we went to the bishops house yesterday to help him with some stuff and he lives really far away from our house and we pass a river on the way there. And we usually only see ducks laying in the grass or swimming around. But i glanced at the top of a tree by the fence and there was a tucan sitting there! It was really bright and pretty. Also, the bishops sister lives in the u.s. so they like to make american food which is cool. They always talk about food with us. So his wife made french toast and pancakes for us, she also was making brownies but we were already late to get back home. But anyway the french toast was gross because they think it´s too sweet so they make it with salt, But the pancakes were good. But on the way home that night by the river, we saw a huge beaver thing standing in the grass. I know it wasn´t i beaver because it was about waist height and probably 3-4 feet long and had no tail. It was probably some kind of river creature because it was all wet, but it was cool. Seeing animals doesn´t really happen too much because we are in a populated area, we´re not in the middle of nowhere. You probably saw the same thing at the zoo. But that was my week, i´m doing great. We also had a zone conference this week and president came down which was cool. He knows alot about the gospel. I almost forgot... After the conference we were waiting for the bus and president Tobias pulls up and gives us a ride to the center, and on the way there he buys us Mc Donalds. It´s not everyday that presient buys dinner. But for 4 big macs, fries, and drinks it was over 70 dollars! And the meals are alot smaller here than in america, but it was good. Well i think that´s everything so i´ll talk to you all next week. TchaoElder Lewis

Great week!

Well... after a great superbowl party and Dustin's surprise visit... the fun didn't stop there! We went on a picnic (I didn't bring my camera, maybe Kristin will put it on her blog), we went out to eat, we went to the zoo, had a chili dog night, went to Trent's All Star game and then played games ourselves. In between all that we worked, did our taxes, worked on the eagle, took another extended trip to Lowes and watched some MORE home improvement shows! Here are highlights from our great week!

When the family gets together it ALWAYS involves food! Here we are invading Old Country Buffet.

Lots of eating and fun! I think restuarants are glad when we leave.

I took a day off from work and off to the Zoo we went. There were five women, five kids from infant to fours years, four strollers, diaper bags, food, treats and Dustin. We were quite a site! Ocassionally... just for fun... we called Dustin Brother and we called each other Sister, cuz I'm SURE people were wondering just what kind of group we were!

We played on stuff and posed for picture ops.

The animals were lively!
We had a picnic lunch....

...and fed lots of little beggars!

Plants were in bloom and it was a beautiful day!

Mike's favorite time... chili dog night!

The All Star game!... and what a game it was! At first we didn't think our team had a chance. We were trailing almost the whole game... then little by little at almost the end of the game we got ahead!!! It was a high energy nail biting game. I think the last 12 seconds lasted 20 minutes! Anyway... we won by one point!

Trent always has a cheering section.

The HAPPY team!

Our ward's all stars... Trent and Tau!

The first round of games begins with What If... one of the family's favorites. Us old people went to bed and the guys played Halo at Steve's house for hours!

Here is Lexy and Dustin at the airport. We had a great week together and it was sad to see them leave, but I'm sure Aimee and Joslyn were glad to have them back! This just means we will HAVE to take another trip to Nashville (when it defrosts back there) !

Letter from Brazil...

Here is this weeks news from Brazil...

Hey whats up?Too bad the cards lost. Should of expexted them to blow it. Must have been bad if you didn´t send the score. So dustin surprised everyone, thats crazy! Is he sleeping in my bed? ... Sounds like everyone is doing good at home. Everything is going good here. We got a brazilian in our house now since elder christensen got transfered, his name is elder A. Souza. Alot of the brazilians have the same last name so they put their first initial too. He is really cool and he is the companion of elder deboer. Its nice to always be around a brazilian because it forces me to speak portuguese. Elder wardrop and i worked really hard this week but it didn´t end very well. We had rafael all ready to get baptized and he was pumped and really excited and he already talked to his parents about being baptized, he´s 16 years old. We got our stuff at our house and we were walking with him to his house to get a towel and when we got there, his mom told us that she didn´t want him to be baptized yet. This happened about an hour before the baptism. It was a bummer. But he will get baptized, he has a great desire, he might have to wait until he is 18 or convince his mom. But other than that it has been hot here and it still rains at least once a day. We will just have to keep working hard and put the bad things behind us and God will bless us. But everything is going good, the members are starting to give more references now and references are way better than knocking doors all day. We can knock doors all day and find a bunch of people and get one or two people that are really interested. Or we can get a reference and the people are already friends with a member and are more accepting. Everyone still doing good at home? School just started this week and school here is only 4hrs long and everyone has a choice to go either in the morning, afternoon or night, its weird. I´m having lots of fun here and learning a ton of stuff. Everyday i learn something about the gospel, language, culture and it´s pretty awesome. ...I´ll talk to you all next week!Elder Lewis

A SUPER Super Bowl...

Even though the Cardinals lost we had a SUPER Super Bowl party!! I knew the Cardinals BEFORE they came to Arizona, back a LONG time ago when they were in St. Louis. But it really doesn't matter who plays, cuz we always have a Superbowl party! We had our traditional family party, this year at Jaron & Kristin's... and we had surprise guests... Dustin & Lexy!

Jaron & Krisitn sure can keep a secret! Mike & I were surprised first, Erin found out the night before, Teresa walked by him at first, and the most surprised was Trent!... check out the pics...We had great fun and great food! Here are a few pics. When I get time I will make a slide show. Dustin & Lexy

Dustin dressed like a really bad guy......then jumped Trent from behind... I didn't get Trent's initial reaction on film, cuz it was all too fast... but believe me the look on his face was PRICELESS! ... but... really... Trent is happy his big.. well... older brother is here!

Erin was our bookie and taking everyone's guesses... everyone wanted the prize... CANDY!!

Welcome to the Superbowl Party!

We had a cardinal player in attendance...... and cheerleaders!FOOD... ... FOOD...

...FOOD!!!

Watching the game

... Watching and hoping!

EVERYONE was watching the game!

Getting ready for the half time 3D commercial

What can I say... we take these things seriously!

I took this picture when I thought we had won... it's amazing what can happen in a few seconds! Oh well.... maybe next year!