Finally... my Thanksgiving post...

I'm FINALLY posting about our Thanksgiving... it seemes like it was a long time ago! Well... it kinda was... we had our Thanksgiving on Wednesday. I did it the day before so the kids that had other places to go wouldn't have to try to shove down two Thanksgiving dinners! It worked out great for us... It's Thanksgiving.... so where's ALL the food?!?
Well... here it is!

Yay... everyone is happy!

It was pretty easy getting food ready cuz all the girls brought lots of yummy stuff! I love it when they are old enough to be great cooks and bring yummy stuff to share!

Oh yeah...

More food... we had plenty!

After our tummies were full... the girls got a game of Phase 10 going...

While the guys watched the Suns game!

We had a couple of November birthdays to celebrate... so during half time we did the birthday stuff... (notice the hutch is back together... I was still shoving dishes in it Wednesday morning!)

There was NO way we were gonna eat a BIG birthday cake after a huge meal... So here is Erin and Dalin with their birthday cupcakes!

Making a BIG wish!

Then it was time for presents...

He's ready for sports!

Mmmmmm. blue frosting!

On Thanksgiving day... Trent did our ward turkey bowl... then he went out of town. Mike and I went to a movie... then did some shopping. No crowds... it was great! And get this... we didn't want leftovers, so for dinner we had Thanksgiving lasagna! After that we went to our friends house for pie... we stayed home on black Friday and did more work on the house.... Having 5 days off in a row is a RARE occassion for us and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Monday came WAY too soon!

Email and pics from Brazil!

I'm FINALLY starting to catch up my blog! Here's the latest from Brandon:

hey everyone! Happy birthday to those who had a birthday recently. I´ve been noticing recently that alot of people here already have christmas decorations set up! People don´t decorate alot here, just a little 3 ft christmas tree or smaller and some lights around the door. This week has been raining alot again. The rain sucks, in the morning and afternoon it´s hot as heck and usually around the late afternoon it just poors. It´s about to rain right now. But this week was a good week because we finally baptized erickson!!! Interviews with president are a lot harder to set up than a normal one. Other than that, not much happened this week. The members are giving lots of references now. We are teaching a bunch of families right now which is way awesome. The trip to kentucky looked really fun. Good to hear the arizona sport teams are doing good right now. When i get back i will die in church basketball, i´m so out of shape. We can´t play anything on p-day. But i´m really good at walking:) Is it getting cold yet in arizona? ... In our mission, we are lacking lots of missionaries and some areas are closing just because of the lack of missionaries. Sometimes it´s just tough. Christmas is coming up!! The last one on the mission, haha. Make sure you have your phones all set up for the phone call. That´s about it, see you all later. Elder Lewis

Day after Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving! Now it's the day after and I am still eating PIE... YUM... but NO black Friday shopping for me.... instead I am taking advantage of my day off to: clean, do laundry, put away decorations and hopefully get out more decorations, help Mike... he is doing MORE tiling etc..., work on my RS assignments..... AND..... UPDATE MY BLOG!!! I am a little behind... I certainly can't have THAT happen!

Basketball!

It's basketball time again! Our ward had their first game on Saturday and did great... we won! Trent is the old man on the team and this is his last season! Crazy! Here are a few pics... Trent is #15...

Trent

Andrew

Trent

Jake

Andrew

From Brazil...

I'm still catchin up on things... but here is the latest from Brazil:

hey everyone!So how´s everyone doing? ... This week we had interviews with president again, it was good. President tobis is fun to talk to and a good guy. Nothing much happened this week. Its been real frustrating trying to baptize erickson.... we are trying are hardest to baptize this kid. Elder moraes got this huge box of food this week. Our ward went to the temple this week and his mom left the box with few of the sisters. He has enough junk food for the rest of his mission. He also gave me a jersey of the brazil soccer team. It was nice of him, it´s a pretty nice jersey. I didn´t take any pics this week. Hey send me some pics of the family because my other ones got ruined in the rain. We took some hard rain this week. Don´t send ones of people eating. Send good ones because i´ll be showing them to other people. Also send some of me before the mission.just send good ones.that´s about it, see you all later. Elder Lewis


Hmmmm.... he mentioned TWICE only send GOOD pics of the fam ... we're not models... well, except Trent... but I'll send him as good as pics as I can!

My trip...

Well... here's the travelog of my trip... I took a couple days off and went on a great trip to Kentucky.... (warning... a LOT of pics, but not TOO much blah blah blah!)

I left on Saturday and flew into Nashville... I love taking pics out the airplane window!Dustin and the fam picked me up and we drove to Kentucky... and of course the FIRST thing we did was eat at my favorite restuarant , the Woodshed. Good ol home cookin... AND I finished off my meal with a huge piece of pecan PIE (insert southern accent)

After church on Sunday we went on a walk...

the weather was absolutely gorgeous!

the next day Aimee had to take Joslyn to the doc, so the rest of us went to a cute little park. You can see in this pic that almost all the leaves have fallen and the trees are bare....

BUT... NOT this one... this HUGE maple tree saved it's leaves just for me...

cuz everyone knows how MUCH i love fall! Thank you maple tree!

After the park we got a donut... Dustin had been raving about a little family owned donut shop there called Whistle Stop... I like donuts and I'm a pretty big fan of Krispy Kremes.... but... I HAVE NEVER HAD A DONUT THIS GOOD IN MY LIFE!!! REALLY!!! This is the best donut ever... I can't wait to go back... might be awhile though!

Good ol tire swing fun

Yep... it's raining... but that didn't stop Aimee and me from doing a little antique shopping!

So with the weather being a little cooler it was a great time to start a fire...

...while the girls were inside making fried chicken and homemade fries!

that fire wasn't just for looks... Dustin made one of his yummy peach (with fresh canned peaches by Aimee) cobbler

... so ya think we would be FULL after a meal like like that... but we didn't want to waste the coals from the fire... so we made smores!

I have to include a pic of Snowball

On my last day there Aimee had a big meeting to go to... so we said goodbye then me Dustin and the girls headed to Nashville...

... and went to the Opryland Mills Mall... does that name sound familiar?... yep... it's a lot like Arizona Mills back when it was popular.

We didn't really go there to shop... we went there to eat at the Aquarium Restuarant.

They had HUGE aquariums there with really cool fish in them...

It was a VERY nice place... cloth napkins etc... and the food was YUM... I ordered fish tacos that were the best I ever had... yep... I did a lot of good eatin on this trip!

Across from the restuarant was this stingray place with MORE aquariums, a Merry go round , some games and a HUGE stingray tank. We wanted to feed the stingrays... but I didn't want to smell like fish on my plane trip home... so Dustin fed them. They would come right up and take the shrimp right out of your hand... Dustin said it was weird...

I loved watching these seahorses

I only rode the Merry go round a couple times, but I think Dustin rode it a HUNDRED times...

Before I left I wanted to pet the stingrays... they were kinda slimy and dissappointed that I din't have food.

Here's me and the girls in front of the pirahnas... they were actually cool looking fish and I'm glad we weren't there at feeding time!

Well there ya have it.... a little insight into my great and very relaxing (I slept a LOT) trip!

But now... sigh... it's back to work for me.

I'm back...

I'm back from my great trip, but still trying to catch up on life. I promise lots of pics soon. Meanwhile enjoy my new favorite song that Dustin and I discovered while doodling (don't know what other word to use this late at night) around on the computer.

Jet plane...

Woo Hoo... In a few hours, I'm hopping on a jet plane and heading east! I've got my coat and I'm all set. Pics and details in a few days. Have a great weekend everyone!

from Brazil...

Here's this weeks email:

Hey everyone!Unfortunatly we didn´t have a baptism this week. President still needs to talk to some other people to interview erickson. And the other lady drank coffee on the day of her interview. But my hump day was fun. We made a cake and also ate pizza at an investigaters house. ... The weather here is hot. President Tobias doesn´t speak any english. He just knows a few words. I´m in a ward and not a branch. About 115 attendence every week. How many peole are in our ward? What´s the average attendence? That´s sweet that trent is starting his papers already and already has a suit. Suits here are way cheap. I can buy a realy nice suit here for like 100 bucks. An average one for about 50 bucks. Congrats on finishing the floor! Well that´s about it for this week. I have to go to a mini conference now, President is going to check our area books and our planners to see if we´ve been messing around. See you all later. Any more questions? Bye. Elder Lewis

Craft day...

Yesterday I had a day off!!!! Of course I slept in... til 4:45... then I did whatever I wanted... like BLOG, eat, bake cookies, etc... The I packed up and headed out to Queen Creek for a craft day with the girls. We had way yummy "girl" food...
Then everyone started painting...

... almost finished...

here's us with our candy corns.... they were all different and all cute.

some of the finished turkeys... it was a fun day... days off are ALWAYS fun, but even better when you're with fam and friends!