It's official...

We have a new eagle to add to our flock... Trent is officially an Eagle Scout! YAY!!!

Thanks to everyone who helped!

He made some shelves and a picnic table for a men's shelter

All finished!

New area in Brazil...

Here's the latest from Brazil. Brandon got transfered... I REALLY think I would like living in his house!

Oí família - I made here to anápolis safely and my comp is pretty cool and his name is elder camargo, he is brazilian from rio grande sul. We are in a branch and not a ward. Our chapel is an old wedding party place. Our area is about an hour bus ride from our house, and an hour and twenty minutes back. The pic with the little sign is the other side of the road of our area. But we live where there are plenty of stores and other stuff. Our house is connected to a bakery and there is a place in our house where we can look into the kitchen and smell all the stuff they are making. our house is pretty big too, we have two big rooms kitchen a room to study a big bathroom a room for all our clothes and a room for each companionship. we live with two other elders, elder andrus from green bay. and elder araujo from são paulo. ... But ya, our branch needs alot of help and me and elder camargo have planed activities every friday for the next 4 weeks. Right now we need to help the members out. Pretty much the whole branch is related and there are some family problems that leak in. But we had conference this week, we watched it at the church in the center. on sunday we watched it in english and the rest in portuguese. I didn´t like wathcing it in portuguese because the translatores are so boring it was hard to pay attention. I understood what they were saying but it was just monotone for two hours. But conference is always good to go to and i liked everyone´s talks. That´s about everything.... Até próxima semana Elder Lewis

Conference weekend...

I just love Conference weekends... cuz I love conference and cuz I love Spring and Fall. Maybe I would like Summer and Winter better if we had conference then too! I loved hearing our Prophet speak of course but probably my favorite talk was the one Jeffrey R Holland gave on Christ.... a perfect talk for the Easter season. On Sunday the fam came over, so along with being spiritually fed we always make sure we are physically fed too! We ended Conference with a yummy baked potato bar and then a marathon game of Phase 10. We would probably still be playing, but some of us had to go to school and work the next day! I didn't get the camera out til we started playing and getting goofy!

Update from Brazil...

Here's the latest from our missionary:

Oí família We baptized again this week! We baptized the son of Lucelena who was baptized 2 weeks ago, his name is marco. This week also i was on a division all week with elder clemens. He is an assistant to the president and it was fun being with him. He is from iowa and he has a wicked american accent when we talks in portuguese. Sometimes it makes me kringe but i don´t know how he does it because he has the second most baptisms in the mission. This week we also did something really fun. To announce the activity we had at the church we all went to some of the schools close to the church. Elder clemens and i spoke in english and elder deboer and enlder souza translated. Elder souza didn´t really translate because he doesn´t know english he just announced the activity. We acted like we just got here yesterday and we knew absolutly no portuguese. Everyone was all excited two americans were in their class and the `english´ teachers didn´t know what the crap we were saying, it was pretty funny.But we had almost 50 investigators at church this week which was awesome! Also this week something else happened..... I got transferred. Today I´m headed back to goias to a city called anâpolis. Anâpolis has the world record for number of churches in one city. I´ll be comps with another brazilian but i forgot his name right now. It will be fun, this city baptizes a ton of people every month.Thanks for all the happy birthday´s. I´m already 20... wow.I better get going I have another 7-8 hours on the bus in front of me.Até mais!Elder Lewis

Happy anniversary to...

Awwww... just two young lovebirds... (YES... young!)

Yesterday was our Anniversary! We had to work , but after we went to Black Angus and ate and ate and ate... it was WAY yum but the best part was being with my hubby and just talkin and reminiscing! Great man... great times.... great life! Our wedding day

Spongemama Squarepants and Trent's "I'm Ready" 18 party!

Trent thought he was going to just have a family dinner for his birthday... but Spongemama and the fam did a little planning to make his 18th a little more exciting. Since Trent is the last kid... I wanted to do a kid party like when everyone was young. Occassionally I would dress up for these things so... I made a Spongemama appearance. And why did we pick a Spongebob theme you might wonder?... Let's just say Trent is a Spongebob fan! Well... I like Spongebob too... and so do "some" of the fam as well. Here are some highlights:

The hostess... Spongemama... I'm ready!

Welcome sign

Everything is festive...

Spongebob krispie treats and Patrick Star sugar cookies made by Kristin. Aren't they so cute?!? They were way yummy too!

Trent picked the menu... Chicken parmesean and spaghetti!

Table for two!

Playing the "Who's the most like Spongebob" game. People had to vote on family members that had characteristics or features like Spongebob... oh what an honor to be a winner!

One of the lucky winners and her great prize package. Erin won for hands and smile most like Spongebob.

Trent was showered with Spongebob stuff... I didn't even know Spongebob had a greats hits CD!

Awwww.... how cute!

Wow... that box of fruit snacks came with a bonus!

The smoke alarm didn't even go off after blowing out all those candles... no that's not a cake... It's candles on top of magic cookie bars... one of Trent's favorites!

So what does it feel like to have all my kids be... well ... adults now?!?... Hmmm ... let me think...


How cute.. this is a pic of the kids right before Brandon left and Dustin was still in Afghanistan...
When Dustin was visiting... whoa... getting a little silly!

Well... it didn't take too much thought... ya know what... kids will always be kids! It's absolutely GREAT to be their mom!

Birthday Boys!

Happy Birthday to Brandon and Trent! Saturday was Brandon's and Today is Trent's. Their birthdays have always been a big occassion and this is the first time since Trent's first birthday that they haven't been celebrated together! For YEARS... whatever we got Brandon for his birthday we HAD to get Trent also. It was great fun! So Happy Birthday to the "little" boys
(we finally had to drop the "little" part) who are still affectionately know in this family as "the boys"! I can't believe you guys are this OLD!