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!

Veteran's day...

I definitely have heartstrings to Veteran's day... and also Memorial day, 4th of July and any day or time that causes me to reflect on my heritage, my patriotism and America. So today I reflect with gratitude... on the members of my family that served and are serving in the military. I have a grandpa that served in WWI... my dad and uncle served in WWII and my brother served 30 years in the Air Force. AND... MY son is serving in the Army. So I thought I would post a few pics honoring my "baby"... Awwwww... soooo cute...
the mighty football player...

what a handsome soldier...

Dustin with his beautiful wife and girls that are brave right alongside him...

Thank you Dustin... and thank you men and women of the military... working 24/7 to protect our freedom...

America... sleep well tonight... but before you do... say a prayer for our military and their families.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Saturday projects...

This weekend Mike and I did the usual Saturday stuff.... cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries etc.... AND we continued on with the house project. The "project" is ongoing, but this Saturday Mike reached the "corner" of the tiling project in the house. .. Woo Hoo... when this corner is finished our tile will be wall to wall and corner to corner....
the last little piece.... So are we finished tiling?!? NOOOOO.... we still have to grout, seal, mould and do the bathrooms.... AND.... there is one area we have saved til last to finish tiling... cuz... well... it's gonna take a little time....

The "Hutch"... I didn't take a before picture, but I found this one from last year... The "hutch" is filled with "milk glass" dishes. What is "milkglass" ?!?!? Well... my mom had some milkglass that I think she started collecting in the 50's... I think she got some of it with greenstamps... if you're not old enough to know what greenstamps are... just google it and I'm sure there is a history lesson to be found. So anyway... as years and moves went by... the milkglass was boxed up and I inherited it. At first I kept it boxed up too... then I decided I needed to unbox it and display it and maybe add a few pieces so the kids would know it was grandma's and now mine and an heirloom etc... SOOOO.... I added a piece here and there as I ran accross a cheap deal... and my brother added to it LOTS, especially at Christmas time, he would (and still does) give me more pieces .... BUT.... I never had a big hutch or the space to nicely display it and even use it once in a while... AND... when I "moved" it was again boxed up.
If ya haven't fallen asleep yet, there's a little more to the story....

So the milkglass sat stored for quite awhile. When I met Mike I told him of my milkglass collection... I don't think he realized what a COLLECTION it was! SOOOO... our first BIG purchase when we were married was the hutch pictured above. When we got the hutch it was the first time EVER that I could unbox ALL the milkglass! It was way fun to finally be able to put the milkglass in a prominent and beautiful place.

The dilema is.... ya just can't move a huge hutch filled with milkglass... it has to be unloaded... SOOOOO...

THAT is what I started doing Saturday... unloading the hutch onto the table and counter and washing all of it that got dusty during the "project".

So... that's the story of my milkglass, an update on our tile and that's how we spent Saturday! Life is good!

The scarecrow test...

My work is having a fall festival soon and one of the events is a scarecrow contest. I'm not entering it cuz I'm an employee.... but I wanted to make a scarecrow for fun. I thought he turned out cute (Mike started questioning the "scare" part when I added flowers)

I decided to test my scarecrow with a REAL bird... our parrot Kiwi... Kiwi is the green bird on the right.

If Kiwi was scared then I could call my scarecrow a scareparrot.... but as you can see she started warming up to it and her new fake bird friend... and thus ended the scarecrow test. NOT scarey... but CUTE... and I'm OK with that!

One year!!!

WOW... I can't believe Brandon has been on his mission for a whole year! Happy hump day! In honor of the occassion I have posted a few pics of Brandon over the years... Brandon and Trent were the best of buddies growing up... It will be awhile before they see each other again... their missions will overlap a few months.

The boys...

Brandon played ALL kinds of sports and was good at all of them.

One of many school pics.

On their way to the Nationl Jamboree...

I love this pic!

Class of 2007

Packin up for the big day!

November 5, 2008... His Visa wasn't ready for Brazil, so he got the best of both worlds and spent a month in the Provo MTC and a month in the Sao Paulo MTC. What an experience! And what a great experience he is having serving in Brazil.

Happy one year Elder Lewis!