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Happy Birthday Jim!


We have now had another birthday in this house.  Yeah!!!  We love birthdays in this house and celebrate as long as we can.   The week leading up to his birthday (and even this current week) has been very busy for Jim and we haven't seen a lot of him.  He was/is busy providing for our family and doing Bishopric duties.

  Here is a brief sample of the past two weeks of Jim's life with some birthday items sprinkled in.  He is one busy guy.  I also forgot to take ANY pictures of birthday festivities!!!  So I will sprinkle other random pictures in too.

Sunday Nov. 3rd- gone from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM for Bishopric duties/ meetings with a little church mixed in from 1 to 3.

Monday Nov. 4th- Jim is home tonight :)   We always do a game show spotlight for Family Home Evening when it is someones birthday.  The host asks the birthday person favorite questions and the rest of us try to earn points by guessing the correct answers .  It gets hilarious, funny and very competitive. 

Tuesday Nov. 5th- 6:30 PM to 10:30 ish PM- extending callings and Bishopric meeting.

Wednesday Nov. 6th-  7:00 to 10:00ish- being at YM/ YW activities and a couple more Bishopric items after.

Thursday Nov. 7th- Saturday Nov. 9th: Left our house 7:00 on Thursday morning until Saturday night at 6:30.  Wood Badge. 

Friday Nov. 8th- Wood Badge

Saturday Nov. 9th- Wood Badge.  Came home at 6:30 PM.  We had a few friends over that night for Birthday celebrations.

Sunday Nov. 10th-  Typical Sundays have Jim gone from 8 to 5:30.  We had a family party that night.  I always think our house is just the right size until we have a birthday party.  Thank you everyone for squeezing in :)

Monday Nov. 11th- Birthday person gets to pick somewhere to go out to eat.  Jim chose Chuck-A-Rama.  The kids were very excited!  That is one of their very favorite places to eat and everyone is happy there.

Wood Badge goes on again this week so he will be gone again Thursday morning to Saturday evening and then ironically we are back to a full day of meetings on Sunday :)

Whew!  It makes me tired just typing it :)

 We have been able to soak him up on Monday nights the past two weeks and that is about all.  We miss him but understand there is a time for everything.  When he is home, he is "home" which makes a big difference and is nice.  I am reminded of quality vs. quantity.

 

 

 Happy Birthday JIM! 

We love you very much and are so lucky to call you ours.

Halloween 2013

 

Afton and Lilly all ready for a "witches party" they were invited to.

 

 

Us :) 

I find it funny that by their own choice, 3 of the 4 kids wanted
 to be the same thing they were last year (except for Afton).

Lizzie as a cat- AGAIN. 

Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter

Ethan going on his 1,000th time of being Indiana Jones.   

Oh how I love these two girls on each side of me.

Lucky seems pretty excited about being a hot dog again.

"I Want You.... to have a happy Halloween"

Rosie the Riveter

Lucky still ashamed to be a hot dog :)

Two absolutely cute witches!
Grandma H. and Lilly


Happy Halloween!!!!

St. George

For UEA this year we were able to spend the long weekend in St. George with Jim and his family.  Here are some of the adventures.

Thursday:
Sand Hollow Resevoir-

Tuacahn-

 

 

 

 

Friday:
Upper Galoot Hill-

Jenny's Trail in Snow Canyon

Saturday-
Pioneer Park-

Crafts AND a picture of Jim and I (taken right before crafts began:)-

 

 



october happenings

Gardner Village- We went to Gardner Village to check out all the witches with our friends the Sierers.

All the cute girls. 
So fun that all of them love to be together!
Lizzie 9, Savannah 8, Afton and Lilly 5, Greta 3

The group of kids-
 14, 12 and 11 year old boys tolerated looking at witches very well.

Afton was quite excited to see Sweet Afton's candy shop



Bonding time-Now that school is in full swing and the kids are gone, this is how excited Lucky is to be home with just me every morning :)

He will switch off between this chair or our couch.  I must not be very exciting.

Ice Skating-  For the past 5 weeks, Tuesday nights have been filled with ice skating lessons.  Lizzie is in private lessons and Afton and Lilly took their first class. Afton and Lilly have one more time.  They are SO cute in their little ice skates.   I am still trying to decide what my wallet wants to do about Lizzie.



Cottonwood Heights Rec Center- our Tuesday night hang out place.



And finally......OUR NEW CAR!!!  We love it so much already.  We got it on Oct. 9th.  It is a 2007 GMC Yukon.  The leather seats are a great bonus with 4 kids.  Lots of room and very nice.  We are excited for upcoming adventures.

 

 In case you are wondering what we look like driving it :)

Nice to be home....

I will try not to get too cheesy in this post BUT you see these 5 people (and dog).....

 

 

 

THEY ARE MY EVERYTHING!

 

 

On Wednesday night, this is what happened to our van. 

Wednesday night: after accident

 

Thursday morning- day picture

A deer ran out in front of us in Salt Canyon near Afton, WY.  Jim was absolutely amazing and kept our car on the road.  I don't even want to think about what could have happened considering a cliff and big mountain were on each side of us.   Once we stopped we both grabbed our cell phones. We had absolutely no phone reception.  We flagged down a VERY kind, nice generous man who took Jim to the top of the canyon so we could get phone reception to call his parents and a tow truck. I meanwhile sat in our van with our children in a very dark canyon hoping this man really was a nice man and that they would be back soon.   They came back much faster than I had anticipated and he was gracious enough to wait with us for the tow truck.Our family of 6 and dog would not be able to fit in a tow truck. Lilly and I rode in the two truck.  Jim, Ethan, Liz, Afton and Lucky got in the generous mans car.  Jim's dad was so nice to come meet us at the tow place.  We all crammed ourselves and as much of  our stuff as we could into his Buick LeSabre (a lot of room in those cars). We then headed up to the comfort of the cabin with very thankful prayers in our hearts.  

 

But wait.... our unplanned adventures weren't done.  Jim's dad got really sick Thursday morning.  He ended up going to the hospital and was admitted for 2 nights.  Although we really missed him being with us at the cabin, he was taken care of so well by the incredible people at the hospital in Star Valley.  He is doing just fine now :)

 

So many tender mercies from the weekend....

-Grateful Jim's parents decided to come up with us. 

-Jim handling the car so well

-A pull off appeared on  the road just a few feet from where we hit the deer. 

-There are still kind, generous, thoughtful people who stop and help strangers

-My family is safe

 

We ended up having to go up to Jackson (about an hour away) to rent a car.  In case you need to know, Star Valley has an amazing hospital but no car rental places :).  We drove our rental home and will now need to figure out a new car for our family.

 

-

 Here are a few pictures of the rest of our trip. 

We still enjoyed each others company, relaxed and were grateful.

I also taught Ethan how to play Solitaire. 




Went on a walk with Grandma. 

Our absolutely adorable Afton.

Ethan, Lizzie, Afton and Lilly. 
We are honored to call them ours.



Cute Lizzie

 

 

 

 

Jim, and kids at the camp spot Jim hung out at many times as a kid.

 

 

Our mud walk. 
We seriously had layers of thick mud on all our shoes
but the kids wanted to keep on going.
It was fun!



Seriously, can he please stop growing?

Lucky the Hero
- I am sure all the rocks he saved from the lake are extremely grateful :)

Jim still got a little fly fishing in.

View from our cabin!  Gorgeous!

It was still a nice vacation despite the few really weird, random happenings.  It was nice to feel the comfort of peace, be thankful and spend time together.