Giving Thanks

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family. This year I decided that I did not want to cook dinner; the time I would normally spend in the kitchen cooking I wanted to spend visiting with friends and family. I’m thankful for a husband who suggested we order our Thanksgiving dinner from AJ’s. With a few added sides, appetizers and desserts brought by family and friends we had a feast.
The girls and I started off the morning by running in the first annual Gobble Wobble & Pumpkin Plod. These girls were such good sports about getting up to go running at 7:30 am on a no-school day. The bribe of Mexican hot chocolate helped! We ran in the Pumpkin Plod – 2 mile race. After the race Rachel said, “I’m glad we did this, I feel accomplished,” and so did I. I was reminded that I’m totally out of shape and still feeling it a few days later.

I’m very grateful for my family. We’ve had a trial or two to deal with this year but through those trials we can still find a lot to be thankful for.


I’m thankful that we have family locally that we can share the holidays with.

I’m grateful in a selfish way that the blizzard in Utah kept Seth’s brother and his family home this year for Thanksgiving! Sorry Utah family!!


I’m grateful for friends who have been like family that we can share the holidays with.


I’m grateful that these boys did not burn down my house! (They were building rockets and lighting them at my kitchen table.)


I’m grateful that Alex & Rachel have cousins that live locally and get to see and hang out with.


I’m grateful for this picture, it represents the fabulous day we had and all the love that was shared in our home.


A few other families were missing on this day Dave, Jenn and their kids who will be moving to Utah and all my family in California. You all were missed!

Gilbert Temple Groundbreaking

It was such a wonderful experience to attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

Elder Costa and his wife. Elder Costa gave the dedicatory prayer.

Alex's Piano Recital

Christmas Cards & Procrastination

I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is this week, last year at this time I promised myself that I would plan ahead next year and make sure that we got family pictures done. Did I do what I had planned? No! This year went by so fast that my head is still spinning and I really don't want to admit that the holidays have begun. I went back and forth about what to do for cards and pictures this year and then Shutterfly came to my rescue! They have this deal you get 50 free cards if you blog about them. I could use free cards; who can’t? As I looked at the assortment of holiday cards they offer I realized that I could do a collage of photos from throughout the year of our family. I’ve used Shutterfly in the past and was very happy with the quality and process. This is a win-win!. Shutterfly has put me at peace with the idea that I procrastinated getting a traditional family photo done. There’s always next year!

This is one of my favorite layouts:

The Happiest Place on Earth!

Last February we joined Disneyland in the “Give a day get a day” program and we got free Disneyland tickets for volunteering in our community. So for fall break we were off to California to cash in our free tickets, see some old friends and try out Magic Mountain.

I love Disneyland, but I’m not a Disney fanatic. My house is not decked out in Mickey Mouse stuff. What I love about Disneyland is the exciting energy and to me it really is one of the happiest places on earth.

Our adventure started off with a quick stop at the General Patton Memorial museum in Chiriaci Summit, California. It was really fun looking at the artifacts from this time in history. I left feeling proud to be the daughter of a man who served in WWII.

Our next stop was Anaheim, California — Disneyland!!

After our day at Disneyland we drove to Los Angeles and took the girls to the Simon Weisenthal Museum of Tolerance. In 6th grade Rachel’s class learned about the Holocaust and a Holocaust survivor came to speak to the students and their parents. Alex will get a chance this year to be part of this program at school. At the beginning of the tour we were each given a picture and a name of a Jewish person who lived in Germany at that time and we learned a little bit about them. It was very emotional walking through the 75 minute exhibit at the end of the tour we each found out if our person had died or survived.

We also took the girls to the La Brea Tar Pits and went to visit some friends and family. The next day we took the girls to Magic Mountain and they had a blast! Unfortunately, I was getting over a migraine from the night before so I didn’t get to go on the rides. We had so much fun we forgot to take pictures. Well we do have this one below. Did I mention it was also fright night at Magic Mountain? Very Fun!

These girls are quite the adventurous roller coaster-dare-devils. They went on some really hard-core rides. I was kind of glad I had an excuse of not feeling well to get me out of having to chicken out in front of them. We had a fabulous trip!