Thanksgiving Day 2009

Gotta love this one day a year we get to be thankful for all the blessings (and stuff) we have. One of the things I'm grateful for is all the things my kids make and bring to share. It's all yummy delectable food and goes so well with my turkey, potatoes and best ever stuffing (which doesn't get stuffed). We have tables everywhere with 15 of us. We were down one this year with Marc having been sick all week and feeling sicker still. Sure hope he doesn't have the flu. I even got out my nice china plates and was sad there wasn't really anything that would enable me to use more of the china set. We usually set the food out buffet style so all that was really needed on the tables were the plates. Next time.

It seems like when the family gets together, there are always fun tricks to show the little ones. Usually it's Marc that has great tricks but this year Leland filled in. I have no idea what he's doing with the toothpicks but he surely had everyone's attention!

Once the (Gingell) girls were done with their dinner, they were clamoring for Auntie to paint their nails. Sonia dutifully found my supplies and was more than happy to oblige them.

Then comes the part where we celebrate Roxanne's birthday. Roxanne always has to have her birthday celebrated on Thanksgiving instead of having her own day but she's such a trooper. (No worries, Grandma Petersen had the same problem.) Roxanne got lots of gift cards so I see some new clothes in her future!

As the evening evolved, we had an impromptu photo shoot with grandma and grandpa. First with their great-grandchildren and then with their grandchildren. Everyone was being pretty silly.

As we sat around visiting, Buggie had a great time sliding down her mom's legs. She kept climbing up on the couch and then sliding down Hillary's legs for about 20-30 minutes. Phenomenal.

Halloween 2009

Here are some pictures of my little (and big) goblins. It's getting to be the tradition to come to Grammie's for dinner and then go to the Trunk or Treat at Grammie's ward cuz it's earlier than the others. The rest of the family is also closely located so it's easy to drop in on the relatives and show off the fun costumes everyone has. Hurray for Halloween!

Solar Panels or Bust!

Not long after James returned from AIT, he started going up to our property with dad. His friend and fellow soldier, Private Hemsley, went with them the first time. They put in all those bolt thingees you see in the picture.

Then on the second trip, the rails were attached and bolted in. This was all quite the project because this is a very steep roof on the shed. They also had more bolt things to put up. If I remember right, it took two trips to get all the rails up.

Then came the panels. Fortunately dad was able to take a couple days off of work while it was good weather. The solar panels took two days to get them all up, bolted to the rails, and wired into the electrical box that will run the solar pump down in the well.

After all this work, the pay-off was that when everything was bolted and clamped down, taped and screwed and the switch flipped, it worked and watered flowed at about 4 gallons/minute. Not bad for solar panels that hadn't seen the sun until they were brought out of their box and put on the roof.

Some of the funniest stories came out of the little Country Store in Fruitland. There is a little lady, Charlotte, that runs it. The Country Store also has tables and chairs if you'd like to sit and get a bit of lunch. Charlotte will come take your order and another gal makes it. Charlotte is so funny tho. She has quite a dry sense of humor and the best poker face around. She really likes people to enjoy their food and eat it all. Once James didn't eat all of his fries and she drilled him on why. Another time Leland ordered a very large meal and Charlotte told him he was too little to eat all that. She was right and she didn't let him live it down the next time he ate there... said she was gonna have to babysit him! She's quite a hoot.

I Love The Temple!

On October 17th, we went with James to the temple to take out his own endowments. He absolutely loved it and ever since has gone to the temple every day possible and has been to six of the 14 temples in Utah. Some are pretty far away but mostly he loves going to the Salt Lake Temple. He says he prefers the live session but I wonder if it isn't getting 'roped' into multiple sealing sessions. Last Saturday he spent 3 hours helping out at the Salt Lake Temple and loved every minute.Jamie came with us, taking the opportunity to go to the temple so she played taxi for grandma and grandpa. It was fun to have her along. We all went to dinner afterwards at the Village Inn across the street from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. One of our friends is manager there and he enjoyed seeing our family... especially IN his restaurant!

Just a few days later, Richard needed to make a trip to St. George for work. James rode along and they went to the St. George temple. They were going to go to the Manti temple on the way back but discovered it was closed for cleaning. They went to the Mount Timpanogos temple instead.

They also went to the main cemetery in St George and found Paul's grave. Grandma and Grandpa have plots right by their son.

AIT

On October 7th we flew out to Misery for James' Family Day and Graduation from his Advanced Individual Training. The weather was nice getting there but then it rained the whole time. I'm not talking sprinkling rain or even steady rain... it was a downpour the whole time. Fortunately the rain let up to a light rain for our drive back to the airport from the base on Friday.

Since it was raining so much on Family Day (Oct 8), we didn't get to do much. We spent some time at the USO on base where they had ping pong, pool tables, snacks, tvs, and computers.

During one point the rain let up a little so we drove over to see James' barracks (from the outside only) and he grabbed some cool shirts he bought to show us.October 9, Graduation Day... finding James in this crowd is like finding Waldo!

James has been pinned by this Drill Sergeant. Notice that nice shiny new Engineer pin on his collar!Sonia and Hillary flew out for Graduation Day. They loved on brother for a few minutes and then were off in their rented convertible for fun in St. Louey! James, dad and I flew home after the graduation. It was so nice to be home out of the rain!!