Things you never out grow....

I love traditions! Carving pumpkins is one tradition I hope our kids never out grow. We had all of our favorite traditions for family night. Carving pumpkins with Nana,(this year it included great Nana also), carmel popcorn, watching "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown", and roasting pumpkin seeds.The pumpkin carving gets better and more creative each year. These pumpkins could win contests! I tried to talk them into the simple faces that I used to carve as a kid, but they wanted to be fancy, and boy did they surpass my expectations.

My Amazing Arizona friends

"Without friends no one would choose to live"

Aristotle

This last week was filled with many fun activities with my friends. I have so much fun with all these amazing women! We enjoy Institute together, going to lunch, traveling, making crafts, scrap booking, sewing, etc. This week I think we did it all! I don't know what life would be like with out all my fun friends. I love you Britt, Kathy G., Kelly, Jan, Kathy R. Thanks for making it an extra fun week!
Britt had us over to make these beautiful signs. We had so much fun that Kathy R. suggested we do a craft together once a week~ count me in!
This is my motto this year! I absolutely love this saying from our dear prophet. I brought it home and it fit perfect in my little nook, and the best part is we walk past it several times a day, so it reminds me of how I should live my life.
Kathy Gray's lunch! We are the lunch bunch and go out every Wednesday after Institute. I always look forward to Wednesdays. These women are so fun to be around and always inspire me and make "EVERYTHING FUN"!Look at these fun darling, classy aprons we made. Kelly, Shea and I. Now we are ready to cook up something!
My dear friend Britt, isn't she photogenic?
Kathy Rollender's birthday lunch.

Best friends

Are the people in life

that make you laugh

a little louder,

smile a little brighter,

& live a little better

I even got to connect with some of my high school friends. It was so wonderful to catch up with their lives and reconnect after several years. It felt like 20 years had hardly passed.

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay awhile, make footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same.

Anonymous

The Burley's come to visit

The Buhrley's came into town for the weekend. We had a great dinner together with both Buhrley's. It was good to catch up over yummy food and great company! On Saturday our family met for lunch with Wendy and JoLyn at Gecko grill and then I went shopping with the shopping guru's. Wow they know how to shop and have amazing endurance. It was just fun to be with them and learn all their fun fashion sense and style. ( I bought a necklace, and yes it was my first necklace I've bought and not made, but it is one that I couldn't have made), so fun and vintage with a fabric bow attached, I couldn't resist. And I'll get twice the use out of it since it turns into a belt.
On Sunday we went to visit Grandma at her assisted living home. Mitch brought magic to entertain all of grandma's friends. They all loved it! One of the lady's turned to me and said, "he is the best we've ever seen", another lady said, "boy do we need magic around here!" It was fun just to watch their faces. He also played some songs on the piano thanks to Aunt Ginger's requests. It was so wonderful to be together visiting grandma, I really think it made her day and it made ours. Thanks for coming to visit us JoLyn and Lou! We love you!

Fall Break ~ Cruisin the Riviera

Our vacation was a different experience this year since the boys were the only one's to have a fall break. It was a boy's high adventure vacation and my mom and I were lucky to be apart of it. It was such a treat to have my parents be able to come on a vacation with us. We felt like it was a vacation of a lifetime because it was such an amazing experience! Wade had everything planned to the T. Our itinerary was total fun and high adventure!
Riding quads in Mazatlan on the beach and in the mountain range. They had a tropical storm a few days before we arrived so we were able to ride through mud and water which made the adventure all the more exciting. The beautiful scenery surrounded us.

Puerta Vallarta was filled with zip lines, rope climbing, rappelling, and "swinging through the tree's with the greatest of ease", as Nana put it. The buzz around the cruise ship was," even the Nana and the Grandpa did it". They were like kids having the time of their lives. "Let it Rip, Potato chip", was Nana's favorite saying before we zipped through the canopy's. It was a beautiful tropical Forest and amazing to be able to have a bird's eye view of it all!

Cabo was filled with a day of snorkeling, para sailing, beaching, and site seeing. The water was the perfect temperature with beautiful tropical fish all around. We felt like we were in an aquarium. The boys loved para sailing tandem.

The cruise ship was one of Royal Caribbeans larger ships with all the fun amenities attached, which included; ice skating, rock climbing, rollerskating, golfing, basketball, dodge ball, ping pong, etc. There was never a dull moment on the ship.

The boys loved all the teenager activities. All the teenagers became fast friends and had so much in common! Many of them were members of our church even our good friends we met from Australia. Our boys and the three Aussie boys beat the crew in dodge ball, it was the red heads and Aussie's against the crew. They beat them, the first upset in 451 games. It was a highlight. The boy's said it felt like an EFY cruise.

Our Australian friends are already planning on coming back to visit us this summer and we hope we can visit them soon.
Mitch came home from school today very sad that he couldn't be with his brother every minute of the day. They were inseparable and enjoyed being roommates and "best buddy brothers", as I've always called them.

So as you can only imagine we are having "After the Cruise Blues"!

Visit to see my dear friend Katie

Katie and I go all the way back to college days! We always called these pictures the Katie Squeeze!

Katie is such an amazing friend to have. It is amazing how our lives have paralleled . We have always enjoyed sharing ideas with each other, which she has inspired me in so many ways over the years. We have taught each other many different skills, including: crafts, sewing projects (made all our maternity clothes together), hand painting pictures, toll painting, water color, etc. We have met up with each other to ski with our husbands when she lived in Colorado. It has been so fun over the years to have a friend like Katie to exchange ideas with. We even got each other into selling DJ inkers to retailers when we lived in different states. She is such a great mentor and friend.

She came to visit me this summer, so she said it was my turn to visit her! I'll give you a glimpse of what an amazing friend she is~ she drove 3 hours to pick me up from St. Louis (the closest airport to her small little town)

A highlight was getting to spend the afternoon with these ladies! They are my bestest friends when I lived in St. Louis.

These women are also incredibly talented, fun and always interested in what is going on in your life. I miss them so much! It was so wonderful having lunch and catching up. In some way it had seem like I never left. We just caught up where we left off! I wish I could have more time to spend with them, but it would never be enough!Random pictures out the window that made us laugh! It was so fun to be apart of her life for 3 days! We went to her Zoomba exercise class, her personal trainer, she taught me photography and we got a little sidetrack and I taught her jewelry making and she taught me knitting. There wasn't enough time to do all we wanted to do. Katie(the professional photographer) teaching me all the in's and out's of photography (aperture and shutter speed) !She is always so animated with her hands when she talks, and her enthusiasm always shines through!
Katie teaching me how to shed a few pounds in a photo. It's all in the view! Before~front view! After~side view! Wow look at the difference! We've got all the modeling secrets!
She look me to her studio and not only taught me about lighting, but taught me how to be a model! These are all the pictures in between all the one's of me laughing. So not a model, but had such a blast trying it out! Then she taught me how to photoshop them! Boy does that ever make a difference!
I came away feeling so enlightened and having so much fun sharing our lives and lots of fun memories! Thank you Katie for the wonderful friend you are!

The reason...

The reason you see my kids doing THIS....
IS because they do this everyday. They wake up at 4:45. A.M. that is to run 6 miles a day! They are on the Highland cross country team together. They really enjoy doing sports together and it is so fun for them to be on the same team. As you can tell from these pictures they are hard to tell apart, everyone on the team thinks they are twins!

They are truly flying! It was hard to catch a picture with their feet on the ground. It is fun to watch them race and work towards a goal of beating their personal best each time.

My amazing brother!

It is always a treat getting a phone call from my brother that he wants to come by,

but this night we were in for a real treat. He called me from work and said

he wanted to join us for family night since his Holly and Waylan were out of town.

He wanted me to make him one of his favorite apple treats,

so he came with me to the grocery store!
While at the store I expressed how much I love his Salmon he cooks, so he said he would make it for us for tonight for dinner! Wow! He can come over any night to visit!

He really met my love language tonight, anyone that knows me, knows how much I love tasks done for me! I felt so loved and hope he knows how much we love him!

I am so lucky to have such a truly amazing brother!

I love seeing these handsome men cooking in my kitchen. Tom making his delicious Salmon and Mitch making his favorite Caesar salad. (As I was posting this picture I couldn't get over the resemblance of their profiles)