November

These pictures uploaded in a weird order, but I'm just going to go with it since I know hardly anyone reads this blog anymore (I do appreciate my faithful readers who I think are only Mike, my 2 girls, 2 of my sisters- Carol and Von, and my faithful former young woman Niki...and I know you guys don't care, right?

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. It was so great to have all the Romneys but Dave and Courtney in town for the big BYU USU game. We got to host Claire and Rich and Andy and Chelsea at our house Friday night. On Saturday morning we all met at Carol's for a tasty breakfast and some nice visiting. It was great catching up with these nieces and nephews who live so far away and to see Matt who just got home from a 9 month deployment in the Navy.

About halfway through our time at Carols, most of the men disappeared to the basement to watch a football game. No surprise there...

On Friday night we all met at Firehouse for a delicious meal which Mom paid for. That was so very kind of her.

Mike accidentally knocked this candlestick off the table one day...

and this is how he put it back together. haha.

On Thanksgiving Mike, Jake, Mom and I had a delicious dinner at Elements Restaurant. This is my first time to eat out on Thanksgiving not counting a couple years we've been on vacation. It was fabulous! The food was soooo good, and there was enough for leftovers the next day! I was extra happy I wasn't cooking a turkey dinner when our dishwasher broke the week before and took 11 days to get fixed...

It was a wonderful surprise to have the Hatch's home for Thanksgiving. They were able to come because Brody got a job as a data scientist at Starbucks in Seattle, so they had a little over two weeks to pack up their life in Colorado! I'm so happy that Ky and Evan will stay with us until after Christmas when hopefully they can move into a house that Brody has found. I have absolutely loved being able to see and play with this sweet boy every day. It will now be harder than ever to be apart from him after getting to be with him for so long...

These two beauties get asked if they're twins on a regular basis...

 Trying to keep Evan out of the places and things he shouldn't get in to is rather difficult...
 
Playing outside on his first day here.

For as long as we've lived in our house, I've wished that we had a fireplace. How do people build houses in Northern Utah without fireplaces? A couple years after we bought a new console for our family room to put our new TV on, Tom and Freda bought one similar to our, except theirs had a build in electric fireplace. I was so jealous and wished even more that we had one like that instead of the one we had- but it was so new that I couldn't justify getting rid of it. This month we've been working on getting the game room looking a little better by getting rid of the ping pong table which wasn't getting used, and putting a queen size bed in there for guests. In doing this fixing up, I realized that the current table for holding the TV and Jake's Xbox wasn't good enough anymore. There were no drawers to keep all the equipment in and it was just a mess in there all the time. Then I got the brilliant idea to move the console from the family room into the game room for all the gaming equipment and get a console/fireplace for the family room and it would be me and Mike's gift to each other for Christmas. With Brad, Jess and Jake's help, we got the console from Sams down to our basement (which was not easy) and got it all unpackaged to find that one of the drawers was broken. Not cool. We certainly didn't want to return it even though I knew we could get a new one, so, long story, but basically what ended up happening was the manager said I could either return it for a new one or he'd give me 30% off. We opted for the money and Mike brilliantly repaired it and you'd never know it ever had a problem! Score!

This is how the game room looks now. Much improved!

I love my new shirt. It was made for me!

I found this on-line and think this is hilarious and I really want to put these on some offending parked cars...

Evan got his first haircut and with that his curly mullet got cut off. I was rather sad about it, but I love how he turned from looking a little babyish to looking like a little boy. This is a genius way to cut a little kids hair- while they're playing in a car!

 
 We bought him this shirt last Labor Day weekend while in Winter Park and it's on the verge of being too small...but it's so cute! (especially worn with his red converse high tops!)

He has started to want to help his parents with house hold chores by saying "me, me, me" whenever they start to do something. It's too bad this attitude won't last until he's in his teens!

It was sooo wonderful to have both girls help decorating for Christmas. It's too overwhelming to think about doing it all myself.

 


 As always, it's great getting pictures of my missionary each week. I love seeing his happy, smiling face.

October

The greatest day of Jake's life happened at the SLC Comic Con when he got to meet and have a picture with his hero, Captain America- aka Chris Evans. Maybe, just maybe his wedding day will top this day as best ever, but we shall see...

This blurb book was 2 years in the making. I was pretty good at keeping up on it while he was gone so when he came home I just needed to add pictures from his homecoming and our trip back to Seattle in August. He was happy to have all his memories and pictures in one book.

 
Carol, Ann and I went for a walk one Friday morning from Ann's house to Center Street Grill for breakfast with Mom, then back to Carol's house. It was a lovely fall day and we had a great time chatting the whole way. I absolutely love that 2 of my sisters live within 10 minutes of me!

Three of Cam's high school friends came to visit me one night and bring an elf bobblehead that reminded them of Cam (because of his cute smile- not the big pointy ears...;) It was so fun to talk with them and reminisce about all the fun they had in middle and high school with Cam and his friends.

These pictures were taken one morning when there was a cool fog that hit the lower parts of the valley. I love Cache Valley!

I LOVE getting pictures of Cam every week. He's so great at sending several with each email. This is Cam and Elder Seegmiller who he's been with for 3 transfers now holding up Elder Morris whom they're training right now. Cam said he'd never want to go back to being a brand new missionary...

With President and Sister Woodbury at transfers.

 

On conference Sunday we did our traditional walk in the canyon between sessions. It was a beautiful fall day and we had a great time.

Oh Evan. What a joy it is to see pictures Kylee and Brody send me. It just makes my day. Here's a month's worth...

 
For Halloween, he was Max from The Wild Things book and Ky and Brody were wild things. I could not love these pictures more. And be impressed with Kylee- she made all three costumes! I'm so impressed with her!

Jake turned 22 on the 29th. It was so great having him home for his birthday and getting to celebrate with him for about 3 days... On his actual birthday, Tom and Freda took us plus Jess and Brad to dinner at Jack's Wood Fire Pizza and it was amazing. We came back here to watch "Edge of Tomorrow" which is a great movie that only Jake had seen. The next day Jake and I along w/ Jess and Brad went to the Station in Farmington to shop and eat lunch at Zupas, then we drove to Park City to do more shopping at the outlets. That night Jake had some friends over to finish off his birthday cake then they went to the Aggie football game. On Sunday the Bundy's and Jess and Brad came for dinner and games.

The Skeens put on an amazing party the weekend before Halloween that we loved attending. We had amazing food, made to-die-for homemade donuts and played some fun games.

Sara and Caleb switched identities with each other and it was hilarious.

These were the entries for the pumpkin carving contest.  Pretty cute and creative!

We made enough donuts to feed about 3 times more people than were there...

Brad and Bundy did some science experiments with the kids.

I loved everyone's costumes.

Mom's costume was an old woman. haha.

Jake looks just like Jim Carrey!! And yes, that's his real hair! It hasn't been cut on top since he got home!