Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we had Steve's parents and Austin, Kyle and Han with us. I love to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Largely because I know we will have leftovers!!! I was so busy cooking and getting everything ready that I forgot to take pictures of our delicious feast but I did remember the pies.... Chocolate Cream (brought by Grandma), Pumpkin pie (made by Han) and

Apple pie (made by yours truly). I love making Apple pies. There is just nothing better than homemade pies!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day... eating, playing games, eating, relaxing, eating, watching a Hallmark movie...ahh! Since it is Thanksgiving, I thought I would share a few things I am Thankful for...

• My Husband... he is the love of my life!
• My Family...there is nothing better than being with them!
• My Friends...you all know who you are. You have been a great blessing in my life over the years!
• The Gospel...I know My Heavenly Father lives and I am grateful for His Son, Jesus Christ- for the Atonement- for a living Prophet on the earth today and for the many blessings that have come to me and my family.

Those really are the most important things in my life. There are lots of other things I am grateful for and I could make a list a mile long of what those things are but that would just plain take too long!

Thanksgiving night I started putting up Christmas decorations and finished Friday afternoon (well, mostly finished) just in time to go out with... are you ready for this... Myself, Steve, Kyle, Han, Heather, Clint, Austin, Tony, LeAnn, Amanda, Mark, Halie, Ammon, Hunter, Max, Troy, Lanelle, Zack, Tyson, Kaden and Bridger- whew! That's alot of us! I know, pictures would have been great but you should all know by now how inept I am at that! It's kind of a tradition that we get together with these great friends of ours after Thanksgiving and usually after Christmas,too.We all went to the Pizza Factory then to see the new movie- The Blindside. The movie was very good -definitely a must see.

Good Times with Good Friends!

Saturday we were supposed to go down to my sister, Holly's house to visit with another sister, Kristin and her family who were here for the Holiday but they had some sick kids so we did a little shopping instead and had an afternoon of what I will call retro game playing. We chose games to play that we haven't played in quite a while like, Mad Gab, Outburst Jr., and Taboo. I had forgotten how much fun those games were. We finished off the night watching the Jazz game- Go Jazz! Did I mention how grateful I am for family and friends... you know one of the reasons why? Because they bring so much love and laughter into my life! There's nothing better!

Swim Update

Austin has had a few more meets but they have been home meets and I am an official for his home meets so I can't watch him as much and keep track of his times. He has been doing good though. Here are a few times from his meet on Thursday-

• 2:30 minutes in the 200 yd Freestyle (this is the first time he has had in this event).He came in 1st in his heat.
• 1:02.86 minutes in the 100yd Freestyle beating his previous time and again he came in 1st in his heat.
• 1:51.76 minutes in the 200 yd Freestyle Relay beating their old time by a couple of seconds which is really good. Austin's individual time in this was 27.42 seconds (for 50yds.)
• He also swam in the 400 yd Freestyle Relay but they did not beat their old time.

After a visit to the doctors today we found out that Austin has Bronchitis and so he isn't participating in this weekends' meet and is on Doctors orders to only have light workouts for the next week.:(

A Fun Filled Weekend...

My sister Holly and I had planned a girls night for Friday and Heather and Han were able to come, too. You would think that out of four of us, one of us would have remembered to bring their camera but no... none of us did. We started our night at the Craft fair in Farmington where I bought this cute christmas wall hanging. The snowflakes are carved into the wood! I love decorating for Christmas. It is pretty much the only Holiday I do decorate for. After the craft fair we headed to the Royal Jade for some Chinese food and then to the mall. We only had about an hour there before everything closed but I was able to get a couple Christmas gifts for Austin and a couple gifts for Steve to give to me - that's kind of how it is with clothes, I find what I like and what fits then buy it and give it to Steve to wrap and put under the tree. It is just easier then returning clothes after Christmas, what can I say!
We came home and decided to watch "Wives and Daughters" which is about a 5 hour movie and yes - we made it all the way through ( although Heather and I may or may not have had a bit of a snooze somewhere along the way). What time did we go to bed? oh, that would be 3am!

Saturday Steve and I had tickets to go see the Utah Symphony in "Bravo Broadway". It just so happened that Holly's husband, Stephen surprised her with tickets to the same show so we met up with them at the show. The show was a tribute to Broadway Musicals and was absolutely fantastic! They did songs from My Fair Lady, Bye Bye Birdie, WEst Side Story, The Music Man, Les Miserables, Wicked, Cats and Phantom of the Opera to name a few. These three were the guest performers who sang the songs...

Stephanie Block who was Elfaba in the 1st National Touring Company of "Wicked".

Debbie Gravitte who has won a Tony Award for best actress in a musical play and has been in numerous plays on Broadway. She was very funny!

And Gary Mauer who has recently playes as the Phanton in "Phantom Of The Opera". He has also played the part or Raoul. He Stole the show as he sang "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis. and "All I Ask Of You" (with Stephanie) and "Music of The Night" from Phantom. He was amazing!!! Completely mesmerizing! What a great evening... What a great weekend!

A New Addition to the Family

Saturday when Steve and I got home from St. George, Heather and Clint were at the house and they had been searching online for possible dogs for us. Well, when they showed me this one I thought she was so cute that I picked up the phone and called her owner. A big plus for me is that she is 2 years old and already potty trained. We went to see her and ended up bringing her home. Her name is Coco. She is a Shorkie (a shi-zu, yorkie mix). She is a bit hyper but after just a few days here she has settled in and calmed down. She loves to play and would play fetch all day if I would. She even posed for these pictures so well! I love this next one!

Heather and Clint came back down yesterday to see her again and Kyle and Han came. Everyone seems to love her. Austin is thrilled and Coco has taken right to him. They will be best buddies before you know it. Austin calls her Coco Puff and Kyle prefers Coke Zero. Just look at her...what's not to love?

Actually I think this look says "Ha! I have you wrapped around my paw already!"

St. George Meet

Okay, I lied... no pictures. Mostly because this guy walked in front of me when I was getting ready to take some sports mode shots which takes one picture after another and I ended up missing the chance. Aistin was only in two heats. One on Friday and one on SAturday and there were 800 swimmers which made for a lot of sitting around and waiting and going deaf from all the noise 800 kids can make. His time in the 50 Freestyle was 28.13 seconds and in the 100 Freestyle his time was 1.03. He came in first in his heat for that one. No one was even close to him!
Although he didn't beat any of his previous times he still had fun.
The end.

Swim Meet #2

I wasn't able to go to this meet because I was working at the polls for voting yesterday but Steve went and because it was at Mt. Crest in Hyrum, Heather and Clint were able to go,too. Austin swam the 100 Freestyle. He was in lane 2 on the board below. So, he came in 3rd in his heat and beat his previous time (done at a mock meet during practice) by 12 seconds which is fantastic!

Steve took these pictures so I am not sure what race this is but he said Austin is in Lane 2 which is the one just above the boys heads.

He is in lane two here also. As you can see his dive was pretty bad. Steve said it was pretty funny but not the worst of the day. Sometimes you just kind of slip off those platforms! Don't worry, Austin laughed about it,too. He is 2nd from the bottom in the next picture getting ready to dive in.

He also swam in the 50 Freestyle again and had a time of 27.98 seconds which beat his last time by about 1 second. He was in the Freestyle relay,too but coach put him in with the C team and while Austin did well, Steve said that his team members were not so good. Austin was anchor and tried valiantly to catch them up passing a few others but still coming in 4th in their heat. We head down to St. George this weekend for a meet down there so more pics to come!

What Have I been up too?

As some of you know, Austin is in a dancing/singing/acting group called "Show Stoppers". They are getting ready for their first production called "A Musical Mania". They will be performing numbers from 3 different shows, namely, Annie, Newsies and Mama Mia. I have been helping sew costumes for the younger kids which has been taking up most of my time lately. I've done 14 of these night gowns...

and 11 of these skirts- none of which were hard, just time consuming. I can't wait to have grandchildren so that I can make cute little outfits for them! Oh and if any of you are looking for some fun show to go see in December, Show Stoppers will be performing in Ogden at the Egyptian theatre on December 7 & 14...a fun FHE activity. Call me for tickets!