29`! woo-hoo

Yes, it's 29`, expecting 24` tonight. The snow started this afternoon and hasn't stopped since. We're going to have a white Christmas!!! (for the first time I have ever lived here!) (also, to clarify from the last post, the snow stayed for 1/2 and hour, not snowed for half an hour).

XD

P.S. Pop's came to Texas yesterday! He's going to be here for Christmas and possibly for the New Year. We don't know yet. We're just glad to have him here for the moment.

Let it Snow!!

Yes, you heard me right; it snowed!

"What? In Texas? But it was just 74` the other day!"

Yep! And today (actually this happened on the 2nd) we got good, solid, white, wet, snow!

We got a good solid 1/2 inch for a good solid 1/2 hour! I think it's an omen for this December. =)

Recap of more than a MONTH

I know I haven't kept this updated (Uncle Bob!) so now I'm updating it.

October 6th: Noah turned 16!! AAAAHH!!

He celebrated his birthday in the surprise fashion and was flown to Orlando Florida for a weekend full of adventure, wonder, and intrigue. The main event was the DEW tour finals (which is kind of like the X-games, except it tours the country) but they also went to other places like The Hard Rock Cafe and theElement store. The Hard Rock was cool (from what I heard) because there was so much memorabilia (like R.E.M's jeans, and Elvis's suit, and John Lennon's piano!) in the open, and because they were given a special tour of the Cafe which included seeing the Lennon room (apparently they don't show that to a lot of people) and the "fun room" that contains memorabilia/props that's too awkward or large to display downstairs, but too cool to just give up, so they store it up there. One of the cool things about the fun room was that you were allowed to touch everything. So Noah and Mom touched the yellow bike from Yellow Submarine, and the throne that was in The King and I, and Mick Jaggers guitar, and other mind-blowing items. Not to mention a lot of signatures, because the fun room is were groups hang out before a performance in the Hard Rock theatre, and it became tradition to write your name on the wall. Noah liked his surprise. A lot. When he got back he told us about all of the insane stunts that the athletes (are they athletes?) at the DEW tour performed; using wonderous skater-lingo all the while. For about 3 days after they got back they would start each sentence with "Dude!". That's what 500 skaters for 3 days will do to you. =) It's worn off now.

October 24th: Homecoming! Noah is a 16-year old now, so he invited his "good friend" Courtney, and they doubled up with Noah's friend Jacob and his date Nina. They're so cute.

The group.

Nina's older brother Jordan standing as a warning for Jacob with his harpoon gun.
Noah: always prepared

"How you doin?
(Please note the matching corsage and button hole pin. Courtesy of Mom, she's amazing)

After dinner the boys led the girls to a candle-lit dessert awaiting them in a nearby park. There were candles lighting the path down to the dessert, and we had a little girl in the ward dress up and throw rose petals as she led them down the path. She loved doing that, and Nina and Courtney (actually, the little girls name was Courtney too) thought it was adorable. Very romantic.

(sorry about the under-line. Again. I don't know how that gets here, so I don't know how to remove it.)

October 30th: Halloween! (I'm still coming off of my sugar-rush)

Noah went off with some buddies to explore haunted-houses, but we all went to the trunk-or-treat at the church. Noah went to his friends building to do their trunk-or-treat, but we all did one. There were some really great costumes this year. I love being the Nursery leaders daughter. Here are some photographs from the event (my favorite costume I didn't take a picture of: a kid said that he was a werewolf, and it wasn't a full moon. Very clever.):

Soooo-oo mucchh suugaarrr ->

"This never happened."

After that we went home and enjoyed Frankenstien until the wee hours of the morning. It was nice while it lasted. =)

November 25: The Gibersons (Sis. Gib, Katie, Tana, Duncan, and Thad) came over

(From left to right: Me, Tana, Katie)

and then I became ill. They left early so as not to catch whatever was causing my 102` fever. I saw a doctor on the 25th and they diagnosed me with either sever Bronchitis, or early pneumonia. I stayed sick all through..

November 26: Thanksgiving! The time when everyone comes together to remember all of their blessings. Specifically the blessing of sustenance. We had a small (as small as Thanksgiving can get) Thanksgiving dinner at home (so as not to infect everyone else) with a 8 pound turkey (compared to Aunt Lorie's beast of 22 pounds), and three pumpkin pies. =) We were eating leftovers all weekend long. Leftovers are the best.

I'm grateful for this holiday, and the time it gives us to sit down and remember how blessed we really are.

December 1: I hunkered down and posted more than a months worth of events! That's worth remembering. I was deemed completely whole yesterday so now I can go back to Seminary! =)

Now it's December and we're all busy with Christmas arrangements and holiday joviality! Tis the season.

Ignorance is bliss....

... in a few rare cases. One such case just happened to happen today;

My mom and I went away for the weekend for Girls camp, so the boys took full advantage of that and did all of the manly things that we never let them get away with (i.e. eat meat-only breakfast's, lunches, and dinner's & making knifes with buddies until the wee hours of the morning) and when we got back, we found to our horror, no more ice cream!
So I was overjoyed when I found a large bowl of vanilla ice cream in the freezer. I discreetly motioned to my mom and we made a break for it later that night when the boys weren't home. It was delicious. Especially with some brownie mixed in. We ate some of it while watching Pride and Prejudice last night, and the plan was to finish it off this morning (breakfast of champions right?). While we were obliviously munching away, Noah very suddenly walked in the room. He didn't seem very fazed that we were eating his ice cream. Little did we know that we weren't eating his ice cream at all! It was our good friend Bert's ice cream, who is a very energetic eater (lets not be gross, shall we?). He had a very selective memory until we had eaten almost all of it, and then,
"whoa! that's Bert's ice cream!"
Thank you. =)

General Conference was so goood this year!

Quotable Friend Cont.

I told you, dear reader, about Elmo. I recently had a chance to talk to her again. We reminisced on some of her blonde-moments. I would like to share them with you.

ELMO: *deep in thought*.... *showing sudden annoyance* "That's so stupid how they do it out of planes!"

HER MOTHER: "Um... What?"

ELMO: "Fly fishing!

That would be so expensive, and really hard..."

(setting:coming back from body worlds)

ELMO: "I wonder what they do with the skin..."

ME: "Maybe they study the skin cells"

ELMO:*exasperated* "Emily, there's no such thing as skin cells.."

(setting: We were talking about Kanye West and what the president called him)

ELMO: Wait, what did he call him?

OTHER PERSON: "Jack-apple" (the real word was not appropriate for a temple recommend holder to say)

ELMO: ..... Why'd he call him that?

That's all i've got. I hope you enjoyed these as much as I have.

Recap of the Weekend + Monday

This time of year is always fun for our family. My Dad's birthday is on the 27th, mine is on the 28th, and Noah's is on the 6th.

My Mom's birthday is randomly placed in February.

Anyway, this past weekend has been filled with exiting encounters and experiences. Exhibit A: The Jelly Belly RV (9/26/2009)

That nigh on made my day. The owners of the JB-mobile worked for the Jelly Belly company, going all across the east coast "bean-boozeling" unsuspecting candy lovers like myself. I got pepper. They were (and are) very nice and let us see the inside of the JB-mobile. After we got out, we immediately went into the store and bought 2 pounds of assorted Jelly Beans. There were (and are) a lot to choose from:

Exhibit B: My Dad's birthday (9/27/2009)

We had originally planned to wear all black, but seeing as his birthday fell on a Sunday, we didn't want people to get the wrong idea. We had a delicious dinner at home and invited the Grizzles over. My Dad has been 29 for a pretty long time. You would think that he would get tired of the age after 11 years. =)

(That's banana pudding, courtesy of Sis. Grizzle. Thank you!)

Exhibit C: The Mystery Chalkers (9/27/2009)

During a fireside, someone came and chalked our driveway. This is part of the result. Thank you mystery chalkers.

Exhibit D: My birthday. (9/28/2009)

This is me at Yogurtville, right bfore I "blew out" my candle (which, coincidentally, is the same candle my Dad blew out).

P.S. Sorry about the weird line under this last part of the writing.

Quotable Friend

I have a dear friend who shall remain nameless. For the sake of the story, we'll just call this being "Elmo". I was at Elmo's house recently and I told Elmo about a movie called I am Sam, about a mentally retarded man fighting for custody of his 7-year-old daughter, and in the process teaching his cold-hearted lawyer the value of love and family. It is a very sweet movie and by the end of it I was a mess. I told Elmo this and E (who is 14) said that she (ok, let's just throw it out there) was crying by the end of it too. She looked at me and said a extremely pitiful, but somewhat wistful voice; "I wish my Dad was retarded...."

She was completely serious.

I love her.

Love at (someone else's) Home

Aren't french bulldogs supposed to be vicious, terrorizing guards? Sophie (the bulldog) guarded, but it was more to make sure that her (seven!) kids were alive and well than to defend the castle.

And I thought Jon and Kate had it tough.

(From top to bottom: Panda Bear, Uno, Bandita, {on the left of B} Bella, {to the right of B} Snowy? To the far right is domino, and then there's Little Tex)

This feels like Washington...

In my portion of Texas, it has been soggy for four days. This is extremely contrary to the normal Texas weather. At this time of year, usually it's about 100 degree's off and on. If we're really lucky, we get nice breezes and 70 degree weather. Usually. But this is not normal. According to the local weather station:

Cloudy. A chance of showers. An isolated thunderstorm is possible in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s. North winds around 10 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent.

It's been very muggy these past few days. It is not uncommon (under these uncommon circumstances) to have rain three times a day. Sprinklings of course.

When I was little, I thought that when it rained, it meant that God was crying. And coincidentally, the raining started on the 11th.

My garden is loving the rain. I think all of the plants are appreciating the rain. The thunderstorms are a bit frightening, and our puppy gets scared, but the after effects of the rain are lovely. The silver lining in all of this (other than happy plants) is, that this is perfect weather for reading.

We had some friends come over yesterday (they just missed the showers) to walk, and talk, and raid the candy-jar. I have no pictures from the walk, but I do have some pictures form after the walk, when the effects of the sugar are starting to kick in. :) We love them.

That's a umbrella she's tossing up. ; )

This is a first... and last

Reader, I went dumpster diving. Not in a dumpster, but in my trash can. That's kind of the same thing though, and I can't thing of any other title to call it. "Trash tracking"? "Scum searching"? I think dumpster diving is most fitting.

I heard a ringing noise (like a telephone) coming from the trash can, so I opened the lid to confirm. I confirmed. I informed the head hauncho of my discovery, and he informed me that that was $50 going in the trash. So my options were either pay for it, or dive for it. Noah was put at risk of losing $25 if he did not help in the search too. So we searched. And we came to some conclusions.

1. We need to tie the trash bags off when we put them in the trash can.

We tried to take the bags out and then pat them down, but things just kept spilling out when we took the bag out. It looked to me like a quarter of the trash from each bag came out when we snatched them.

2. We need to always, always put things in a trash bag.

There was melted slushie, and dead/rotten things, that had just been thrown in there because that was the closest trash can. Not to mention little trash cans that don't have bags. So in addition to the sticky slushie, you get used tissues, and half-eaten candies stuck to your hands. Blech.

3.We need to be more careful of what we throw away.

I have no idea how that phone got in there. But it did. And now it's gone. We concluded that it had gotten some unknown substance in it and therefore, it wouldn't be useable.

We still had to pay for it.

Do you see what I see?

I see treasured memories in the form of objects

I see a whole wall of bookcases filled with the accumulation of years of faithful book fairs and "field trips" to the book store

I see a dog, worn out from playing with three-year olds all afternoon

I see a miniature rocking chair with the sole purpose of amusing such three-year olds

I see family photos from past years

I see two pairs of scriptures, still on the fireplace where Noah and I put them after we came home from seminary

I see three game controllers still left out from their last use

I see my Dad and my Brother coming home after a long day of construction work on their "super blind"

I see shoes scattered all around the house, taken off as remembered

I see a sink over-flowing with dishes owing to it's caretaker's clever but short-lived excuses

I see books scattered everywhere, originating from the book-wall

I see about ten copies of the church news and ensigns stacked on the coffee table, the reader valuing them too highly to throw them away

I see a "Barbie pink" purse on the couch

I see my Brother sifting through it in search of my mothers cell phone

I see three blankets, carefully folded by the most recent user's enthusiast, after a brief afternoon nap the previous evening

I see our big dog on the porch, watching squirrels chase each other

I see our newest cook book sitting on the table, tempting me with such recipes as Lemon-Blueberry cream pie, and Alfredo stuffed Chicken

I see a camo-patterned bag, stuffed full of thing you just might need while waiting in the blind

I see a vase full of white daisies, still fresh after two days

I see a box full of jars of peach jam, still waiting for a place to be deposited

I see some of our "food storage" piled in the corner, trying to be hidden by a large bench

I see a "diary" consisting of seven pieces of paper, as carefully cut, colored and stapled as a five-year old can, waiting to be written in

I see semi-new text books, waiting to haunt and delight all of us

I see a photo album, blending in on the coffee table with the magazines, filled with pictures of our most recent expedition

I see a very well lived in house

Vacation in a Nutshell

I wrote the following one night during the middle of our vacation.

I really should keep this updated while I'm on vacation. And I suppose that I will put in post all of my experiences... some day.


Just so I'll remember what we've done....
-I saw amazing rock formations in Colorado
- had a crazy trip up to Utah
- caught up with cousins
-went to a lake with family, sea-doo's, and a boat
-did the whole pioneer-day thing
-had the opportunity to do baptisms in the Manti temple
-watched lots of Television
-dropped a friend off at EFY
-picked a friend up from EFY
-saw HP6... twice!


What I have to look forward to:
-Yellowstone National Park
-more cousins
-excellent book references
-more crazy midnight drives

We went through 8 different states. In chronological order; Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. It was a really fun trip and I'm glad I got to go, but now I'm just glad to be home.

I knew we were back into routine when the day after we got home I found: Dad in his lair doing work/farmtwown, Noah facebooking, and Mom and I late yet again for a Doctors appointment. There's no place like home.

P.S. I know, I know! I haven't kept this updated. We really got home like, two weeks ago. We've just done so much in such a short amount of time (that's my excuse and Im stickin to it!) that I've kinda been dreading the time when I actually sit myself down and make myself post this! So, the blog will get the clipped version of all of the Adams past events.

I love my job

I'm not exactly legally allowed to have a job, but I do.

I'm illegal.

I'm breaking the law.

I'm going out on the limb.

I'm babysitting. (you wild thing!)

And the kids just crack me up!

Here are some of my favorite "ism's" from some of the kids that I babysit.

COURTNEY: "Once I was in love with a pole."

DARREN: (exclaiming the following in frustration over having dirt in his shoes) "Bad word! Stupid!" ( yes, he did say the words "bad word")

OLIVIA: (Setting: she was told of the name of the old buddy her mom had just re-connected with)

"But-ler! His name is Butt-ler?!

ZACH: "Emily? You and me are going to go to the temple and get married."

COURTNEY: "Should I make the princesses crown pink, or purple? I'll do both!"

ZACH: (speaking to his Mother) "Mom, you should wear make-up. Then people would like you better."

OLIVIA: (Relation: cousin. Setting: she was just told that she looked cute) "I kno-ow that!"

And what did I say when I was their age you ask?

EMILY: "Barbie, I have some bad news for you. You're made of plastic."

No T.V.!

Today I watched about 4 hours of television. To me that's 4 hours too much. I can not believe how wasteful and time-consuming, and rotten, and stupid T.V. is! It does have benefits like General Conference, and Discovery channel, and the History channel but then it has a few stupid shows that I really could live without. I just didn't notice how much T.V. I had watched until I looked at the clock.

"when it's good it's very very good, and when it is bad it is horrid"

I wasted 4 hours of my life just to see how Shirley Jones got engaged, or to see how those wacky Disney channel characters got out of that sticky situation in just 30 minutes. About half of television is just commercials anyway! So, I spent 2 hours of my life being sold sketchers, Oxi-Clean, and Bend-A-Roo's. The thing that I dislike the most is how time-consuming it is! You don't gain anything by watching these shows. You just get easy entertainment.

That's it. I will not watch any more television until I get back from my vacation.

Phew!

Dad, Noah and I where walking to my Dad's truck right after a splendid fireside activity, and what do you think we found on the back bumper? My Mom's keys! That may not seem very important to you dear reader, but to our family it's a miracle.

That set of keys hold the keys to our house, car, the nursery cabinets at church, two mystery keys, and the "unlock/lock" clicker for our car. If we had lost that set of keys, I'm sure we could have gotten duplicates of all of them (except the mystery keys, we don't know what they unlock so we don't care for them much) but we wouldn't have been able to replace the clicker. Plus it would have taken a lot of time and pestering to get duplicates of all the other keys.

The miracle is that I put those keys on the bumper this morning, and since then my Dad's truck has traveled to and from the church five times. Our family has some very determined guardian angels to whom I am very grateful.