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. ; )