THaNKsGIVinG!

Everytime I have a gathering/party at the house I always forget to take pictures.  I get so mad at myself,  these are the times I want to remember and yet I am too busy being a host and running around like a chicken with my head cut off to remember to take pictures.  Case in point,  last night we had a Thankful For Friends Thanksgiving dinner at the house and I had spent 2 days making this turkey from Bobby Flays throwdown and finally when I take it out of the oven and its golden brown and ready to eat,  do you think I snapped a picture of it NO, not even a crappy one on my phone.  Before I know it its cut up and gone and all I have is a scrap bird.   Oh well one of these day's I'll be better about that.   We had a pretty good turnout we had about 20 people over and everyone brought a portion of the meal so we had plenty of food and desserts and just had a good time.   Our friends Jared and Pansy have been over at least 5-10 times but this time their little 11 month old baby boy was not loving the dogs.  He was crawling on the floor to his mom and Zoey  my little lover went right up and licked him and that was it.  I felt so bad!  On the other had Rachel and Jacobs two boys love the dogs and ran them so ragged both girls were exhausted.  I loved it.   Easton, their 4 year old got bored being with the adults and wanted to play with toys,  I searched the whole house and the garage and I have NO kids toys.  Thank goodness for a Fisher price nativity and the movie The Game Plan,  the ended up having a great time.  With Ryan's nephews and friends with little kids I defnitely need to have a toy basket though :)

Ryan and I also FINALLY ended up getting our new car.  We got the new 2011 Jetta we thought it would be a nice little family car for when we start having kids and our goal is to have it all paid off in the next 4 years by the time Ryan graduates so once we have to start paying student loans we won't have a car payment on top of that.   It was a fiasco getting the car and I learned one very valuable lesson.  I am NEVER I repeat NEVER buying a car in Las Vegas again.  After 2 weeks of torture I finally had had enough and we ended up getting it in St George last weekend.  We went up and back in the same day and it was the best experience I have ever had.   Just as we were pulling up to the driveway in our new car all in a happy state we notice Ryan's old car that we are planning on selling to Car Max leaking brake fluid all over the driveway.  Needless to say his brakes were shot and even though he has a extended warranty they covered virtually nothing of the costs to repair it so $600 later for a car we never plan to drive again,  yeah for extended warranties...NOT. He is finally taking it to Car Max tonight to get rid of it and I couldn't be happier.  With the whole fiasco of buying a car and now getting rid of the old car I am exhausted and lucky we know have 2 relatively new cars and dont plan on having anymore car purchases or sales for 10 years!!  Its been a rough week.  I feel bad for our pocket book and bad for Ryan because I have dumped the old car on him,  I have reached my breaking point and I just dont want to have anything to do with it anymore.  Hopefully after tonight we never have to utter the words Ford Taurus ever again :)

One thing I AM happy about it I already have all my Christmas decorations up!  The lights went up outside last weekend and we finished most of the inside this weekend.  Here is a picture of the tree its not a good one but its all I have :)

After the week I have had I need Christmas in my life to calm me down.  Christmas music and wassail always cheers me up!

So I think I mentioned Ryan and I are team teaching the Valiant 9 (even though most of them are 10, weird) I grew up in a completely different primary where we all weren't Valiants..but anyways.  So we have 12 kids,  pretty evenly split boys and girls.  And they are SMART.  I should just rotate and let each one of them teach the lesson every week.  They keep talking about Veggie Tales which apparently tell Bible Stories so I told one of them for Jonah and the whale to bring in a tape and they can us what this is all about.  I just can't bring myself to watch something called the Veggie Tales alone :)  They are good kids but just very active.  I am COMPLETELY on the bribing train and they earn points for everything.  Hey as long as they are quiet it works for me.

We are doing Thanksgiving with Ryan's family on Thursday,  his sister Roxanne and baby MaryBeth are already here and we got to see them on Sunday.  She is so cute and such a good baby.  It should be a fun day and then we are headed up to St George to hang out with my family and ride the quads with my parents, siblings and maybe some Dickman cousins.

Hope everyone has a GREAT Thanksgiving!  Eat tons and GO COWBOYS :)

Quick UPdate

Last night was family Wednesday night so I met my parents over to Matt's house to put together a light fixture and finish putting together his barbecue.   I have promised him dinner will be at my house next week and we will not have any new projects for a while.  He's over the house projects at the moment.

Here is a few pictures I took last night of the work we have been doing over the last couple weeks,  hanging shelves and pictures to make it more of a home.   He has asked for a dining room table for Christmas and the one he picked out will fit nicely in his dining room.  I am really liking the way Matt's house is coming together.

The light has alot of extra chain and wire right now,  once we get the table we will complete the light.  But doesn't it just say guys poker night??

Also for those that are waiting for a update from my dad,  we got the latest blood work and his protein went from 2.23 to 1.69 so we are hoping with his November round we will be really close to 1.0.  They go meet with the doctor on November 19th to determine next steps.  I am thinking SLC is looking like January now because the closer he is to 0 the better so I think they are going to want him to do another round in December to get as close to 0 as possible.  He looked good last night and other than being tired over all his side affects on the REV are better than what they were on Velcade.  Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers,  the REV seems to be working its magic!

Until next time...



Is OcToBer ReaLLy OvER??

When I look at the calendar I just cannot believe that is is November already...where does the time go??  I already have plans to take down all the Halloween stuff  this weekend and plan to put up Christmas the weekend of November 13th.  I really think all my Christmas decorations deserve a good 6 weeks of being on display.  Christmas really is my favorite holiday,  I can't think of one thing I don't like about it. My parents always made Christmas so special for us, my brothers and I stayed up as late as we could and got up as early as we possibly could to get the day started.   This year now that I am married its going to be a little different and a little bit of an adjustment (ok a big adjustment for me) but I know that Ryan knows how important being with my family on Christmas is so I am sure we will make a schedule work where we can see both families and still have time to start our own traditions.

I can honestly say that was one thing that scared me about being married, sharing holidays, the thought of not being with my family on a holiday does not sit very well with me.   My mom has been talking about Thanksgiving and maybe they will go out of town this year since my Dad will probably not be up in SLC until December and all I can think about is they will be having a holiday without me.  Ryan and I will be spending Thanksgiving with his family this year and not that I am not excited for that, because I am they are great people and now my family too and I know we will have a great day.  I just for the last 30 years have never been away from my family for any holiday and I'm not really looking forward to it.  I knew it would come but just not the first holiday we came to after marriage. LOL Ryan tries not to bring it up because I tend to get a little teary eyed and he will say,  its okay we can go up Thursday night or Friday morning wherever your family is and spend Friday with them and I love him for it,  but its just not the same.  :)   I know a year from now none of this will matter to me and we will get plenty of time with both sides of the family,  its just that first time is rough.. 

On a happier note,  its a good thing I am a planner because also a new concept of getting married is we now have 2 whole sets of families to shop for Christmas for,  so I started in September and as of today I am over half way done! YEAH!

I've also been thinking of doing a little family picture with Ryan and I and the girls for Christmas cards and might make all 4 of us wear crazy Christmas sweaters for cheap because I'll have to modify them for the dogs LOL.  So now I'm on the hunt for them...If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears :)