Anything for Barbacoa

Friday night Ann and Brian invited us over dinner and games (and to meet Bethany’s fiance, Brett). Ann said she was making Barbacoa pork burritos, so we just couldn’t pass it up. The food was super yummy (thanks Ann)! We had fun playing Would You Rather… again and getting to know Brett. Hopefully one of us will be able to make it back for the wedding in March. 

Trimming the Tree (and Lord of the Rings Risk)

On Wednesday night, I helped trim the Burk tree which was cut fresh by Jeff from the mountains the day before. The guys didn’t really have any interest in decorating so they played Lord of the Rings Risk instead.

 

Our first few days in Salt Lake

While we were waiting for our flight to leave from Richmond we hung out with Brandon whose flight ended up being delayed another hour. Hopefully he got good use out his iPod :)

We have made it to Salt Lake safely and were greeted with a snow storm just for us. It never feels like Christmas until we are with family and there is snow on the ground.

Sunday we had dinner with the Chapman Clan. We love being able to spend more time with our cute nieces, Elise and Melody. Melody has definitely perfected her smile since the last time we were here. We also played the fun game of Would You Rather… where Jason and Candice had the challenge of dancing to their own humming and Tom and Nina had to lap out of a bowl. It was hilarious!

Monday and Tuesday we helped out my sister by cleaning her house and playing with her girls. It was fun and we’re glad we could help them while we’re here.

 

Matt was such great uncle and went out with Izzy and made snowmen. Their first one was their best, the rest were made from chunks of ice off the side of the road that they picked up during their walk with the sled. They were the cutest snow buddies ever!

On Monday we also visited a tutoring school that Matt went to in Elementary. Matt was able to thank the owner for helping him to become a better learner and get him through MANY years of school.

 

Christmas in Richmond

The day before we left for Utah, we had a yummy dinner at Cameron and Haley’s. We also enjoyed opening presents and watching National Lampoon’s Christmas. We love our Richmond Family and hope they all have a very Merry Christmas!

What we did in November

Brace yourself…you’re in for a LONG post…

November 6th – Matt and the guys with their pinewood derby cars. They all did pretty well (no land speed records though, maybe next year). Cameron won the award for most creative car!

 

November 13th – Hanging out with Mindy and her girls.  

                    Birthday Lunch at Cafe Rio with Nina, Ann, and the girls.

 

 

 

November 14th – Grandpa Going’s Funeral and Luncheon

 

 

November 15th – Last visit with my Step Grandma, Ellen before she went back to New Zealand.

November 22nd – BYU/UTAH game. Cameron wasn’t too happy by the end :) (go Utes!)

November 26th - Thanksgiving feast at the Fife’s

 

November 27th – Drove down to Nags Head at 10:30pm. Finding a beach house at 3 in the morning is not the easiest thing to do :) But HSM kept us entertained on the drive!

November 27th through November 30th – Renovation weekend on the beach house! We primed (2 coats), painted (2 coats), and decorated almost the whole house. It was a BUSY weekend! Here’s the before and after shots. Next time, hopefully we’ll be in Nags Head to relax :)

And that was our November in a nutshell. Pat yourself on the back if you made it far enough to read this. Hopefully I’ll be better about December.

Twilight Update – I just finished Eclipse today and LOVED it. I told myself that I can’t start the last one until I update the blog. It’s definitely a good motivator!

Preoccupied…

I was thinking today, “What happened to November?” I have gone a whole month without blogging anything,checking other blogs, editing pictures, and basically any housework whatsoever, and couldn’t really come up with a reason why. And then I remembered that I have become infatuated with Twilight. I read the first two books and then started rereading Twilight before seeing the movie (twice). You could say I’ve been a little preoccupied. I ordered the last two books online and can’t wait to start them! I’m sure Matt will be glad when I’ve finished all the books. :) He just doesn’t understand.

Grandad's Funeral

...finally...

 

Reunited at Last

My Grandpa Going passed away last night around 5pm. Sometimes it's hard to see one of your loved ones be taken from this existence but I know this is better for him. He's not in pain anymore, and now he has finally been reunited with my Grandma who passed away many years ago from cancer.

We've been able to reflect on the value of life quite a bit in the last month with the deaths of both of our grandparents. Here are some things that I will always remember about my Grandpa:

* His love of gardening. No matter where he was living, he was always growing something. Even if that meant growing tomatoes from a bucket on the cement outside his condo

*His amazing garden at the house we lived in while I was young. We had so many different fruits and vegetables.

*The time he got mad at me and my cousins for playing hide-and-go-seek in the corn stalks. oops.

*The jumpsuits - need I say more.

* Hearing stories of his life in New Zealand, hoping someday I'll be able to see some of those places.

*Racing on his Jazzy. I've never seen someone drive out of the house so quickly to get the mail. 

*His love of building things and his many saws and hand tools

I'm so grateful for the time we had to live so close to my Grandpa and learn from his great example of hard work.

This picture was taken last Christmas. I'm sitting next to the sweetest step-Grandma a girl could ever have.

Election Day - Preschool Style

We got up early this morning (5am) to go cast our votes. I was pretty happy when we only had to wait about 40 minutes in the rain, much better than others who had to wait multiple hours!

 

At school today, we got the kids involved in Election day too. They got to make patriotic hats of red, white, and blue. They got to sign their name on their official Primrose Voting Card (which I think were the cutest ever!). And then they cast their ballot of who they wanted to be the class mascot. Their choices were Billy the Duck or Percy the Rooster (both Primrose Pals). They got to vote on what they want for snack tomorrow too - pretzels and cheese or bananas and yogurt. They had a lot of fun and got really excited when we revealed the results of the election.

 

 

I'm proud to announce that Percy the Rooster is now our class mascot! 

They also voted to have pretzels and cheese for snack! We ended the election by reading the book Duck for President. 

Election Day was a great way to introduce the kids to politics. I wonder what I should have them vote on next...

Pumpkin Carving

We had our friends over last weekend for a carving party. We had tons of pumpkins, tons of food, tons of gooey mess, and tons of fun.

I had a lot of fun with making the food festive. We had Ghoul Goop (apple juice, seltzer, and green jell-o) It was interesting :) Our other snacks were Halloween shaped homemade chips and dip, snack mix, candy, BBQ chicken wings, and Brian's amazing pumpkin pie. It was all so yummy.

Here are most of the pumpkins that were carved. Brian and Cameron were still working on some when this picture was taken. Cameron was so nice and made Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors for Haley. Everyone did a great job on their pumpkins!

Happy Halloween everyone!!