And last but not least for today . . . Dad got all the patio poured!

We have had such a mild fall that Dad was able to complete pouring the cement patio under the deck. He worked so hard. We are so excited. It will be so wonderful to have. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of him and the big digger taking away the hill under the deck. He did a great job. The machine was so big it was like doing brain surgery with a chain saw but he did it!!!! And had a lot of fun too. You can see the wall he built. We still have to put away the cement mixer, etc. and put the stairs back up but it is so fun to have done. Now in the spring we will parge or stucco the walls and put in lighting fixtures. It will make such better use of the space than the ivy was. Thanks Dad and Grandpa. I got a great picture at Thanksgiving that I will include.

Christmas at Thanksgiving???

Because most everyone was going to be away for Christmas we decided to ave Christmas the night before Thanksgiving. It was a big hit with the Grandkids. It was lots of fun. It was mostly just a gift exchange. Grandma actually had all the presents purchased and wrapped. Thanks to Micki and Mindy the upstairs tree got decorated. They did a beautiful job. Thanks guys. And thanks for all the wonderful presents. You are all so good to us. We love you sooooooooooooo much.

Then the next day after the Thanksgiving feast we had the fish pond. It was lots of fun and everyone seemed pleased with their 'little' presents they 'pulled out'. The next day when everyone was over Emma said, "Grandma when are we going to get our presents". When I reminded her that she already had them she just said "oh". I can't blame her for thinking that we had a good thing going. She is such a sweetheart.

Thanksgiving Feast

It was so fun to have almost everyone here for Thanksgiving. We sure missed having Marcie and Brackon and Kennedy, Morgan and Emree here. We know they had fun at home with Grandma and Grandpa Curtis. It was so wonderful to have John & Mindy and Johnny, Maggie and Josie here and Honey and Ryan and Rylee, Clayton, KC and Lucy here. We miss all of you so much that are far away. And we love all our close family. It is such a blessing and treat for us to see them all the time. We just love all of you and are so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Cassy took pictures of all the couples. (We had John and Mindy's friends - Kendra and Michael Anderson and Dallin and Ella with us too.) They are far from family too. I was a little late in getting pictures of everyone seated so you can see that the kids have mostly left the table. We had 36 for dinner. It was great.

Presenting . . . after almost 2 years of sitting in the Garage and the Basement

Can you believe it!?! Grandma finally got the couches done!! YEAH. We really enjoyed them at Thanksgiving. Now I am excited to finish the other wing chair that has been waiting even longer. (We'll see how the New Year's projections go this year.) I've included a before of the loveseat. The couch was worse but I forgot to do a picture. Grandpa was so excited to have them done. It was so fun to do it especially when he was so complimentary with the results. We love you all.

Halloween? How late is that?!!

All of the 'Masterpieces' are all in a row. (I wonder if we'll have any stray seeds that grow next year.)

You can see Grandma with the "talking Pumpkin". It is so fun to do each year. Blake really liked to talk to it. When he came back after Halloween was over but the pumpkin was still out he couldn't figure out why it wouldn't talk. He would say 'no working'.

We had so much fun at our Annual Pumpkin Carving/Soup Potluck! I like Ben's name for it - "Soup and Scoop".

Everyone did a great job of their pumpkins. Uncle Spencer's were very intricate and turned out great. We love you all.

Almost the whole Family . . .

. . . For those visitors that would like to see. This is the latest family picture that is almost 2 years old so we are missing Blake Allen, Josie Livingstone and Lucy Hunt not to mention that Reecy (Allen) is expecting in March and Marcie (Curtis) is expecting in April. We love our family. We think they are the best. Love all you guys.

What a GREAT Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!

What a great Saturday we had. 1st we went to Tanner's baptism. We're so proud of him for choosing to be baptized. (See the Henwood link to see a picture of him.) He did an awesome job. Then we got together for a little lunch at the Henwood's. It was yummy.

And then in the late afternoon we went to Jess's flag football game. Jess caught a great pass. Yeah Jesser!! Jesser was a lineman and I'm not sure what else. Jess's team won their final 3 games!!!!!! Great job Jess!

Then Jordan's game 2 hours later was the Championship game for 7th graders in Spanish Fork, Salem and Payson and they won too!!!!!!!!!! Some stats - they won all but one game in the season; they had 32 points scored against them but they scored over 300. This game wasn't even close. Jordan scored some of those 300+ points but they were at games that we missed seeing his touchdowns. You'll have to ask Jordan what positions he played but he plays both Offense and Defense so he never left the field. (You can see what Sicily thought of the game.)

Awesome day for three of our wonderful Grandson's Congratulations Tanner, Jess and Jordan!!!

Blast from the Past

Hi Guys - Do you remember Dad's good friend Randy Miller (they've been friends since they were 14)? Well they are here playing tonight and I thought you would enjoy the NOW and the BEFORE. They still sound great! They are on opposite ends in the 'Before' (if you can't tell).

Sophie's kitties . . .

Here they are - they are sooooooooooo cute. Some of them are just starting to open their eyes. The kids call the two white and black ones "the twins". Jeannie said they have 4 families that want kitties so they just need to find 2 more places. They won't be ready to go for at least another month. Sophie is a good little mother for so many babies. Love you all.

Do you remember the huge mystery plant . . .?

It was a PUMPKIN plant! I forgot to take a picture of the plant before we took it out. It was huge! We just had a skinny little place to walk on the sidewalk. We sure had a lot of room on our front walk once it was gone. These are the pumpkins that we got from it. The little one is the 1st one that started to grow but I started cutting back the plant because it was growing over the driveway. Maybe the trauma stunted it's growth . . . Maybe one of them will become the "talking" Pumpkin.

Here's the Before . . .

It was so much fun banging out the old posts and boards. Here are some pictures of Spencer and Grandpa getting rid of the old to make way for the new.

Here's the new deck

It's finally such a beautiful day here that we got some pictures of the new deck. Thanks for asking for them Kennedy. Grandpa power washed the floor of the deck yesterday so that part looks like new too. We love the cozy feel that the deck has now. We are supposed to have nice weather this week so we may even get to eat outside at the little table before winter sets in. You can see the new French doors that Grandpa put in with a little help from Grandma.

Not done yet . . .

For all of you waiting to see the completed deck fencing - it's not done yet. Tomorrow - we hope. In the morning Patti and I are hauling their old cabinets to the dump (maybe two trips) and then I hope to finish off the deck before we head to the MTC. Love you all.

Our First Blog

This is so fun. Thanks to Mindy's great example we now have our own blog page. We sure do miss all of you that are not close by. We had fun doing our deck fencing. I'll send pictures the next entry. This was taken at the Reunion in Cardston in G&G Lowry's back yard of all of us that were there. We missed the Curtis', the Livingstone's, the Hunt's and the Allen's. We love you all. Love Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa