Relfections of Christ

Sarah and I went to Time out for Couples several weeks ago and the photographer that took the pictures was one of the speakers. He is from Arizona and all of the pictures were taken right here in Arizona. I encourage you all to get the book "Reflections of Christ" it explains in detail the thought process behind each picture. He also put the pictures on DVD with music in the background.

This is such a wonderful time of year to reflect on the Savior and his sacrifice. May you all have a wonderful holiday.

A Christmas Song for You

Marilee sent this to me. Too good not to post.

When Sharing is not Caring

We are all sick around here. A student in the classroom that he shadows at came to school sick. She shared her germs at school and Randy got sick. He was so icky sicky that he had to leave church early and wallow in misery. So he shared his germs at home and I got sick. I am so icky sicky that I had to take a sick day and stay home and wallow in misery. I thought last night that my stuffy nose was due to crying (my cousin Susan passed away last Friday and we drove to Tempe, AZ to go to her funeral yesterday. To say the least, there was a lot of crying, but there also was a lot of smiles and laughter. She was an amazing person so it was hard not to smile at some of the beautiful stories of her life.) So I thought nothing of the stuffy nose and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible cough and feeling oh so sick, so I called into work and when I talked to the charge nurse, she instantly told me to "stay home!" when she heard my voice. I had no clue that I sounded that bad. Grrrr. I hope I am better soon. I am not a fan of missing work. I like being a nurse way to much to waste time wallowing. Blaaah. Oh well. Randy is almost better, so I should be back to my chipper self in a day or two. Oh and get this. I was telling Randy that he needs to learn not to share his colds with me and he BLAMES his mom. He said "my mom taught me to share." So we had a little talk on when not to share. I think he just laughed. It's a good thing I love him. :)

Why use Pockets??

I recieved this in an email yesterday and thought that you all could use a good laugh. This had me rolling on the floor. It is such a toddler thing. please do enjoy!!

Our Favorite Stop

Halfway between Tucson and Phoenix is the Ostrich Ranch at Picacho Peak. This is always such a fun stop to make for us. We feed the ostriches, miniature donkeys, deer, and lorikeets. We also went on a monster truck tour of the ranch. It was sooooo much fun. Here are pictures and a few movies.
Randy and the donkeys I touched it!
Eager for more Us at the farm
I want food Lorikeets
Our sweet ride On the truck
Running free Ostrich fishing

Finger food

A little bit better

The best way

Attack of the birds

Twilight

So I was sick last week and I spent most of the time I wasn't forced to work in bed. So to make my life less boring I bought and read the Twilight series. I am still shocked by how addicting it was. It was all I could do to stop reading those books. My suggestion, don't start reading unless you have time to keep reading. The movie is coming out this week and I am definitely going to go try to see it. Although, the characters in my head are so much better than the characters in the movie from the pictures I have seen. So if you haven't succumbed to reading them yet, I suggest you do before the movie so your mind won't be tainted.

Jenny Jordan Frogley

So I learned about this talented artist last year at Time Out for Women and this year at Time Out for Couples (more on that later), I ran into her and got a picture with her. She is so gracious and friendly, we chatted for like 5 minutes. I have her CD "Beautiful Life." It is such a fun and uplifting CD! Here is a link to her website http://www.jennyjordanfrogley.com/

A Glimpse into the Future

Sarah loves to dress up for halloween. I am not a big fan of dressing up, I guess I grew up and no longer have the flare to dress up. However, I know how much it means to Sarah to dress up, so I do it. This year we had a tough time deciding what to wear. With the decision final, we set about finding the necessary accessories. The time came to prove ourselves, we dressed up and got a lot of double takes. It was really good, we had a hard time recognizing ourselves! 

If you can't guess, we are a senior missionary couple.

School, School, School!!

Wow, does time fly! I feel as though I just started the semester and here it is only about five weeks left!! I have been working ahrd trying to stay on top of the homework, and succeeding for the most part. I have only forgotten about two assignments. I managed to pass all of my midterms. I finally heard from an instructor that had dropped off of the face of the earth, turns out that she was ober sick and had a death in her family. I have not heard from her since she updted everyone. I have also been involved in the decision to change the student email. NAU is letting studetns share their opinions about three companies (MS Live, Yahoo, and Gogle Apps for education) I am all for Google. I love google, easy share of files, IM, email service, and blogging all for FREE. I am really grateful to be in the first cohert of the program here in Tucson.

Halloween Fun

The Wednesday before halloween, I wanted to make a cake to take to class. I had searched thru my 101 things to do with a cake mix and found the perfect one. 

I had originally decided to make it for the ward halloween party, which I did, but I decided to practice. Here are the pictures for the one I made for the party, Sarah did the face on this one.

I like her face better. If you had a question as to what it was supposed to be, I will tell you. They are jack-o-lantern cakes. If you want to make one yourself, let me know and I will tell you how. they are fun, easy and simple to make. Have fun!

The truth reveled at last!

I thought this to be rather fitting. After all the government thinks we should be footing the bill for ALL of their expenses. Some school project do turn out to be fun, even in the worst classes.

In Response to Lisa

Ok Lisa, I will do the photo tag game with you. Here is the 4th photo from my 4th file in my photo files. This happens to be from Christmas 2005. Every Christmas, we take pictures of us with the gifts we received, kinda like a photo journal of Christmas. Christmas is by far Randy's favorite holiday and we do anything we can to remember the joys of Christmas.

If you want to play the game, here are the instructions: Go to your pictures, open the fourth folder & post the fourth picture. Simple. "Easy peasy rice and cheesy," The Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons.

Butterfly Weekend at the Desert Museum

A few weeks ago we went to the Desert Museum to enjoy Butterfly week. It was so beautiful. Everywhere we walked, we were surrounded by butterflies. It made me feel kinda like a princess in a Disney movie where she is out and about singing and birds fly around her, but I wasn't singing and it was butterflies. I didn't get any good pictures of the butterflies flying, but I did get some of us and flowers.

The BEST music video ever

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI

Emily showed me this a while ago and it is amaZazing! You will never see a tread mill the same again.

Casa Grande

not CAS-A GRAN or CASA GRAN-DE, Casa Grande. It means Big House. I always erroneously thought Casa Grande was just a blip on the map on the way from Tucson to Phoenix. Well Emily came down to Mesa to welcome her friend/missionary, Chase, home. So we decided we need some sister time and we met in Casa Grande. It's about the half way point (Austin learned all about halfway, just see Josh and Amber's blog for an explanation. I still can't believe he is such a little grown up already. By the time we get to Idaho, he will be able to babysit for our future children.) between Mesa and Phoenix. We definately had fun, well at least I did. I love spending time with my sister. She is so much fun. Especial to shop with. She has great taste (most of the time :) ) and can always find something cute. Well, upon arriving in C. G. we discovered it really is a big house. Lots of places to shop and lots of odd places (Pick a Pet, for example, is a tiny pet shop with tons of animals, many of which were very odd). Anyways, I am done rambling. Until later, CAIO.

See I told you

Remember when I said I would eventually blog about our jetskiing trip in Utah. Well here it is.



drying off after a romp in the lake
Max getting ready to take a dip
Dad catching some ZZZs,
Me, Mom, and Emily (I should've worn my sunglasses, but Russell stole them to jetski with)
Randy, Me, and Chonkiri (suprizing, yes I know)

I didn't get any of Russ because he stayed out on the lake most of the time. We all had too much fun and got burnt to a crisp. I hurt for days afterwards. It was a blast though.

Dog in a box

Well, they turned us down at USPS, I guess we aren't allow to ship our dog to Austraila to visit his ansectors. Hmm, it was worth the try. We did give him air holes.

(Totally joking. Don't report us to PETA, he actually had fun. Okay, so I bribed him with a cookie, but he went in and when we took him out he wanted to get back in for another cookie)

NAU

Randy started school last month. He is attending NAU here in town. He gets to be in the classroom with the students 4 days a week and then spends the afternoon/evening in class. He is learning and usually really enjoys working with the high school special education class. I am amazed at what a wonderful person he is and how much he cares for these very special children.

More proof our dog is crazy

We had decided to take a nap/watch a movie, so we pulled the futon out and turned it into a bed. Well, the dog was in the house. We fall asleep, when we wake, we couldn't find the dog. Here is where we finally found him.

Yep, under the futon.

It was pretty funny to watch him get out from under there, he must be half cat to squeeze through such tight places.

One day short of a month, OUCH

I can't believe I haven't posted in sooooo long. Sorry. Hmmm lets see what is happening. I finally ordered copies of all the pictures I wanted to make my collage. I have had this really cool frame for going on 5 months and it has just sat, waiting for pictures. Well last night I got it all put together and it looks so cute. I would copy it and put it on here, but it is too big and by the time I would get it to fit, the pictures would be tiny. So, if you want to see it, you will just have to come over. It is on the wall as you walk through the front door. It is full of pictures of Randy and I in the last 4 years. I really love that guy. I am so blessed to have a husband that loves me and makes me truly happy. Marriage is a lot of work, but it is completely worth it.

Since I can't put all the pictures up, I will put up my favorite.

Doodle

Here is a quick doodle I did when Randy was blogging.

A New Worry for Sarah

Once again, Randy needs to tell you exactly what happened and why our house has the pleasant aroma of burnt hair.

We get home from church and we are HUNGRY! I get the grill fired up and warming while I am getting every thing ready to throw on. I walk outside and I smell Propane, what the HECK! I am quite confused at this point because the grill has never done that before. I open the lid and discover that it did not light. While holding the lid opened I reach down to push the magic button and whoosh, a ball of fire comes erupting out of the grill. I had only been filling the grill with propane. It left one arm completely hairless on the underside of it and a few hairs on my head were singed. Good thing I did not use hair spray this morning!!

**note to self: Close the grill lid before igniting a ball of gas!**

I come out a couple of minutes later and discover that it happened again, This time I closed the lid and turned off the knobs before pushing the magic button. Once all the propane was burnt out of the grill I opened the lid and turned the knobs, and once again I pushed the magic button, YEA! it worked. We had grilled hamburgers and artichoke! It was very delicious.

We just wanted to tile the dining room

But, one thing leads to another. I will let Randy tell you the story, he is better at it than me.

I was removing the old flooring in preparation for the tile and the base board came off the wall! That is fine and dandy, except that there was all kinds of mold/water damage behind the base board. We knew that we would have to replace some of the wall because of the poor construction skills of those who built it. However, we were hoping that we would be able to get around doing this much work, especially right now. Wishful think isn't it! We removed a foot of drywall and found that the board that sits on the ground was nothing but dirt! It had so much water damage and I am sure termite damage that there was nothing left. We decided that since we had to do that much to repair we may as well redo the exterior of the wall then too. We discovered that they had used indoor paneling for outdoor use and that they used about a million finishing nails to nail it on! The wall was constructed with scrap pieces of lumber. It looked as though they had gone to a construction site and went dumpster diving. We did not fix that, however, we did add an extra board so for more support. I am sure that it took more time to clean up the mess then it did to put it together. We finally got it back together after a week of having the dining room in the living room, YEA!

Here is the photo documentation of the "tiling" project.