I Got A Bike!!!

I have been telling Mark for a while now that I wanted to look into getting a bike so he and I could ride around together. I haven't owned a bike since elementary school and this was real exciting for me. It's a long story how we came across this bike so I won't bore you with the details but we found out about this bike on clearance at WalMart for $46. It's nothing fancy but will be plenty fine for what I need. I love it.

High School Buds

This is one of my best friends from HS. Chandra lives in Colorado Springs, CO and we had the chance to see her and her family a couple months back (the pictures are in the blog already). She was sent here for work the last couple days so we got together Wednesday night to eat at my favorite restaurant, Claim Jumpers and tonight she come over to the house for dinner and some Kareoke! My favorite entertainment!

More Things I Have Been Doing

So I have been organizing different things around the house...the bookshelf, the guest bedroom closet, the laundry room and yes, even the garage. This was quite the undertaking. I bought all new storage tubs and repacked everything to be color coded. Yeah!

So I cleaned the room up enough that I was able to bring in all our water storage barrels. This was 2 years in the waiting and what a load off my shoulders. I hope you all have your water storage...don't come to my house when there's a water scare (okay mom, your always welcome).

I had these two crafts for a year and finally had the chance to paint them. How fun it is to spend my time doing things like this that I love rather than have to run to work. I am the luckiest person I know! I promise I will enjoy it enough for all of you :)

This picture frame is so great, not having to deal with glass and staple knobs, etc. Here are pics of some of my darling nieces and nephews.

Baby! Baby!! Baby!!!

This is Melissa, who worked with me at The UPS Store for nearly two years. She just had her baby a couple nights ago and so Wendi (Mark's little sis who also worked with us at the store) and I headed down to Chandler Regional to see her beautiful baby.

One of these days it will be my baby in the picture. No, not pregnant yet (haven't even started trying).

A Night of Discovering Culture

My sister-in-law participated in a night of sharing the traditional dances and foods of her native country, Chile. Mark and I had a good time viewing the many interesting dances from not only Chile but Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala and a few others. After the dancing was through we were invited to experience the different flavors of South America. Yum!

Marjorie in a beautiful traditional dress.

Have You Heard About the Pig?

Many of you have already heard about my special church project that has required much of my time in the last month so I thought I should get you some pictures of it all. The Gila River Ward has planted a garden and plan on harvesting it for the Christmas dinner in December. We are also raising a pig which will be butchered and eaten for the party as well. Then, we plan on bottling the leftover pork and and vegetables (pumpkin, cucumbers to become pickles, etc.) This has been such a fun project and I have learned so much. I could even start a garden in my back yard now that I have learned so much.

Here he is! Isn't he beautiful!

These are all our corn and pumpkin plants. The pumpkin are planted throughout the corn so that the stalks can shade the pumpkin from the sun.

Getting so tall!

Looking good!

Here is Mark and a brother from the ward helping us shovel the irrigation rows the morning that we had families come out and plant the seeds.

Adam and Sunny

I added a section with two links on the right side labeled Adam and Sunny. I know Adam from my PwC days and he is a great guy. We get a lot of unique visitors and hits to this website so I thought this will be a great idea to try to help them. The power of the Internet and blogging.


Here is their email announcing help from me (and their family and friends):

Dear Friends and Family,

We wanted to take time to thank you all for the love and support you have shown us. These past few months have been quite the roller coaster ride. You have been there to share in the joy and excitement and are now there to support us as we go through this trial. For those of you who don't know, our adoption has fallen through. Just a few days before we were scheduled to leave, the birth mother changed her mind and decided to parent. Our hearts were broken as we learned we weren't bringing home our daughter but are filled with hope as we continue to wait. Our faith is in Heavenly Father and we know at the right time, the right baby (or babies) will be brought into our family.

At this time, we are reaching out to ask for some help. We have created a blog to keep all of you up to date with our adoption and all that is happening in our lives. We ask that you share this and forward it on to anyone you might know. We hope to get the word out to as many people as possible in hopes that our dreams of becoming parents will happen soon.

Thanks for all you do and we can't wait to hear from you soon!
Adam and Sunny

Acceptance Speech Word Cloud

Interesting viewpoint regarding McCain's and Obama's acceptance speeches from their respective National Conventions using Wordle.

McCain's (click for larger version):

Obama's (click for larger version):