Christmas so far........

We had a nice visit with my nephew James and his family. They drove out from Kansas!

We thought it would be fun to take some pictures after we decorated the tree. Baby Anna is adorable and sooo sweet...we were happy to help her celebrate her first Christmas!

Halloween Time

Roxy was introduced to Halloween this year by dressing up as a Pirate Wench! She actually really didn't mind the costume.

We found a Pumpkin Patch in Arizona! It is a farm that has all kinds of activities including carnival type rides and a corn maze. We had a lot of fun and it was even a bit cool this day (rare) so it felt kinda like Fall.

This is a look at some of the candy loot the kids collected trick or treating. A friend in the neighborhood drove the kids around in this flatbed all decked out for Halloween. They loved it!

The kids love dressing up for halloween. Here they are dressed up as a vampire(Ashlyn), Mario(Devon), and an Astronaut (Brandon...do astronauts wear flip flops? in Arizona they do!) and oh ya thats me as a ...a...farm girl(?)

This is my Bunco group on our annual Halloween Bunco night. I know I look ridiculous...I was supposed to! We had alot of laughs and alot of "red punch". I look forward to this party again next year.

It's Coming!!

Family Photos

These photos were taken by a friend of mine, DK Brittain. She is training to be a photographer so we posed for her at a nearby neighborhood waterfall. I think they turned out very nice. But as I told her, it is like herding cats getting everyone to pose right at the same time.

Black Widow!

Brian found this Black Widow in the garage the other day!!!

I guess it is to be expected here in the desert, but this is the first one we have seen.

He killed it right after this photo was taken.

I guess it could have been worse.....it could have been a scorpion.

Sad News

A very sweet 8 year old boy named Truman that is in Devon's class and in his Cub Scouts has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It is so shockingly sad. He had emergency surgery to remove the ruptured tumor and some organ parts were removed as well. Our school has really stepped up and rallied the students to help out in any way they can. It is a good lesson for them to learn compassion and service. Devon had an opportunity to do something nice with him and a couple of other boys from scouts and I think it made him feel like he could some how help his new friend. Truman was going to start his chemotherapy so the boys went to his house and they all had their hair shaved off together. It ended up being fun for them and spirits seemed high. I am hoping for the best for this sweet boy and his family. He is the one in the front with the big smile!

My 20th High School Reunion

I went to my High School Reunion and really had alot of fun.It was interesting to see how people still seemed basically the same, I even noticed that about myself. I don't mean how we looked, although we all seemed to recognize eachother easily, but I mean our personalities. I suspect it may just have been being back in the familiar scene that takes us back to who we were as teenagers.

Here are then and now photos.

This is our Graduation picture in 1988!!!

Jen, Rachel, Marsha, Me and Sonya.

This is Heidi, Marsha, Sonya, Me and Jen at the reunion. Rachel was not able to make it or it would have been an exact 20 years later........ photo.

It is so nice to still have my girlfriends in my life, they mean so much to me and everytime we see eachother it feels like no time has passed at all. I always count them as one of my treasures in life.