HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Hey everyone. We hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving. We had a great time. Mom, dad and Sarah came down for the weekend. I really loved cooking for everyone. Mom, Sarah and I went shopping on Friday. We didn't hit any of the early sales we went to the book store and then to IKEA. We did end our day at the mall but the crowds weren't to bad. On Saturday Mom and dad took the girls out to see Aunt Janeen and Aunt Ashley. Mom did bring me some couches. She was getting rid of her couches in her living room because she was receiving new furniture from Ashley's mom and dad. I now have living room furniture.

The girls are doing great. They had a great time with Aunt Sarah. Alex is still working hard. My job is going well. They were training me on the register today. I guess that means that i will be getting out of the dish room for a while. We hope that all is well is everyone.

Howdy

Hey there. Well we had another exciting week in Harmonland. I thought that we were done with sports last week with Ashley's last volleyball game. No such luck. I got a call from Sam's basketball coach on Tuesday saying that their first game was on Saturday. Sam is part of a different schools team since there was only two girls from her school who signed up to play. The school that she is playing for is a half hour drive away. Of course what isn't a half hour drive away from me. The game is played interesting for third graders. The only thing that they can't do is take the ball away from a player. Some girls had to be reminded to dribble the ball while they ran. I have never seen so much traveling and double dribbling since I played basketball with grandpa foreman. They didn't keep score but the other team clearly won. Sam had no idea what she was doing but she was having a blast doing it.

As I had said. Ashley is now finished with volleyball. They had their team party last night at at the school. They played three games against the parents. The girls even beat the parents on the second game. The parents won the third game since I served the winning shot. ;P They all received trophy's and a certificate of playing. It was a really fun night.

While the girls and I were playing all week Alex was out in the field setting up and tearing down a hospital. He came home late Thursday night. When I saw him on Friday he told me what he had done and showed me how swollen his hands and feet were from constant work. Ladies, they looked worse than a 9 month pregnant lady who was also retaining water. He couldn't even open a milk jug.

Well that's all that is going on here. I guess we will chat with you all later.

Greetings

Sorry that I haven't written sooner but things here have been crazy. Last Monday morning I received a early call from bethel school district if I would like to start work that day. Needless to say that my brain has stopped working since that call. I don't know if I like my job yet. All last week they had me working in the dish room and help serve during lunch. I felt like I was back in Basic training doing KP. Today they had me helping the cook and serve. The good thing about it is that they will pay for some of my college. so that is a big plus.

As you know we all just celebrated Halloween. The girls had a great time. Sam is my cake walk demon. We had a party at our ward the Friday before Halloween and Sam had won 7 cupcakes in the cake walk. she ate 7 cupcakes before we left. The next day we went to a party at the girls school where Sam won a box of cookies at the cake walk. They got a lot of candy from that party too. On Halloween the girls went trick-or-treating in two neighborhoods with some friends and their grandma. she also took them to a neighboring churches harvest festival and guess who won a chocolate cake at the cake walk. you guessed it, Sam.

Ashely is now done with volleyball. she had her last game on Saturday. They lost two games and won one. the last game they played was really close. Ashely has improved so much. she has gone to watching the ball go over the net to going after the ball and diving for it. i think next year we will have to get her knee pads.

Alex is spending a relaxing week out in the field this week. Any thing to get away from work. I don't think that he is really looking forward to sleeping in the cold and the weather calls for rain. it builds character right. well we hope that all is well with you and we will talk to you all later.

What a week

Well we here in Harmonland had a pretty interesting week. The girls had half day everyday for parent/teacher conference. I remember when the schools closed for two days so the parents could meet with the teachers. I guess they really want the kids to stay in school. Thursday we had a really bad wind storm come though. We lost our power in the afternoon. The girls were outside playing when they rushed in to let me know that a couple of our neighbors lost some trees and another one's wood fence blew over. Since we had no power we went out to eat thinking that the power would be back on. To our surprise it wasn't. So we lite a few candles and set up the monopoly game. It was great family time. Luckily our power was restored by the morning.

Friday the girls and I carved pumpkins for the very first time. They were really excited until I cut the top off their pumpkin and the got a big whiff of it and saw what was actually inside. Talk about girl-ly girls. They wouldn't put their hands in it to scoop out the insides until they saw me do it. Ashley was scraping out with one hand while holding her nose with the other. Sam had to help Ashley finish up her pumpkin. Ashley was gagging to much to do it. They really did enjoy the carving part. I'm sure that if i asked them now if they want to carve another pumpkin they would say no but I'm sure that will change next year for they won't remember how bad it smelled.

I am happy to report that i now have a piano in my house. i got it for free from a lady in my ward. the only catch was i had to go get it. i brought it home and Alex was waiting for a friend to come over to help him bring it in the house. well it started to rain so he and i had to get it out of the truck. we got it out and pushed it up our drive way into the garage. when our friends came he and Alex lugged it up about 12 stairs. they were hurting afterwards. i felt bad for them but i was really happy to have in my house. now all i need to do is learn how to play it.

well that's all that has been going on here. we hope that you all are doing well and we will talk to you all later.

Strike a pose

I know that it has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote but that's because our live are boring. There really hasn't been much going on here in Harmon land. Ashley is still loving volleyball. She had a game yesterday. Even though her team lost they still had a great time. Alex finally got to see a game. It seems that he always has something going on, on a Saturday morning. I didn't get to go. We had super Saturday at my ward. It was really nice being able to craft with other women.

The girls had Friday off from school. I took them to go bike riding and then we had our bi-yearly photo shoot. It was a lot of fun. The girls really loved getting dressed up and doing their hair. Sam got her hair curled and both of them were able to wear lipstick. I had hung up a dark sheet in my family room and did black and white pictures. After that we went to the park to do outside pictures. Sam kept asking me if she could pose. You think she was auditioning for Tyra Banks. All in all we had a great time with each other and I got to see a new side of my kids.

I did get a new job. I am going to be working for the school district as a cafeteria worker at Graham High School. It will be perfect for me since I will be able to work while the kids are in school and I will also have the same days off the the kids do. I don't know when I start I still have some paperwork to fill out and need to have a physical done. Hopefully I will be starting sometime next week.

Well that seems to be all that is going on here. I will write again soon. Take care and we love you all.

BUMP, SET, SPIKE

Hey y'all. Well we had a good week. Ashley had her first volleyball game yesterday. Her team played a double header. She had so much fun even though her team and the other teams had a hard time serving the ball over the net. It was funny because once a team did get it over the net the other team just watched it go over. They did sometimes return the serve and have a good game going. Ashley's team is the Roy Mustangs and they won their first game but lost their second. All in all they were great games.

As most of you know yesterday was my birthday. Believe it or not I am 31 yrs old. It hit me that I am officially in my thirties. I feel really old. We didn't do much for the occasion. Went to a volleyball game, took a nap and went out to dinner. The girls each got me a movie and Alex got me a gym weights set. Oh and I am supposed to let everyone know that it is what I wanted and not that he thinks that I am out of shape. LOL

Some of the ladies in my ward and I started a walking group. It has been really nice walking with others and I have made a couple of new friends. Alex is still working really hard. He has been acting 1st sgt this last week. Well we hope that all is well with you. Take care and we will talk to you all later.

Greetings

hey there y'all. Not much here has been going on in the last couple of weeks. The girls are really enjoying school. Sam seems to be getting the challenging work that she needs to keep her busy. Ashley has started on geometry in the fourth grade. She seems to be handling it better than I did at that age. Ashely also started volleyball this year. She is really loving it even though she can get upset sometimes if she can't hit the ball over the net when she serves. We keep trying to tell her that she isn't going to be perfect the first time she plays. All that matters is that she is having fun. Her first game is going to be on Saturday. She is so excited. I'll let you know how she does.

Sam found out that she can do basketball this year. Practice doesn't start until late next month but she wants to start practicing now. I guess now is the beginning of our Saturdays being filled up with going to games.

Yesterday we got to meet up with Nana Barb, Aunt Ashley and Britten. We all had lunch and got to enjoy each others company. The girls had a great time playing with their cousin. Alex and I had a great chat with Barb and Ashley. It was really great seeing them again.

Alex and I are doing good. Alex is still working hard. I think that if he was asked to volunteer to go to Iraq or something I believe that he would go. He needs a vacation away from work. :P I on the other hand am going to be looking for a job here soon. I decided that I want to go back to school and don't want to acquire the loans to do it. So I plan on working and saving it for classes. My goal is to start when the kids go back to school next year. Well there isn't much else going on. We will talk to you all later. Take care and we love you all.

Hello everyone. This has been a really crazy week. To begin we ended our Labor Day weekend like every red blooded American family with a trip to the emergency room. Samantha had hurt her hand when a shelf holding my canned dry good and all of the tomatoes that i had canned fell. She doesn't know how she hurt it though. I took her to the ER just to make sure that nothing was broken. Her finger was pretty bruised and swollen for a couple of days.

The girls finally started school on Thursday. YEAH!!!! I took them to school since it was their first day and was going to walk them to their classrooms like I do every year. Well this year was different. They told me that I couldn't walk them to class because I would embarrass them. I was shocked and hurt that my kids would think that ;). I admit that it made me laugh. You know that you have finally arrived as a parent when your kids tell you that you embarrass them.

Ashley had a doctors appointment and was told that she is now not allergic to peanuts. She was so excited. She has not eaten peanut butter in over four years. She is now making up for it. I am surprised that she hasn't OD on peanut butter.

We did end up going to the Puyollup fair yesterday since Alex is off this week. The girls got to skip school to go. We did see someone there that we haven't seen in years. Aunt Ashley and Britten. I got a picture of the three girls and sent it to grandma lane on her cell phone. It was really great to see Ashely and Britten. We got to chat with them for a while.

Well nothing else is going on so we will chat with you all later.

STRIKE! STRIKE!

Hey everyone. Well not much has happened this week. The girls were supposed to start school on Thursday but their teachers went on strike that day. I will have to admit that this is my first teachers strike to deal with. The girls and I are hoping that it will be over by Tuesday. We did got to the open house at the school on Tuesday and were able to meet their teachers. Ashely has her first male teacher this year. Sam's teacher seems to be a challenging teacher which is what she will need. Now all we need is for the school year to start.

I had a good week. I canned my first batch of tomatoes. It was really interesting because it was the first time I had ever canned tomatoes. I have another box to do but I think that I am going to make salsa with that. Well I will try to keep you up to date with the whole school thing. Talk to you all later

A CAMPING WE WILL GO!!

Well we had a great time camping this week. We went on a ward camp out this weekend at camp ground that the church owns. It was absolutely beautiful. The place had about 15 camping areas. Some had these A frame buildings that you could sleep in. All of the spaces were somewhat close together but you couldn't see them because everything was so overgrown. We got there Thursday and were actually the first ones there so we got the best spot. There were alot of others who came that night. The girls got to cook there own dinner Thursday. We roasted hot dogs over an open flame. They really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed teaching them. Of course after dinner for dessert we had smores. Sam had asked me why I didn't want any marshmallow. I told her I didn't like them and you think I killed her favorite toy. Her eyes bugged out and her mouth was hanging open. She was in total shock that I didn't like marsh mallows.

The girls found some new friends to play with and were gone all day Friday playing with them. This place had trails, playground, volleyball court, a confidence course and even a fort that the kids loved to play on. They also had a bunch of activities for the kids to do. The leaders had set up some quilts to be tied. I was sitting there with some other ladies tyeing the quilt when Alex came up and offered to help. I was SHOCKED. The ward provided dinner that night and breakfast the next morning.

Even though the ground was hard and I got next to no sleep we had a great time. Being out there made me realized how much I really missed camping. I feel bad that this is the first time my girls got to enjoy camping. I know that we are going to do a lot more of it next year.

Fishing

Greetings y'all. Well we had a great time fishing Saturday. It was the first time we got to go fishing as a family and have the girls remember it. We went to a lake not to far from the house. Alex taught the girls how to cast their lines and Ashley really got the hang of it. In fact she is better than me at it. We had a few nibbles here and there but no real bites. The girls both lost their poles and Alex had to fetch them. After Ashley tossed hers in Alex decided to cast her line in for her. Her pole was still wet and when he casted out he lost the pole. What sucks about the whole thing is I just finished video taping right before he tossed the line. The girls really enjoyed it and want to go again. We hope that all is well with all of you.

Newest Church Member

Hey everyone. Sorry it has been a while. We had some great things happen in the last couple of weeks. As you can see by the pictures Sam was baptised. She was soooo excited for the big event. She was the only girl in the whole stake to baptised this month. Mom and dad came down for the weekend and Dad was the one to baptise her. We did have some problems that day. The stake didn't know about Sam and the little boy from our ward so they weren't on the program. The bishop was late in getting there so we weren't sure that it would even happen for the kids in our ward. But all did go well.

Sam really wanted to test the whole sins being washed away thing. A couple of days before she was baptised she left her scooter out over night and it was taken away from her for a few days. Well before we walked into the Church she asked me that when she is baptised that all of her sins are washed away. I told her that they are and then she asked if that meant she gets her scooter back. Since she got in trouble before she was baptised and after she's baptised she's trouble free. How can you argue with that?

Afterwards we went to lunch at Sam's favorite place (all you can eat Chinese) and then mom and I went to IKEA. Mom's favorite place. I had never been there before and it was nice to go and see what all the hoop-la was about.

There hasn't been much going on. I have been busy with my church calling and Alex has been busy with work. He's taking a week off next week so we will be able to do some family outings before school starts. He wants to take the girls fishing and we have our ward camp out next week. I am really excited about that. Well we will talk to you all later and I will let you all know how the fishing and camping goes.

Hot Fun In The Summer Time

Greetings y'all from the great state of Washington. How is everyone. We here had a very busy week. As you all know we celebrated two very important birthday's on Saturday. On Sunday I received my very first calling in the ward and it wasn't primary. I am now the assistant Secretary in the relief society. I guess there are almost 400 women in the ward and they need help keeping up with them all. I know that i will have fun with it.

We finally got rid of Sarah Wednesday. I'll have to admit I really loved having her here. I wanted to do something big while she was here so we all (except alex) went to the coast on Tuesday. It was really windy and the water was extemely cold but that didn't stop the girls from playing in it. Sarah found horses and after going almost two weeks without riding i paid for an hour trip so she could ride a horse on the beach. A dream come true for her. After the ride we walked the beach looking for shells. Sam kept picking up the crab shells wanting to take them home. Ashley kept calling all the pigions Dory. All in all we had a great time.

Not much else has been going on. The weather here has been great. On Wednesday it reached 100 degrees in some places. That's hot since we don't have airconditioner in our house. The girls don't mind it. They love to play out side no matter what the weather is like.

Well, we hope that all is well you. Until next week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

We just celebrated Ashley and Samantha's birthdays Saturday. Samantha had turned 8 on Friday and Ashley turned 9 on Saturday. We had a sleepover Friday night with the two neighborhood girls to celebrate Sam's b-day. It was fun. We did cupcakes and let her open up one gift.

We had the combined party on Saturday. It was a blast. We did a water theme party. I was really stressing over it in the morning because it was cloudy and cold. It started to warm up about an hour before the party started. The girls had a lot of friends show up. Mostly they were cousins and friends of the family but they all had fun. We had a wiggly sprinkler, a slip-n-slide, water balloons, water guns and a moon bounce. We had a lot of family come. Some we haven't seen in years. All in all we had a great time and the girls made out like bandits in the presents department.

We hope that all is well with everyone. We love you all.

P.S....... sorry there are no pictures to post from the party. my photographer (sarah lane) didn't take any. ;)

Kirby Heyborne

Sarah, Ashley, Samantha and I went to a meet and greet to see Kirby Heyborne today. For any of you who don't know he stars in the RM, Best two years, Sons of provo and many more movies. He also is a very talented singer. Ashely and Sarah were exsatic to see him and Ashley couldn't stop talking. Later on Sarah and I went to his concert in Sumner. It was great. He sang, told stories and was just great. After the show we had him sign our t-shirts that we bought and when he asked sarah her name she drew a blank. I can't believe that she forgot her name.

In other news the girls finished their first week of cyber camp. They had a lot of fun working on projects and will get to do more next week. Alex is still trying to get used to his job. I am still trying to get our house together and get to know the area better. We are preparing for a couple of birthdays next week.

Well we hope all is well with eveyone. Take care and we will talk to you all later.

New Hair cut

Ashley got a new haircut today. She picked out the style herself. It will look a lot better when we style it. There was so much hair falling on the floor. I almost wanted to say "stop" but after the first cut you can't go back. Now I guess we will be doing hair every morning. :) All that matters is that she likes it.

Summer's here

well it is finally summer vacation. the girl's last day of school was yesterday. we have a couple of days off and then we start cyber camp. we are really excited about that. especially mom. the girls are really enjoying playing out side until dark. we will keep you all posted on what's going on in harmonland. talk to you all later.

Pioneer Farm Museum

The girls had a field trip with their school yesterday. They went to the pioneer farm museum. The girls had a great time. It was a hands on museum so they got to pretend what it was like to be a pioneer. They got to milk a cow , catch chickens, pet the pig and jump in the hay at the barn. They were able to try their hands in blacksmithing. In one cabin they were able to dress like pioneers and do some of the house hold chores. They even got to ride in a wagon.

There was a Indian village across from the farm. They were able to see how the Nisqually Indians lived in there different villages. The kids learned games the indian children play and also about some of the things that the indians used to survive. Both Alex and I had fun in hanging out their too.

Hello everyone

Hello from Washington. Thought that this would be easier to keep everyone updated on what's going on here. We are now stationed at Ft. Lewis, Wa and are living in a very small town called Roy. We are loving it here with all the fresh air and GREEN surroundings.

Ashley and Sam are loving their new school and have made lots of friends really fast. They will be out of school next week and then start cybercamp. I can't wait for that. I knew that it was time to get them out of the desert when they were asking me what the big piles of dirt were (mountians) and calling every body of water a lake. They are really enjoying playing in the rain and it sure does rain here.

Alex is working at Madigan Hospital. I have no idea really what he does. All I know is that he has to do a lot of walking during the day. He still is trying to get into the whole hospital feel since he's been behind a desk the last couple of years.

I am really enjoying being a stay-at-home mom. I have been trying to get involved with chruch activities and working in my yard. We have a yard now. A really big yard. (yeah) Since we went without one for the last couple of years we made sure we got a house with a yard. I am trying to keep a garden going. Nothing really big this year. I have met most of our neighbors which all seem to be really nice.

That's all that is going on now. I will try to update this once a week or so. Bye for now.