MY NEW HOBBY.

One of the MANY fun things we got to do with Mom and Dad

when they came to Utah for Thanksgiving break

and probably my favorite.

SHOOTING.

You know, like, guns.

I recently learned that to kill a zombie, you have to shoot him in the head.

Take that zombies, you're dead. 

 True love.

Violence.

We shot two different kinds of pistols 

And then Phil busted out his rifle. 

 It was pretty awesome.

 My heart was racing the whole rest of the day.

 Sarah wanted to be gangster.

 And since her boyfriend didn't come with us

we decided to give him a present.

It says "Christian-we were ALL thinking of YOU!"

Signed. Hearted.

I have a new hobby.

GLUTTONY

Any holiday that is primarily celebrated by eating is a good thing.

So I experimented a little bit this year and tried...

Baked apples!!

I must say, they turned out pretty delish...

And of course we had the usual pomegranate salad 

 And Phil finally figured out the monkey bread,

with lots of help from the mother-in-law (my mom)

and that was a huge hit as well!

We were full... 

 Then Paige and I had some quality time

 While Phil ate some more

And then he started passing around his 3-D game...

which is code for... 

 NAP TIME.

Under the dinner table, if needs be.

BOWLING

The fam-fam came into town for the week of Thanksgiving

so we had a LOT of fun (more pictures to come)

We teach 'em young... 

Sometimes I suck at bowling 

And we get silly 

Nuff said.

GIVE THANKS

I guess you could kinda call this a tutorial.

I got some twine, and tied drop-loops about 4 1/2 inches apart

(I felt like such a boy scout)

 Got some decorative brads from Michael's,

traced different styles of leaves off the computer

 Cut out different papers into triangles,

circles with a lid,

and traced letters off the computer again...

 and VOILA!

Give thanks.

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

You know, 

that point where you walk up to the cut-counter,

hand them your stack of fabrics and say

"a quarter-yard of each, please."

And you pray that when it's done,

it will look like they belong together.

I am not a natural quilt-fabric-coordinator.

I like things to match.

And my greatest challenge with quilts is accepting that

even if two fabrics look terrible side-by-side,

a pile of them can still look amazing together.

Cross my fingers.

'TIS THE SEASON

For basketball.

This will be my sixth year reffing,

and I can't express in words

how excited I am

to do this again.

SANTA'S WORKSHOP

It's time to get to work.

We've only got a few more weeks until Christmas 

 Where some husband out there is expecting a quilt

 And I have no idea what I'm doing.

Yay...

THURSDAY NIGHTS

To try to represent following the Holy Ghost,

we tied the girls' legs together

with one girl blindfolded

And they had to make their way through an obstacle course 

Trusting on the directions given by the other girl. 

It was pretty freakin funny.

Then, in an act of bravery, we tried these: 

Meet a Twinkie-wrapped hot dog with Cheez-Whiz. 

 GROSS.

I can't believe how many people ate them.

KLEENEX

A very dear friend moved away today.

You'd think I'd be used to it.

Our Bishop always says

our ward has the very best people in the world

who are on their way to someplace else.

So we have super-high turnover.

Not a good thing for someone like me with attachment issues.

 Kieiki,

who has been serving as one of my YW Counselors for about six months,

is moving with her beautiful family to Springville.

And I cried like a baby today.

Here's a woman who knows who she is,

how to fully dedicate her life to serving others,

and how to bear testimony of Christ with the Spirit.

Oh, how dearly I will miss her!