coming soon...the last 15 days

even more picture (this is fun)

wreath grandma and auntie helped me make
ghost sign- mom duffy

more pictures!!!

ghost candy dish- mom duffy, cute sign- the plewes
table cloth- mom duffy, candle- christine, boo sign- auntie, pumpkins- grandma davis, cake platter, the allen family
trick of treat sign- auntie lisa, jack-o-lantern candles- grandma davis
(excuse our very dirty and brightly painted halltree)
silver dish- auntie lisa, candle holder- mom duffy

pictures!!!!

the cute sign from mom duffy, scarecrows and turkey from auntie, white candle from christine


our festive table!!!

a little saturday fun

so here is my report on the rest of the day! we cleaned. and cleaned. and cleaned!!! its really funny how different josh and i are with cleaning. josh can clean the entire kitchen, microwave, oven and all in half the time it takes me to clean the bathroom. and it's not because he's sloppy..because he does a great job! (you taught him well mom duffy!). i just figured he moved really fast to get back to the game, but then we cleaned the living room together and i realized i get sidetracked so easily while cleaning!! i went to put laundry away, hand shirts back in the closet... and it turned into a huge toss or keep fashion show! hopefully getting ready in the morning will be a faster process now that i have weeded out everything that doesn't fit or just doesn't look good. (thanks again to josh's patience.) the apartment was finally clean, so i ran to the grocery store and got the supplies for tacos! (and some things to stock up the pantry) it seems like i stock up the fridge and panrty every week, and then its all gone in a few days. i think we have little goblins that come and eat everything. that or josh is having parties here while i'm at work ;-) really we just have a tiny pantry that barely holds all of our spices and baking staples so there isn't much room for "weekly" items. so after the aparment was clean and groceries put away...i re-decorated! i moved things around to encorporate the adorable things mom duffy gave me! an adorable H-arvest sign, a ghost and pumpkin candel holder, a "ghostly night" sign, a spiderweb table cloth, and some yummy scented candles! i also got two huge pumpkins, two small pumpkins, and some fall leaves. we decorated the table and everything! i took pictures but i'm not sure how to put them on the computer...but once again mom has inpired me so i will whip out the manual and try to figure it out! i really should have paid more attention in my tech lab and computer classes. anyways we had some of our friends over. we were in charge of food, one couple dessert, and the other entertainment! it was a blast. we had tacos, then ice cream, then we played nerts. we have a sort of league going. trophy and all! its a blast. when we first taught our friends to play we weren't sure how they'd like it, but they have gotten so into it. its hillarious...all of us throwing cards, calling people's "cheats", and expressing our frustration when someone beats us to the pile! its great. that was our evening.

too long

so it has definitely been way too long! here's a recap:

friday (last week)- work. i met robin miller from food network! her kids go to the school i work at. we were talking for about 30 minutes about hawaii, her kid's birthday party, etc before it came up in our conversation! crazy! then josh and i went to the airport, we were early so we had chili's, cold stone, josh got a book and i got a magazine. i realized how much i've changed when i chose "better homes and gardens" over "shape" magazine. haha. we got on our flight and thought we were going to die during our very shaky landing; even the flight attendants looked panicked!! but we survived. dad duffy and christine picked us up. we listened to classic rock and played guess who sings this song on our way up to the cabin. we were wipped out when we got there, so we didn't stayed up talking too long.

saturday- i actually slept in past 6:00 am. yay! i went grocery shopping with mom and dad. stocked up on lotion, shampoo, deodorant, ect so from now on we don't have to pack a thing to go the the cabin. it's such a foreign thing for me. i usually pack a trunk load for a weekend trip!! we made it back up to the cabin for conference, made breakfast, the blairs came up. brandon blair and josh have been good friends since high school. it was him, his wife cherise, and their four kids who are probably the cutest kids. we watched the second session, played games, the boys went to priesthood, the girls cooked dinner and talked, we ate dinner, played more games, then went to bed!

sunday- woke up, conference, breakfast (yummy), a little cat nap between sessions, my family (the petersons) came up, we watched the second session together. David, the dads, and josh blessed baby christian, then we had dinner and father blessings. it was very neat!!! josh and i reschedualed our flight to leave the next morning so we didn't miss out on all the good stuff happening that evening. we stayed up late talking, etc.

monday- we woke up at 4:00am (3:00 AZ time). josh and i got bumped off our flight and had to take the later flight. we landed in az at 7:45am and i start work at 8:00am!! i was late, but still made it in time for car pool! work was great, we had 4 kids absent so it was an easy day! the yw were in charge of picking up flags from people's yards (part of the boy scout flag service) so i went with them to do that. they wanted mc donalds after, then i picked up josh from class, came home and went straight to bed!

tuesday- work. mutual. we planned our halloween party. came home and slept. (its a theme for the week!)

wednesday- work. picked up our car! it looks beautiful! took josh to class. picked up two of the young women who wanted to come over and watch america's next top model. i wasn't too thrilled, because i was really tired, but it was a good chance to talk and get to know them a little better! i made them finish off our ice cream so it wouldn't tempt josh and i! haha. dropped them off, picked josh up, came home and went to bed!

thursday- work, it was a long tiring day! i came home to josh and brady in our living room playing games. josh later told me what my face looked like when i opened the door! (uh oh). josh and i took the rental car back ;-( and went to the mall next to the rental place for a quick dinner in the food court. and i needed a computer store to get a cable to hook up my comp to the tv so i can still use my computer! we didnt find one though. but i did discover that mall is almost all outlet stores! nike, gap, and a few other goodies. but then i realized...we don't go shopping anyways, but it was still fun to know!!! went home and went to bed!

friday- work. a very very long day. we had two poop related accidents (yuck) and even worse... i was putting one of the girls to bed, rubbing her back, i fell asleep too, woke up and my whole side was wet! you guessed it...she had an accident and it was all over me! i had no clothes to change into and i was stuck at school for another 4 hours!!!! (double yuck!!) josh picked me up, we took our car to get the emissions testing required for our car registration. went to blockbuster, but after half an hour decided on not getting anything. went to golden spoon! yay! i even branched out and got a new flavor...pumpkin pie! it was yummy. came home, made dinner. we had herb dijon chicken, rice, and green beans. i felt really sick and had a little bit of a fever so i went to bed very early!

i woke up so many times durning the night due to parties in our complex. grrrr. the train every hour was bad enough. josh stayed up till about 3am and told me this morning that this couple that was at the party decided to "talk"/shout at eachother right infront of our door. i told him he should have pounded on our door to send them a little message. he's nicer than i am though and decided to leave them alone and work out their issues. well its saturday and there is a lot to get done!!!

a busy few days

wow this week has flown by. usually when i'm super excited about something (like going to the cabin) time seems to almost stop. but this week has been so busy its gone by fast. here's a little update on what happened this week.

tuesday worked as usual. long and busy day. we were late leaving school because of traffic so we had to rush to get to mutual. we stopped for dinner at rubio's, but the line was so long and we only had 15minutes till we were supposed to be leaving the church for lazer tag. so we went without dinner. (not an easy thing for me to do!!!!) but we had so much fun. we had the most people show up, about 25 including leaders. josh got the 4th highest score of the day and 2nd highest of the game. i got the 7th highest score of the game. yay! we had a blast. i found the location of my next birthday party ;-)

wednesday was even more hectic. work was busy as always, came home, we had bbq chicken and broccoli, then i took one of the young women to her interview with the bishop for her patriarchal blessing (YAY!!!) i also had a date night with another girl in yw to talk about personal progress and set some goals and get her working on something so she has a display at yw in excellence night. it went pretty well. during the interview i got to talk to the other girl that came with us and learned a lot about the kinds of things these girls go through everyday. and i also got to see where there live and meet their parents, also a big thing. the things these girls go through just breaks my heart. i had to try so hard not to cry when they were telling me just everyday stories from school and about their best friends. the older girl desiree is 17 and pretty overweight and socially akward. she is also very sweet and considerate of others. it seems to me that she just really needs someone to appreciate and love her regardless of any outward flaws she has (because i don't think she has a single internal flaw). Anyways she was telling me that at school she was walking past the ceramics class and a bunch of kids started yelling things at her and threw chunks of clay at her big enough to cause bruises on her face, back, and arm. i could not believe that kids could be to outwardly cruel. I was in middle school and high school, and know people say horrible things and do mean things, but this is just off the chart. The other girl is probably one of the prettiest girls i've seen. she looks like a younger version of the actress that plays Lana on Smallville. and she was telling me about her family and her friends. This girl has not only been explosed to, but has had to deal with, so many heartbreaking situations at such a young age. To get back to the evening....we went to golden spoon and talked about personal progress. rachel has never looked in the book before, so we quickly read over the purpose of it, and how to accomplish the different requirements. then we read through the experiences and projects and she chose to do good works first. she has until the third week of november to get it done! yikes! but we're working on it together. her project is to learn first aid. so to make it be 10 hours i'm going to go over all of the cpr and first aid materials from my training. she's going to make a list of things to go into a first aid kit. go buy the supplies and put one together. make an emergency "cheat sheet" for her backpack. while doing all of this i'll take pictures of her, so she can make a poster to display with her kit. (any other ideas to extend the hours put into this would be great!!!!) after that i took them home, and then josh and i watched the season finale of top chef and were so mad hung won. then it was way past bed time.

today i was so tired. i hit the snooze button more than a few times! the day was pretty typical. i fell asleep for over an hour while putting the kids to sleep. and today is the only day that everyone fell asleep. usually we have atleast one or two kids that just wiggle and talk to themselves the whole time. hahah. josh picked me up, we came home and our dinner that was in the fridge to defrost was completely frozen still....so we used our giftcard to get some olive garden! yum yum. even better- it came to a grand total of $5!!! now we're watching football and getting ready to go to the cabin tomorrow! yay! i probably wont write again until monday because i'll be seeing all of you this weekend!!!!

catchng up

Okay...so i've been slacking a little. Saturday was a lot of fun....after work that is. i managed to go the whole two weeks at nordstrom without a terribly mean customer, until the last few hours of my last day. i had a woman throw jeans at me and a whole family yelling at each other and getting mad at my tie suggestions. apparently i like old men ties. hahaha. but i survived. it was our friend casey's birthday and so he and his wife invited to dinner at non other than benihana. josh was in heaven! its really good, but i always leave feeling sick. they need a half order option. after dinner we went to casey and emily's and played nerts until 1 in the morning!! i still can't believe i stayed up that late!!

sunday josh and i learned a few VERY valuable lessons, all to do with being prepared and planning ahead. josh had done the grocery shopping on saturday with a list i gave him. well, i totally forgot to put a few key ingredients to make dessert for sunday dinner like eggs and butter. and josh forgot that he promised the young men he'd bring candy bars as an incentive to pay attention to the lessons. well turns out it was fast sunday so he could get off the hook and grandma and grandpa brought a dessert even though we'd forgotten to assign it to someone!!! love how it all works out! Church was great though. at the beginning of sacrament meeting the bishop announced he wanted to meet with the following couples before third hour. of course we were one of the four couples. we were a little nervous...but we met with him and he has asked all of us if we'd participate in a new class our stake is trying to get going. we still don't totally know what it is but it is some kind of strengthening marriage class. should be fun. it's on friday nights 6-7:30 so a lot of the couples were disappointed because thats their date night, but we were just excited because now we have something free to do on date night other than falling asleep on the couch by 8 watching tv. and we'll most likely be going to golden spoon after! always a favorite.

The young women were supposed to teach primary today, so we didn't plan a lesson for the girls, but after sacrament meeting we were told they didn't need our help! our yw president wasn't there so the other counselor and i kind of paniced. we decided that insead of throwing off the whole lesson schedule we have, we'd use the 30 minutes left of 3rd hour to address some questions the yw have had. last week when i taught the lesson we were talking about resources we have that give us strength and guidance to resist temptation and hold fast to the Lord's standards. One of the examples was our patriarchal blessing. the girls had never even heard of it before. all of the girls come from part member homes, most single moms who are not active, or living with their grandparents who are. So we decided this week to teach the girls how to use the resources we have (scriptures, for strength of youth, new era, true to the faith, and lds.org) to answer the questions they have. in doing so we found out that the girls are lacking even a basic knowledge of the scripture stories. they didn't know the story of abraham and isaac, jacob (israel) and his sons, etc. that was a real eye opener to me who had 30 beehives in my class. While this is another collection of challenges in teaching this group of yw, it makes me feel a little more comfortable and also a little more nervous. i'm relieved that i might actually have some knowledge to give to them, but i'm nervous because the foundation is the most important part. they need to know the basic bible and book of mormon "stories" to better their understanding of the gospel and to better understand and creat a relationship with our Heavenly Father. It seems to me that right now they only thing these girls know about the church are the "rules" as they call them, or the standards. Wow, it seems even more overwhelming when i write it all out. luckily we have a great yw president!!!

After church grandma grandpa and auntie came over for dinner. josh made tacos, i decorated the apartment, and auntie and grandma brought the "toppings" and dessert. it was so much fun to eat and talk and catch up! it was a blast. for my birthday they both gave me halloween decorations and then last week they helped me to make a fall wreath, so our apartment it looking like a home. josh especially like the vanilla and apple cinnomon candles!

today was definitely a monday. but lucky for us, a cool monday. it was only 85 degrees! yay!!! school was great. the bully girls were a little better, aiden didn't cry all day! in after school care only two kids showed up so i got to leave early. josh picked me up, we went and paid rent, had leftover tacos then i got my haircut. i called around and finally decided hair is hair and if it looks bad it'll grow out, so i went to fantastic sams and got a pretty good color and cut job. and after some serious consideration cut my bangs short again. i'm not quite sure how i like them yet....so we'll see. i alread know they'll drive me crazy during school going into my eyes. thats life. well im off to bed. until tomorrow.