Playing Catch-Up

HOLY MOLY!!!! SORRY....SORRY....SORRY!!! I've been so bad lately with updating out blog. For good reason, I guess. I've been extremely busy with church/primary secretary stuff...getting ready for the new year, school stuff and just life in general. So here's ONE post on a bunch of past stuff and I just realized that I posted the pictures in backwards order, oh well...you get the idea.

So here we go.....Black Friday.....Jake stood in line at Sears and got this smokin' deal on front loader washer and dryer for only $600 total for both. I've been wanting these for awhile now and since our washer decided to leak water, we broke down and got these. I stood in line at Wal-mart and got a few movies. I was hoping to get a few Wii games but they were all gone. We also go a Wii for our Christmas. We are not buying anything else for eachother.

Another beautiful sunset in Arizona.

My school had a Christmas Party at a fellow teacher's house. It was a lot of fun. The principal and his wife were the Claus'.

Last Christmas I got Jake this remote control airplane that he had to build from scratch. Well....a year later, thanks Tanner for bugging him about it, he finally got it put together.

Here's his first attempt at flying it.....He got it up in the air for a whole 10 seconds and then dive bombed it and broke the propeller. Thank heavens their cheap. We'll try again soon. He wants to be in a more open area so he can practice the controls and not dive bomb again, or get it stuck on top of someone's house. Can you see it? I circled it.

On Monday, my first day off of school, I had my neighbor girls over for a fun girlie night/sleepover. I only had the two older girls sleepover, but all four of the Potterf girls over for games, movie and dinner. They love the barbies while watching Kung Fu Panda.

Amanda with the barbie brushes.

After they went home, I told Krista and Brianna that I would play with their hair and try some cute hairstyles. They were all for that. While Brianna played Wii with Jake, I did Krista's hair. Here's the before.....

Before.....

After.....she loved it!!! It was fun.

Jake went to bed...Krista's turn to play the Wii while I work on Brianna.

Brianna's turn....before.......

Before......

After.....she was scared that I would burn her with the curling iron. I told her that if she stood very still that I wouldn't burn her. She was a perfect statue.

Another after....

We had a fun time!! Went to bed at 11:30pm and got up around 7:30am. We got a visit from their younger sisters..."to say good morning" without mom knowing they left to visit us. They just live a few houses down, don't worry. The best part......they loved playing with my hair and I equally loved it, minus the occasional owies from pulling hairs and hard brushing. They got better thank goodness.

Ok, I'm caught up!! I'll try to do better but no guarantees ;)

Time Out for Couples

I have a lovely friend at work, Nikki, who came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to Time Out for Couples since she and her hubby couldn't go. I talked to Jake and we bought them off of her and went. We had never been to something like this. I had heard of Time Out for Women but had never been. It was AWESOME!!!!!! They had speakers and a musical performer. Wow!!

Some of the speakers were:

Richard and Kathleen Walker (she's the oldest daughter of President Gordon B. Hinckley) they were quite funny.

Doug Brinley who talked about marriage.

Peter Breinholt was the musical performer. He played his guitar and the piano. My favorite was his last song that went something like..."Grow old with me...." It was beautiful!

And......my favorite speaker was Mark Mabry. He's the photographer who put together "Reflections of Christ". Can you say waterworks? Oh my goodness...tear city. I recommend that everyone buy the DVD, except my family of course. Forget I said that!!!!

This is the picture he uses on the cover

And this is Mark Mabry, he's from Arizona too

Jetta turns 100,000

Our little baby Jetta turned 100,000 miles the other day and we actually got a picture of it's turning over. We love our car. It treats us well and it's a diesel too. We have 3 diesels and 1 gasser right now.

Cleaning Day

I had some of my neighbor girls come over, to give their mom a break, and help me clean my house. They did great. They vacuumed, scrubbed toilets, dusted, etc. We had fun doing it too! I also gave them $$ to spend on book orders. After we were done, I let them play with some "new" toys I received from my parents. They were cleaning out their patio and wanted to get rid of some "grandkid" toys, since all the grandkids live out of state. If they ever visit, I'll bring them back over. Anyway, some of them were toys from when I was a child. Barbies!!!!! I loved Barbies. I'm glad my mom still kept them. It brought back a lot of memories. I even remembered some of the outfits. While we were playing, Jake took a snooze. I don't know how with all the noise.

Brianna and Krista

Brianna

Krista

Spirit Week

This past week we had Spirit Week. I only took pictures of two of the days. Aren't my kids cute?

This was suppose to be "Skittles Day", 2nd grade was the color black. Black skittles?? Must be licorice (yuck)

This day was "Crazy Hat Day". I loved the huge sombrero one of my girls wore, can you see it???

Here's Jake's:


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!


"You are intelligent, strong willed and patient. A peaceful lifestyle and helping others is very important to you. You’re not a take charge kind of guy and sometimes rely too much on your feelings when you make decisions, but you always mean well and try your best to do what’s right"

Here's mine, who knew that Jake and I were made for eachother, even movie characters:


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!


"You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things. "

Meet Greenie

Jake and I decided to sell sticky, buy a "newer" older truck, and then sell blackie. While we were camping, there was a truck that Jake was really interested in but the bidding was up on Saturday. So we came home, Jake bid on it and won. It was at a buy it now price of $6800. The bid was up to about $4550 and the reserve was not met yet. The seller said that the reserve was at about $6400. Well, Jake, the master ebayer that he is, decided to bid $6800 and hope for the best. He won the bid at $4650. Can you believe that? The seller said that he was messing around with the reserve when Jake did the final bidding and won. His loss, our gain!! It's a 1997 Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel (of course) extra cab and a long bed. I wish it was a 4x4. It got a new paint job too. No scratches or dents. It's really nice. It even has a 5th wheel hitch and a regular hitch. We're not sure if we're going to convert it to grease or not. We may give up on that right now. We'll see.

October Break

What have I been doing during my October Break?? Well.....I spent Monday and Tuesday over at my parents house. Monday was my dad's birthday and Tuesday I had a doctor's appt. and we had to take the Jetta in to get the timing belt and some glow plugs replaced so my mom and I decided to make Christmas cards. We like to do the stamping thing. Wednesday I spent grocery shopping and packing up to go camping for the weekend with just my honey and me. Thursday we started the day off by going to the temple and then came home, packed up the truck and took off camping for the weekend. We went to a new place that a friend (thanks Jamie) recommended. It was only two hours from our house and sooooo nice. It was even free and it had an outhouse. Wahoooo!! It is called Rose Creek and it's sort of near Young. Anyway, here's some fun picks of our trip.

Jake getting the lantern ready

MMMmm, love those campfires

There was a little creek right behind our campsite

I'm roasting our hotdogs while Jake takes a pic of the oh so dressed up me

Friday morning Jake and I took a little walk around our area

There was a bunch of wild berries which looked like the color of raspberries, but the shape of blackberries, and tasted VERY sour. I think the season is over.

We just HAD to drive into Young (20 miles away) so Jake could get cell service to check an EBAY auction, UGH!!!!! We'll show you what we bought in a later post, we even came home a day early, Saturday, so he could bid on it and buy it. Boys and their electronics!!! I'll have to hide everything when we go camping next time.

Can you see the deer?? We were driving to Young when we saw them.

On our way back, Jake spotted this little guy in the road. Had to get out and take a pic of course. He almost got run over by the UPS guy.

These crazy guys "herd" us coming and "moo-ved" over so we could drive by.

We've alway wanted to pick pine nuts but were never sure when the right season was. We saw some and they looked and tasted ripe to us, so we picked and picked. Gooey, gooey, sticky, sticky. Good thing I had some garden gloves in the truck. Yum Yum. We're going back up here next weekend with Jake's brother to pick some more.

Can you see the pine nuts inside the cone??

We then went to a place where there was a waterfall.

Beautiful scenery and rock formations

The weather was GREAT, a little cold at night and early morning, but that's what campfires and snuggling in the sleeping bag is for. We can't wait to go again before it's too cold and snowy. We're thinking Halloween weekend. If any of you want to go with us, let us know, we'd love company!! If not, too bad for you, we'll still have fun. You don't need all that candy anyway. hehe

Happy Birthday Dad

Today was my dad's 59th birthday. I have this whole week off for October break, so I got to spend the day over at my parent's house. My mom and I made Christmas cards and then we celebrated my dad's birthday that evening.

my mom and her mom

My dad and his new electric shaver

Electric hedge trimmer

Jake and I got him a Christmas ornament that has the deet holding a rifle and the hunter is all tied up. The plaque says Gone Hunting.

Dad and me