Just like Curious George

So at least one show we watched today was educational. Rachel made this bridge all on her own today after an episode of curious george showed him making one. I think toothpicks and marshmellows are our new favorite toy.

PS-No christmas pictures yet. We are having technical difficulties getting them off the camera. We took a video of Rachel on Christmas morning that used the remainder of the memory card...and now every time we try to copy it to the computer so we can delete it from the camera we get an error saying it won't copy. ..anyone face this before?

Getting ready for Christmas

Rachel and I spent the day on Friday making sugar cookies. I let her pick though the cookie cutters and choose the christmas ones, and she really wanted to do a heart. I tried to talk her out of using the heart--since it is more valentines than Christmas. She was ready with a speedy response "but mom, Christmas is all about love and hearts are about love." Dang she is good. She also insisted that we make blue frosting, I mentioned once that blue wasn't really a Christmas color but when she didn't agree I gave up and made some blue frosting. She was so giddy and laughing so hard I had to help her hold the tray so she wouldn't drop it. Just a side note, we also made snickerdoodles (since my brother on his mission made a special request) and as fun as it was to decorate the sugar cookies...when faced with a choice for desert she goes for the snickerdoodle every time. I would have put my money on the pink ones with a pile of sprinkles...go figure :-)

Enoying the snow

After living in Boston through some horrible winters, one thing I noticed was that I didn't have very many pictures of the snow...which is funny given how many months out of the year we saw snow. So I decided to go out and take some pictures of the scenery,

I think one of my favorite things about snow is when it settles on the branches of trees, maybe it is because it makes a dead lifeless tree look beautiful. Oh, and I couldn't pass up the chance to include a picture of a hogan...fyi this one is about a half mile from our house.

Culture Lesson

So lately I have seen many of Rachel's friends playing string games. I remember them a little bit from when I was little, cat's cradle, witches broom....okay that's all i remember. Anyway, the missionaries came over for dinner tonight and one of the Elders was showing Rach all kinds of cool tricks with string, a rug, two arrowheads, yada yada yada. So I asked him if it was a Navajo originated game. He said that he has heard stories that it is a winter game, and something to do with Spider Woman. So in an attempt to feel like I had a cultural lesson today--i did a little research (aka I googled it) and here is what I found.

In the Navajo tradition, the string games are only to be conducted in the winter and were given to the people by Spider Woman to help them keep their thinking in order, which would then help them to keep their lives in order.
They played string games in the winter only because winter is when spiders hibernate. It was believed that if anyone played string games outside of the winter season they would either be struck by lightening, fall off a horse or be urinated upon by spiders. There are about 75 figures that can be made, stars, birds, rockets, arrows, etc.

Rachel and I spent the evening trying to follow youtube string game videos. After about an hour-I finally figured out how to do jacob's ladder--yahoo!

Snow!

We were so excited to see snow on the ground when we got back to Chinle on sunday night. Here is Rachel winding up to throw snowballs at me, as you can see there is barely enough to even make a snowball-but she doesn't care.

We work up to more snow today so I decided to be a fun mom and made time for another snowball fight before rushing off to school.

Here are two girls who are psyched to be going home early --due to ALL THE SNOW they called school early...and they canceled school for tomorrow. I invited her friend to come home with us since I have a lot of catching up with work stuff to do and didn't have entertaining Rachel on my agenda, I am sure her mom thought I was doing her a favor...but turns out it was a win-win situation! :-)
In case anyone else is laughing that they canceled school-I too tried to do some investigating. I kept asking "So, is it snowing harder somewhere else...because this doesn't seem too bad?" Apparently, it sounds like all the dirt roads turn to mud roads, which doesn't work well with cars let alone school buses.

Sad news

Sam's sister Susan passed away on Friday night. I am grateful that we had to opportunity to be in town for the past few days and had some very spiritual experiences talking with her. Throughout this hard time I am relying on her strength that she held onto until the end. Just the day before, she worked with her husband to write one final post on her blog. It took her all day to dictate it to him, as she would say a few words and then wait and rest a while and pick it up again later. Being hard to speak, each word that she chose spoke sentences. Not very many people have the opportunity to write such a thing, and we all treasure it. I was going to pull a few of my favorite parts to share...but I can't narrow it down. If you want, you can read it all on her blog http://lemonademakers.blogspot.com/. She definitely set the bar high and we will miss her.



I will forever remember her strength and her caring attitude throughout all of this. Despite what she experienced she found a way to hold strong to her faith in Jesus Christ, to be optimistic, and somehow even gave comfort to all of us. I know-it should have been the other way around, but in the past few weeks when she knew that we were all distraught with the realization of where things were leading, we could tell she was making a conscious effort to make us laugh. Hard to believe I know, but she mustered up funny faces to make at Rachel and had many one liners where she mocked her visitors in attempt to lighten the mood. All of us were focusing on her pain and how hard things were for her...and she was thinking of us.

When I start getting upset about how things turned out and wondering "Why?" I always remember something she wrote just after being diagnosed:
"Tonight as Justin and I were eating dinner, it was the first chance we've really had to sit and talk about our feelings and what we are going to do. Naturally the conversation turned to "Why?"After about 30 seconds we decided it was a pointless conversation to continue.My answer is that it doesn't really matter, and I'll drive myself crazy in the meantime trying to figure it out.Yes, I don't meet any of the known risk factors, and I'm only 25, but for whatever reason this is mine to own now.It may sound crazy to say this, but I really do feel blessed by so many of the events over the last few months, and I know that Justin and I and our families will continue to be blessed through whatever course this takes us." (written just after she was diagnosed in July 2008).



She decided not to dwell on the why?...and so I will try to do the same.

I know you are all wondering how we are doing. Right now we are focusing our energy on being happy that she is no longer in pain and we are enjoying reminiscing together. We also find joy thinking of her, being greeted by family in the Spirit World and being able to hear the sought after answers to some of life's biggest questions.

Susan mentioned that she wanted to set up a foundation to help others dealing with colon cancer so we are working on that and are grateful that we will have something to work on that keeps her legacy alive and also be able to turn and do service for others in similar circumstances.

Thanks for all of your prayers I know you have been thinking of us and we appreciate it.

This whole cancer thing is out of control

As you know we are dealing with our own bouts with cancer and how much it sucks. A friend of mine recently told me that her niece's 7 month little girl was just diagnosed with a late stage of neuroblastoma. They feel it is treatable and have high hopes, so that is a good thing. I was looking at her family's blog and I was amazed at what they are experiencing...but most of all I love all of the photos with this little girl cheesing it for the camera all in the midst of chemo. Here is another family to keep in your prayers. http://www.famofcookies.blogspot.com/

Fasting

This has always been a hard thing for me to understand. "Fasting and prayer". We pray for things. And many times when we REALLLY want something, then we pray and fast for it. Only-why? Is prayer not enough? What about when many people choose to pray or pray and fast for the same purpose...is that prayer & fasting any stronger than the prayer and fasting offered by just one person (Especially if the one person is the main person to whom it applies, and that person is both righteous and faithful?) It makes it sound like God will surely answer that prayer if only we prove that it is something that many people also want. It makes it sound like we are scrambling to fill a petition with enough signitures to allow our voice to be heard. Of course this is ridiculous, but I still find myself confused about how fasting makes any sort of difference.

When my testimony on a certain principle is lacking, I try to rely on that of others, the most important. Do I have a testimony of the Prophet and the apostles, that they communicate with God and are messengers for us? Yes. Absolutely. And do they have a testimony of this principle? Yes.

Thankfully I am not the only one confused, and so tonight my roommate and I spent a lot of time studying the words of the Prophets, searching on lds.org in the gospel library for some help, some explanations on the scriptures we read that talk about these things:

• praying for healings
• fasting with a purpose
• God's will and our desires

We found some really good information, that I may want to look back on and read so I will post them here so I can find them later, and maybe they will be useful to someone else.

1. The Law of the Fast By Elder L. Tom Perry. "The law of the fast has three great purposes. First, it provides assistance to the needy through the contribution of fast offerings, consisting of the value of meals from which we abstain. Second, a fast is beneficial to us physically." (these two I can comprehend) "Third, it is to increase humility and spirituality on the part of each individual." This article helped to explain the third purpose, and most interestingly, the word choice leads me to think that fasting does not directly impact the answer to the prayer, or strengthen the prayer. Instead fasting provides the person with a spiritual strength; sometimes the spirit of prophecy, being blessed with the power of the spirit, giving humility, allowing you to hear/feel an answer to your prayer, etc
2. The Blessings of a Proper Fast Elder Carl B Pratt (This reminds me of a certain Pratt friend I know ;-) I love what he defines as a "proper fast", notice when he mentions fasing with others the blessing is usually not an answer to a prayer, but a blessing of bringing the group closer together, humbling all, etc. "The purpose of our fast may be a very personal one. Fasting can help us overcome personal flaws and sins. It can help us overcome our weaknesses—help them become strengths. Fasting can help us become more humble, less prideful, less selfish, and more concerned about the needs of others. It can help us see more clearly our own mistakes and weaknesses and help us be less prone to criticize others. Or our fast may have a focus on a family challenge. A family fast might help increase love and appreciation among family members and reduce the amount of contention in the family, or we might fast as a couple to strengthen our marriage bonds. A purpose of our fast as priesthood holders might be to seek the Lord's guidance in our callings, as President Hinckley has demonstrated, or we might fast with our home teaching companion to know how to help one of our families."
3. Tragedy or Destiny-The best answer we could ask for as to When does God intervene in the events in our lives? "When there is faith, and when it is not one's time."

What's up with country music?

Is it just me or is everyone going country? I wonder if country singers are making a lot of money so singers from other genres want a piece of it...or if they are just learning that country music is the best music! :-)

So I started paying attention when Jessica Simpson switched over, then Jewel came out with a country CD, then I was listening to the radio the other day and heard someone that sounded like the lead singer from Hootie and the Blowfish, but I am no expert at naming singers so I let it slide. Then I was watching the CMA awards on tv and they announced one singer, Dean Reusser, as being the guy from Hootie and the blowfish. Then Kid Rock even performed at the CMA awards. Isn't he a rock singer?

Maybe it is more of a reclassification of country music...but I just find it interesting.

Good things

paper plates! (all I need now is disposable everything else!)


Rachel learning to do her own hair. Ever since she found out her friend at school knows how to "do ponytails herself" she has been determined to learn. She insists on trying every morning, and as you can imagine it always ends up in a big frizzy, messy, knot, that I of course have to "just fix a little" before letting her leave the house. But yesterday while Sam and I were watching tv she came running in and said "Look! I did my own hair" and I looked up to see this-as you can see with the huge grin she is so proud of herself :-)



Privileged--did I mention I LOVE this show!??? I do. It is such a happy show, and uplifting and most of all i feel inspired when I watch it. Megan is a writer and is trying to write her first book, and it always makes we want to get back to writing my book.


Shoes!! I know the kind of shoes most of you are imagining...and the kind of shoes I am getting giddy about are probably not the same ones. Today I spent two and a half hours in a shoe store...I have never had so much fun in the shoe store before, usually I am looking for fancy shoes and am depressed that cute and comfy never go hand in hand...but today I spent all my time in an old favorite section and I left with these:
even though i just ordered these online last week

My sister in law was trying to choose between cross trainers/walking/running shoes-and she asked my opinion. I have never bought anything other than running shoes. I am a runner (even if the past few years I have only been a runner at heart). It makes me happy. The white shoes are running shoes, but the grey adidas are "running in the dirt" shoes (trail running). Plus-Yellow is my favorite color. And there is a lot of dirt by our house. And doesn't running in the dirt sound fun? Maybe I have been in the middle of nowhere for too long ;-) But during these two hours at the shoe store with my sister-in-law I kept picturing myself back in High school running , and how happy I was, and while I don't expect to win any medals, I did keep picturing myself running in races on beautiful (dirt) courses all over. Wierd- I know, but I am giddy just thinking about them nonetheless!!

Totally enjoying a little girl who is soooo into Christmas...that she doesn't mind she is almost as tall as our tree.

Loving her journaling. last week her teacher gave me her journal from the past month, and here are my two favorites:



And out of a spirit of happy thoughts-this one makes me laugh--a snapshot of a nearby house. Anyone need a tire???





Lastly--Twilight :-) Heidi and I just went to see it tonight and I really liked it. I was hoping for the best but expecting the worst after hearing some pretty cheesy reviews. It was a good combination because I really liked it. There were a few parts that i could see what these reviewers were talking about but I expected a whole lot worse. It was a little wierd to see the girl from Grey's Anatomy playing Esme. Put this on the list of movies I would recommend, that Lacie wasn't as fond of.

Twilight

Last night I did not go see Twilight...because the closest theater is about an hour and a half away...in case you were wondering. I have however enjoyed hearing what friends have thought about it. Sounds like we got our hopes and our expectations up pretty high and probably no movie could live up to the standards that the book created.

Redeeming myself

So I have been cooking away today-I made banana bread this morning and then made an apple crisp for desert after lunch. The truth is I have a lot of making up to do. After 3 embarassing mishaps in the kitchen I needed to redeem myeslf.

• I left a brand new container of milk out on the counter when I left the house-oops
• I left the brand new container of ice cream on the counter for a good 3 hours while I watched a movie. (to make it worse, I had a few thought while sitting there 'did I leave the ice cream out.' but I didn't even get up to look because I was confident that I had put it away...oops again
• I screwed up jello...JELLO!! need I say more??!! (sadly, my family who knows me most will not find this at all suprising)

Thankfully when I told my sister she said "it must be the cabin fever, you just need to get out of there" so maybe I will stick with that explanation.

You came here to visit Chinle....Why?

So I had an interesting conversation today with a family we met at the park. It was a younger couple with two kids (a girl named Baily and a boy named Collin ;-) and as they looked fun, and nice, and were white, I went and introduced myself. It turns out they don't live here in Chinle, (total bummer) they live in a smaller town, Blanding, UT, about 2 hours away from here., and they just came to Chinle because they like to come here every now and then for the day. ????? WHY??? LOL! !! At first she made it sound like Chinle was a bigger town, we have a stoplight, where as Blanding only has a blinking light. But while Blanding may be slightly smaller...it sounds way cooler! For instance, apparently they have a public library AND a movie theater, and there are 4 church buildings there so I am assuming church there would be a little less miserable. It is also not on a reservation and they have pretty red rock scenery as opposed to our brown desert blah lansdscape. I live here...because I have to--but they came here by choice...for FUN!? WIERDOS! :-)

Running the 5k ...aka The Undie 5000

We had a great turnout-over 100 friends and family. I think we were the biggest group.

Some of our family got creative with their outfits, Here are Sam's brothers at the start of the race. If you think their outfits are a little bizzare, notice they are actually pretty conservative compared to other outfits. Like this group which took the advice to run in your underwear to heart.

It was a great event, and there were some great slogans. Here are my favorites.

The hardest part was listening to them talk about how colon cancer is almost completely preventable. It all depends on being caught early, which in Sam's sister's case-would have meant starting to get colonoscopies in her teenage years. Our family will definitely be supporting new technologies and new tests that are actually likely for younger people to have done. That being said--if you are above age 50 or if anyone in your family has had colon cancer-make sure you go see your doctor for a fun colonoscopy.

The highlights of the event were:

1. Sam's brothers starting the race...and running the wrong direction! (Heidi -I am counting on you to find a way to post that video)
2. David singing the national anthem, euro tunks and all -we were all shocked when he started singing, and just as suprised that he knew all the words and actually sounded good
3. Our group being awarded as the Top Fundraiser (no thanks to us, and our lack of fundraising since we registered late)

And for the family results (to be handy for easy access later, when some opportune time arises)

• 12th 20:09 Zach
• 59th 24:30 Bruce
• 71st 25:26 Heidi
• 97th 26:44 David
• 309th 36:22 Amber
• 444th 51:12 Sam
• 457th 51:58 Mike

What I have been up to

So most of you wonder how I keep my sanity living in the middle of nowhere. Well I fill a few hours a day taking Rachel to school, doing chores (rarely), eating lunch with Sam, and getting ready for the day (sometimes...honestly what's the point? :-). Since Rach is in school all day that still leaves quite a bit of time for me and the liklihood of getting pretty bored.

Thankfully, I am still able to keep working with my same job at the cosmetology association. Lucky for me the editorial director position (which can be done via phone/internet) became available right as I was moving to the middle of nowhere.
I coordinate articles to be written and work with the authors. Sometimes it is challenging, after all--I am not an expert cosmetologist, but I think I am getting the hang of it.

okay...kind of wierd

So apparently each episode only last 6 minutes. And it is basically a long commercial for Saturn cars (the show was created to advertise their new line of cars) Wierd. Plus the show loads REALLY slow! So it was all jumpy. Maybe it is our slow internet, but I have watched other shows online and they were fine. So sad...such a fun idea...wasted.

Novel Adventures

So I just found out about a new show--and it sounds really cute. It is about 4 friends who have a bookclub where they not only read the books, but then they go on adventures based on the book. Read a book about italy...then go to Italy!! A little confused why I hadn't heard of this show before...but it turns out it is only shown online, on cbs.com on mondays and fridays. I am mostly excited about what could be my new favorite show...but mostly I can't help but think "Dang it! What a great story idea--why didn't I think of that for my book???!" I really need to get on the ball and start writing my book.

couch to 5K ... in one week?

Count us in! Sam and I signed up to run this race this weekend with a bunch of his family and friends. It is a fundraiser for Colon cancer research. Sam's little sister, who is my age, was diagnosed with colon cancer a few months ago. Before 4 months ago we didn't know much about colon cancer...and now it is a part of our every day lives. When his sister heard about this event she filled all of us and a lot of her family and friends formed a group, which now includes over 50 people. We weren't sure if we could make it since we were just there two weeks ago, and we will be heading back in two weeks for Thanksgiving, but then yesterday we figured -why not?! We are all excited to run on behalf of her and to raise awareness. My only hope is that we aren't the only one's who are out of shape! We decided we can go on a evening run every day befor the event...which gives us 4 days. This should be fun :-) Oh-and a sponsor offered to make shirts and here is what they turned out like-so cute! Great job Heidi and everyone else who helped make them!

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone has a happy halloween!

Can't wait to see all your kids' cute costumes

Rachel got to wear her costume to school today. She was grinning from ear to ear when she walked into her class in her bride dress holding her flowers. I think the costume turned out really cute. I couldn't find a bride costume anywhere so I thought I was going to have to start from scratch. The last time we were at my parent's house Rachel found this dance costume to play dress up in --(it is the top half of her costume--has the top part of the skirt attached but looked more like a tutu than a bride dress). I used that and then just made a long skirt to wear underneath it. Rachel wasn't very happy that I made her wear pants underneath it, but other than that she is very excited!

The second picture is of a very girly Rachel. She definitely has her days where she can hang with the boys and is a daddy's little girl (the other day at the park she insisted on joining in with the boys who were having a light saber fight--she was shocked when they tried to tell her what it was and just rolled her eyes and said "i know what a light saber is-and starting fighting." lol). But yesterday she showed her girly side and refused to put her hand in the pumpkin and touch all of the slimey insides.

Friday night Football

At the high school football game that is. And apparently everyone in the whole town goes to these games so I tried to take a picture of the stands so you could see everyone-but being the only white person there I didn't feel like I could go stand in front of the bleachers and turn my back to the game and snap a picture of the crowd-go figure. So this is all I got. It was fun to be out of the house...but we weren't all that into it and we left at half time.

Halloween Carnival

Rachel's school had a harvest festival and she got to play fun games, and of course win fun little prizes! Here she is doing a ring toss at her teacher's booth.

I was especially proud of her skills on this one. She had some impressive moves, and one really funny one where she managed to laso herself. I had some cute videos of the night but they are all too big to post. (a negative side to having a new digital camera--does anyone know if there are easy wayws to resize videos for the web like how you can just resize photos??)

Our little creative storyteller

Rach sure has a talent for making stories up on the spot. She is always telling people about her "brother" or her "sister" and even when people know her and try to call her out, she comes up with convincing stories with elaborate details to stand as evidence. Sunday I was watching a movie on tv and there was a short clip where a little girl finds a cat and loves playing with it and says she wants to take it home. Minutes later the phone rang and it was grandpa Lennie. Rachel ran to get the phone and since I wanted to watch my movie I let her just chat away. (i overheard her chatting and later got his side of the converstation) . She starts telling grandpa that we just bought a new kitty!
How much was it? he asked
"one dollar, it was going to be $20 but they didn't want to take all of our money, so it was one one dollar."
at random times she would giggle, and say "oh, the kitty just jumped on my lap!" Oh, she is good!
He asks if he can hear the kitty meow
"you want to hear the kitty meow? Okay." I watch her set the phone down on the floor and then she knelt on all fours and made a short little meow herself."
The conversation went on for quite some time...and then I got on the phone."
'Hi dad'
(rachel glares at me and says "don't tell him")
'Well, tell me about this new kitty. Was someone giving it away? or did you buy one?'
after laughing "Dad...there is no kitty."
(rach is not happy)
"so, You don't have a kitty?"
I wish I had the entire conversation recorded--it really was entertaining.
I don't like to think about it as lying, but so I will stick with creative storyteller.

Rachel's new apron

After seeing some cute pictures of a mom who had sewn cute little aprons for her kids I was inspired to make one for Rach. So we bought some cute fabric while we were in town last time. She picked out this fabric, and I told her that we couldn't buy it because it wasn't "apron" fabric. It is flannel like you would use for kids pajamas. And she just looked at me and said "why not?" and then I realized she was right. Sometimes I need the help of a 5 year old to think outside the box. we had a lot of fun -I will definitely have to think of some more saturday projects like this because there isn't anything else to do here :-)

Speaking of things to do here, I was thinking that maybe we should ease up on our trips back to Phoenix because if we keep going home most weekends we won't ever really experience the fun stuff up here. But in talking to a few natives, and quizzing them on what they do over the weekends...i realized that they leave on the weekends too, especially after pay day. So in going home every other weekend-we are in fact getting the true reservation experience. YAY--when is the next 3 day weekend?? Veteran's Day--Sweet and only a couple weeks away! Plus another reason to celebrate with a road trip--the gas prices are dropping like crazy! They have been dropping about 10 cents every couple of days and today it is down to $2.85. If that doesn't justify a road trip I don't know what does.

PS-sewing tips for an apron. I would definitely suggest using ribbon as the ties instead of sewing a fabric strip like the pattern said--SO MUCH EASIER!! and As I was starting to sew the D-rings on the neck strap I had Rachel try them out to see if she would be able to fasten them herself, and her brilliant suggestion was "mom, why don't we just sew it together and not use these, then I can just put it over my head myself. " She really is brilliant. We also made the ribbon on the sides long enough so that she can wrap it around to the front where she is able to tie it in a bow herself.

Wedding outfit

Here is the dress that i decided to wear, I loved the purple color, the only bummer was that the sleeves were wierd so I had to wear something with it. And as for the cute zebra print, I would have totally bought that one-animal print and all--except that it was one that was too short. But I did forget to mention tat I did find a cute cheetah print cropped jacket which is adorable! After shopping for 4 days straight I am no longer in the mood to play dress up, so maybe I will just post pictures of the new outfits as I wear them each sunday. I am sooo excited to actually have some options, usually I would just rotate between 2 different outfits. :-)

As for sewing...I have decided that yes buying is easier...but I would like to better master the 'altering' of clothing. I am no pro or anything, so I can't do a whole lot, but I did buy a cute brown skirt on clearance even though it was about 4 sizes too big and was able to take it apart and resize it. And I would like to get better at adding a sash sized strip of fabric to the bottom of the dresses that are just barely too short...stuff like that. Going to the fabric store is daunting! The fabric and the design of the dresses in the stores don't look too complicated, until you are looking for a pattern in the fabric store, and then browsing through the boring collection of fabrics.

Who's got the cutest kid??

My friend Megan posted this and I think it looks like fun so I thought I would share it too. there is a category for babies up to age 4 and under and little kids ages 5 to 10. I know some pretty cute kids--wouldn't it be fun if it was someone you knew on the gap signs at the mall? Results will be narrowed down to 20 finalist and the public will vote on those in december. Details for the call are posted right on the homepage http://www.gap.com/ Find those cute photos!

BRRRRRR!!

We got back home to some FREEZING weather! When I took Rach to school this morning it was 22 DEGREES!!!

I couldn't help but think that it is just like living in Boston, except without all of the pretty fall leaves.

Back from our trip

The highlight of the trip!

For those who need a little explanation--this was taken at the gas station in Cedar City, UT--We filled up at my parent's house and this was the first place we stopped for gas, at our destination. AWEOMSE! My mom and I became the first in the family to make it on one tank of gas-only because we were the first ones daring enough to try. ;-) Despite our pride at this achievement we knew my dad may not view it as the same exciting venture, we decided maybe we should keep it to ourselves. Unfortunately, we were caught off guard when one of the first questions he asked us was "So how was the drive? Where did you stop for gas?" Uh.....uh..... So we spilt the beans, and he couldn't believe it, as he has his two or three favorite gas stations picked out and we stop at each one on every trip. For the record, according to our expert calculations we had another 2 gallons left in the tank, so no only were we in no danger of running out, we could have easily gone another 40 miles...hmmmm something to try for next time :-)

We stayed one night at my grandparent's house and were there at the perfect time for some apple picking. Grandpa insisted that Rachel and I weren't picking nearly enough so he insisted on getting on the roof to pick more himself. Mom was a little worried, but as you can see he is an expert and he had it all under control. Thanks grandpa the apples and tomatoes are DELICIOUS!


As for those of you wondering how the shopping for a dress went, here are a few dresses that I liked, I don't have one of the dresses I actually bought-guess I will post those later. Kind of wierd but the places we found the best selection at was Kohl's,Ross and Marshalls. Kirsten--I thought of you when I found this zebra print one-I knew you would be proud, but all of these one piece dresses that were in style were all just a tad bit short, technically long enough, but couldn't be trusted when moving around/sitting down. I like the loose fitting one on the top left, but that style was often too short as well, I love all the graphic prints, but they seemed a bit busy for church on the rez, and since I am the new Young Women's president I will have to look decent. (That's right! Wish me luck!)

What would you do if you were stuck in Dam traffic for an HOUR?

Taking Pictures of the scenery only lasted about 2 minutes.. Here's what we did to keep busy-for the rest of the wait--easily the best hour of the drive!


Singing to the top of our lungs, and practicing our dance moves

Singing while sticking my head out the sun roof! I had the people behind me waving and clapping! LOL! It has been a long time since I felt that spontaneous and fun-glad I still have it in me!

Had to get one of Jamie and Rach. They definitely bonded during the 2 months that they shared a room. Jamie gets so excited when Rach comes and follows her around laughing and shrieking "Ray! Ray!" all day long.