Ode to my mother...

chrisThis blog letter is to thank a mother for making me memorize all those "dumb poems" and "stupid songs" as a child -- and then carrying on the tradition with the next generation. You saved my bacon! Let me explain...Last Saturday (Dec 6) was our ward's Christmas Talent Show. Many months previously I had accepted the bribe the WAC had provided to all acts -- a marshmallow brownie prepared in church so that the scent wafted through the halls. They had a ton of people sign up. This was clear back in the beginning of November. Who couldn't come up with an act in a month?!

Well, time went on. We went to Utah for Thanksgiving and came home and quietly put the talent show on the back burner. No calls. Ah well. They must not need us. Phew! We will go and watch and enjoy the evening.

We get there and find out that lo and behold, not only do they have us on the program to perform, they have us as the last act -- to kind of bring the whole evening together and wrap it up. What?!

Rack, rack, rack the brain. Nothing.

Rack, rack, rack some more. Still nothing.

Then a little inkling came through -- Ashley, Chelsea and I could sing "Be Sure It's True" in a heartbeat. Hadn't we sung it enough times at Grandma's house to do it in our sleep?! But that isn't really Christmasy.

Think, Think.

Wait, we could do that song and something else. But what?!

And then these words flowed into my mind -- "Father calls me William, Sister calls me Will" and I knew I had something. I didn't want to practice it because, after all, I was here to support everyone else, remember?

So we did the BSIT song first, then I recited the "Jest 'Fore Christmas" poem and then I had all of the kids in the audience come up and sing "Away In a Manger". It was a good ending --

-- and then the high school choral choir came and did a surprise performance. Oh well, it WOULD have been the perfect ending.

So Mom, thanks again for everything. You sure saved me (they told me if I backed out it would have cost me $50 a brownie -- which we unsuspectedly consumed back in November. Yikes!)Here are some pics...

New favorite cool video -- enjoy

Name them one by one...

So it happened - last Sunday I was released from the Primary after a 7 year stint. Wow! I have to actually talk to adults now. I am so sad. I loved my little kids and think of (most of) them as mine -- some of them I wouldn't own up to! (If you were my kids, I'd punish MYSELF*). I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have had to work with some of God's choicest. There were some very fine moments in there, including the time that Connor McPheeters answered the question of, "How does our church baptize differently than other churches?" with "We do baptism by ILLUSION". I just have visions of the baptizer baptizing the baptizee (?) and then stating, "And now for my next trick!". Anyway, I am thankful at this time for this opportunity to have served in the Primary.

I'm thankful also at this time for family. If I could be anywhere in the world it would be in my living room talking with my kids and family -- or in Mom's LR talking with my brothers and sisters. I include their kids in that scenario as I feel as close to them as I could. I love the nieces and nephews! I loved Wendy's quote she shared from President Monson which says, "But when we have sampled much and have wandered far and have seen how fleeting and sometimes superficial a lot of the world is, our gratitude grows for the privilege of being part of something we can count on -- home and family and the loyalty of loved ones" or the quote we have in our kitchen which says, "Having someone to love is family, having somewhere to go is home, having both is a blessing." Last night I had the opportunity to take the girls and a couple of the Holland girls to see the midnight showing of Twilight and although the movie was nowhere near as good as the book, it was just entertaining to watch the excitement of those around me. I thought Brooke was going to hyperventilate. I told her to be sure and write about this in her journal so when she gets older and has kids of her own, she will be able to relate to them when they go so crazy about something. I was glad to have children at home with which I could do this -- It was even fun to see JoJo there with his date (?) / family friend Tannith.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to help families preserve their "blessings" through photography. Things have finally slowed down just a bit for which I am grateful (another thing!) I love trying new things and have learned a ton but feel like I have SO far to go. I'm further than some and KNOW I am way behind others -- I'm just grateful for the journey. I am so excited for the chance to do our family pictures in Utah as I love nothing greater than to work with the pictures of those I love.

I am also grateful for my Savior and the peace it brings when I know I am on the right track. I watch others around me struggle with their testimony and feeling safe and I am grateful for the knowledge of what true happiness can be if I just do what HE has asked me to do. Now to just do it!

Life is good. Liz

*Little Rascals

Tan got lost in his Adventures at the

Well its been an eternity since I last wrote. Alot has happened, but at the same time nothing has happened. The biggest thing as you all have probably heard is that my phone died about a week and a half ago and lets just say god puts us through trials for a reason. It kind of died at a good time. I needed to stop hanging out with 214 as much because as you also probably heard I started my job of being a janitor at 4 in the morning. No more late nights.  But on that later.  With my phone dead I started hanging out with my roomates more and because of that I went  one sunday to our FHE sisters apartment and they cooked for us. We had a blast over there that night. We played twister and just sat around and talked. It was fun.  So the next night I went to FHE and we played Wally Ball, and it was a blast. We went back to their apartment afterwards and one thing led to another and we were in an all out water fight. We were all running outside with huge things of water, making our alliances, betraying others. We got so much water everywhere. We had water in the aparment and all over everywhere outside. We were havin a good time. When we were out of water we would just run to some random apartments, walk inside and just get some water. Without asking haha. We actually had some people in other apartment join us. So by the time it was over we had about 16 people in our water fight. It was a blast! Well here is this for now, ill hopefully finish it later

And the bored shall inherit the Earth...

So I'm sitting here watching dad write a letter to Leland, and he suggests that I should write to the blog. So here I am writing on the blog. I thought I should talk about dad's new obsession with our ark building. He is building shelves and buying food storage. It's just one step closer to finishing our ark. We went to the bishop's storehouse the other day and did a whole bunch of building on the ark. We got all kinds of canned food. It was a lot of fun though and Chelsea and I got a bunch of singing in. Tanneth has been coming over a lot to "hang out" with Chelsea. Caroline doesn't seem too happy about Tanneth being with Chelsea so much. She even told her mother that they were a lesbian couple it was the most retarded thing in the entire world. But they have made ammends and are at least speaking to each other. So life around here is pretty much boring. I'm so excited to come up to Utah and see Tanner. How come you haven't been writing Tanner? We need another book to read. Chelsea you've only written like once. Joe good job you have been the most recent. Dad you need to write and continue to build our ark. We'll all try to help as much as we can. I love all of you.

Asheybabe

A wise man once said...

I heard this quote last Sunday and I really liked and so I decided to share it all with you.

"The worst of things happen to the best of people, because they are the ones who are most willing to learn."

-Unknown

So enjoy and keep up the writing.

Asheybabe

Way too funny....

Take a look. If I thought I had a family who was willing to do this I would suggest it for our Ward Talent Night, but since I don't just take a look and enjoy....

Catching up with the Hobo

Heylo (combination of hey and hello I made it up a long time ago)

So it’s been a pretty long time since I’ve written in this thing so I thought I would write in it seeing as how I woke up an hour early because I forgot to set my clock back an hour.
So life has been pretty crazy and long these past couple of weeks. At work we’ve been going out to the oil field a lot to put up covers over there compressors (I still don’t know why were doing this but it’s for work so I have to do it). So the days have been very long because the places we go out to are anywhere between an hour to two and a half hours away from the shop. So there are days where Tom (my supervisor) will make us get there at six in the morning which means I have to get up and five fifteen to get to work fifteen minutes early, because that’s when Tom expects us to be there. Then most the days we don’t get back to the shop till about four or five , even one day six thirty, so very long, tiring, hot and COLD days.
This last Friday we were loading a trailer for a job on Monday and Lenny (a guy on the other crew) was bringing in some trusses with the big forklift and I was on the trailer and he was coming in pretty fast and I was standing in between the forklift and some trusses already on the trailer and Lenny wasn’t really watching where he was going and he ran right into my knee and holy shoot dang it hurt so bad. But I was at work and had to be tough so all the other guys didn’t think I was some kind of sissy  so I just played it off.
Not this last weekend but the weekend before last me and two of my buddies went up to Rosa Road (a huge oilfield road where there are A LOT of dead trees) and cut us some dead trees down so we could split them and try and sell them. We were supposed to leave at eight Saturday morning. So my buddy Derek was supposed to be at my house at seven thirty so we could load the trailer and head out there. But not much to my buddy Dallin (who just stayed at my house that night) and I surprise Derek didn’t show up at seven thirty, we didn’t really expect him to but we did expect him to show up before ten thirty, which is the time we went over to his house to go give him a beating and see why he didn’t show up at my house. We get over there ring the doorbell and no answer for a couple minutes then we hear a side door open and there is Derek looking like crap because he had just woken up. Needless to say we were not happy at all! We wait for him to get ready. When he is finally ready were trying to start his chainsaw which was supposed to be ready several days before today and we can’t even get it started. Again we were not very happy with Derek. So Derek calls his moms old boyfriend (this guy has been more of a dad to Derek then his real dad) and luckily he was going out to cut wood right then and says we can go with him, lucky for Derek. We go get our trailer and head out to where were meeting Larry (Derek’s moms old boyfriend) and we get about halfway there when Derek asks if I got the woodcutting permit. Dangit we forgot it! So we turn around and half to drive another half hour back to the house. Derek calls Larry and tells him to go out there and we’ll find him or call him when we get closer (Larry was going to have us follow him out to where we were going out on Rosa Road because this is a long stretch of dirt roads clear out in the middle of nowhere and very easy to get lost in). We get back to my house and I get directions to the entrance of Rosa Road because I had only been there once and I was only awake on the way home from it, so I didn’t really remember how to get there and Derek and Dallin hadn’t ever been out there. Were heading out there and after following these stinky directions from the internet we kind of get lost. Luckily, after going back and forth on this road we see a cop but we were going pretty fast but he only flashes his lights and keeps driving, phewwww that was a close one. Getting to the end of this road we turn around AGAIN and were driving when we see this same cop, but this time he was off to the side trying to catch people speeding, I was going the speed limit this time though and we pass him, but as we were going we were like let’s ask that cop where our turn off is, so we turn around one more time. We pull off next to this cop and he gets out and comes up to us and says “come back for your speeding ticket?” haha we that was the funniest thing!!! The cop tells us exactly where to go and we get there call Larry and get out there and finally chop us some wood. While we were out there Justen (Larry’s buddy) was calling in coyotes and was going to shoot one. We didn’t think he was actually going to get one. But about fifteen minutes after sitting on this rock being very still Dallin sees one about fifty feet away, it was the weirdest thing because I have never even seen a coyote especially that close, and Dallin whispers to Justen who out of instinct pulls the gun up whip around and shoot. It happened so fast it was crazy but the coyote jumped up in the air and looked like he was trying to bite himself. Justen had nailed him right in the stomach. Derek got off four shots that missed, but finding out later that Derek did get one in him, right in the bottom, haha were still laughing about that. So Larry and Justen take the coyote and we left because we had to get back before it got dark because we didn’t have lights on our trailer.
Well there is a lot more to tell but this is plenty long so I will say farewell until next time, sure love ya’ll.

Hobo Jojo

A funeral and a solo....

As is typically the case, photography has seasons where things are crazy. So last week was one of those crazy times -- I did a wedding on Friday the 17th in Albuquerque and then over the course of the next week I did 5 more shoots with a Young Women in Excellence thrown in there. Consequently, I had well over 700 pictures to edit. I have been crazy with editing and so when Ashley came home and announced that she had a concert that night for Honor Choir I have to admit I was less than enthusiastic.

However, Chelsea, Dad and I (we even took Brooke with us) went over the college for her concert. Many of the songs I had already heard and loved. But as I listened to "Think on Me" one more time I realized this is the song I want sung at my funeral. So let it be written, Chelsea and Ashley are to sing "Think On Me" at my funeral -- and crying is no excuse (although I am afraid everyone might just say, "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" ).

Well I was a little miffed because the guy that was leading the choir was standing RIGHT in front of my little girl on the front row. However, right in the middle of the song, Ashley walked away from the rest of the group. "Oh know, Ashley go back. You are really going to embarrass yourself. Go back, go back." Then much to my excitement and righteous (?) pride, my little girl had a long 'ole solo. She did so well. She didn't even squeak or falter or sound embarrassed at all. Boy-o-boy! I was thrilled.

So that is what is going on at our house? What is going at yours?!

What's new on the blog?

Whoever gets what is new on the blog gets some free cookies from Mom! So look fast and look often. Mom

TEMPLE!!!!!!

So now I am officially 12 and I am so excited! I went to the temple and did baptisms for the dead. The baptisimal font was not what I expected, I don't understand why they put those funny looking cow heads on the side. Also when I first walked in and didnt see the floor I thought it was just sitting there with nothing attaching it to the floor and I thought it was going to break if a really heavy person stood in it. The guy that baptized me was dislexic and he was saying the girl in front of mine's name wrong every time her last name was blixter and he kept calling her blitzen. Sis. Holland was about to pee her pants she was laughing so hard it was pretty funny watching her cause she had her head between her knees. When I went into the font it was so warm it felt so good. I had the most amazing time though it was very fun, also mom got to be in there with me and all that stuff it was very fun. So I hope next time I'll be baptized by dad (hint, hint) live, love, and laugh. I love ya'll see ya next time

Asheybabe

A Zits one too...

Tanner, this jokes for you...

But the rest will enjoy it too.....

The Smoking Power Supply
I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. The service representative was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep: Sir, something has burned within your power supply.

Customer: I bet that there is some command that I can put into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that will take care of this.

Service Rep: There is nothing that software can do to help you with this problem.

Customer: I know that there is something I can put in... some command... maybe it should go into the CONFIG.SYS.

[After a few minutes of going round and round]

Service Rep: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:DOSNOSMOKE and reboot your computer.

[Customer does this]

Customer: It is still smoking.

Service Rep: I guess you'll need to call Microsoft and ask them for a patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE.

[The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy. But NO; he calls back four hours later!]

Service Rep: Hello, Sir, how is your computer?

Customer: I called Microsoft and they said that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new one. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will cost.




Now Go Get a Job! Love Mom

Adventures of Tan in the YI 4

OMG CHELSEA I LOVE YOUR HAIR! haha im not joking, i really loved it. I just thought id through that out there first. Well its been a while so Ill update all of you. First off, to rant about my apartment like normal. So alex and i were hanging out in our living room, i was on my computer and alex was sleeping. Coy was over cooking something and i see out of the corner of my eye a HUGE spark, like our own private sun in our kitchen. Coy starts freakin out and cussing and comes running out of our kitchen. Turns out that there were wires sticking out of the wall and his pan touched both of them together and it blew up! It was hilarious! It didnt do any damage, well at least not to my stuff haha! it burned like 3 of coys pans. But the real bummer was that our lights went out, AGAIN! We got our tv back like 2 days ago and now we cant watch it because it doesnt have any power. Im also back to taking showers in the dark lol. And now Ryan has an excuse to shower with the door open haha. My apartment always stinks thanks to my lovely roomates. My bedroom always stinks thanks to coy. Other than those few things my apartment is still in one piece.
So recently I have noticed how much trouble i am money wise. I have searched and searched for a job. (Tutoring people said no) No luck anywhere. No one really wants to hire me because i dont have a car. So i have to start donating plasma. Ive budgeted myself down to almost nothing. 5 dollars a day but i really try not to spend that because i want to spend that on the weekend. So now i eat one egg in the morning and starve myself for as long as possible till i HAVE to eat, its ussually around 5 or 6 and than i eat 3 packages of ramen. Look what you have to look forward to chelsea. I need a job! I took my first test today, it was in science. I studyed for once and it didnt even help. i got a flippin 65...I was so MAD! So now i gotta pay extra close attention in that class. I also have about 3 hours left on a picture i have to draw for art.
Well now to fill you all in on the social life. Alex has got a girl friend. Laurel. Shes the roomate with Sammi Nicole and Jojo. So like every night were always over there. I ussually hang out with Nicole and Jojo while im there. They are so much fun! Ok heres a good story i forgot to tell you all. One night Jojo and I were going to go to this "haunted house" that is like right across the street to there apartment. So we went there and there was this trap door so we started going down the stairs. We both were like freaking out but we keep going anyway. We go down these really really ghetto stairs and it was really creepy, llike you see in the movies. We get down to the bottom of the stairs and we walk into this really worn out room, it was creepy too. but we keep walking on. We walk into the next room and its got some paint on the wall with a Sonic Cup on the fireplace mantel, so i was like wow thats wierd. We go into the next room and BAM its a completely furnished room that someone was living in. It was painted with a bed and a couch and a kitchen. We were in someones house! We start freakin out and book it out of there! it was hilarious.Me and jodie had a thing for a while but we finally just decided that we were gonna stay friends so i think thats over. I will still hang out with her but just as friends. As all of you probably know Alex Ryan and I are heading down to Utah this weekend, im way excited! I wish you could meet me there. Well i think thats all that i got for now, alex says hi.

Little Bo Peep

Okay so last night Chelsea had a wild notion that she wanted to have curly hair. Her hair is so heavy that normally it will not hold a curl. Consequently, I used very little strands of hair and curled away. Well 67 curlers later (and having to borrow some from the McPheeters), here are the final results. Joe, of course, said she looked like a sheep. She thought she looked more like Bo Peep. I really liked it.


The Night Before...



The Day After...


Tonight is a PV football game so we might be off to that tonight.

Hey family,
So Tan I’m mostly writing this for you. So you better like it. I’m still not enjoying high school very much, I just don’t like some people they make me so mad cause I’m not in the "smart" classes so I got stuck with the stupid people who don’t care about their education, and I even find myself at their level sometimes and it makes me so mad I don’t know what to do. Also all my friends think I hate them because I don’t hang out with them at the games and bonfires and stuff. I try to hang out with them but there just no fun! So I go and hang out with people who are and then they think I’m ditching them I kinda am but I still love them and they just don’t know it I just don’t know! So yeah I went to the bonfire and the game it was so much fun! Those are the times that high school is fun. When I don’t have to put up with being cool or not cool. It so hard to not care... but I think I can live with it lol. So tanner get this Derek is reading the twilight books he on the third one lol I laughed so hard when I found out. Last night we had the Hollands over for the annual Sunday games, and Matthew was being hilarious it was just like you Tan, it was nice having you around again. So my music is in a jam because I cant seem to find time to find any good music I’m always so busy I hate it I want to be able to stay home and work then go to school. So tanner keep the music coming.
Tan thoughs stories in the second adventure were so funny and the third was too the peeing thing made mom laugh an cry a little bit (and yes mom I did notice). Well homecoming weekend was crazy Caroline went through the "getting ready stages" it was so funny like she was in the "I don’t want to go" stage for a long time and then the day came and she was waaay excited then the time came to get ready and she was like freaking out! She didn’t think she was, but, oh my, she was so bad she was like hyper ventilating, but not as bad as Tanner was lol (man tan yours was the best) Tan are you getting any better at that? We just got ding-donged ditched and it scared me ashley out of our panties! Today we went shopping for ashley but some how I can always find a way to get mom to get me something haha I love you mom. I really love rain.
Today our volleyball team sucked! (Pardon my french to mom and to anyone else who cares). So on the 1st game was against FHS and we lost in to flippin games it makes me so mad! Then we played Aztec and we won the 1st game but lost in the second one and that was 23 to 25 then it was 13 to 15 gosh dang it! I can’t believe we lost and then we played Cortez oh my goodness we just gave up. The 1st game they changed our rotation so no one had any idea of what was going on. So it was like 11 to 25 but then the second game was 5 to flippin 25!! We got killed! I don’t know what happened. Then I rode home on the bus from cortez (where we played) with Ron and Amanda, these are my coaches tan you need to meet Ron he’s just like Herman Munster he is so funny and Amanda graduated with Joe so yeah she is really cool, and they are so funny they made me laugh the whole way home.
My ears always hurt now. So getting back to complaining about high school. I don’t really hate it I just don’t like the people there sometimes like everyone has to worry about everyone’s else’s buisness and no one shuts up! The one person who bugs me the most is this stupid kid named Kevin (and not quiet kevin form track Tan) he calls him self "superfresh" (dumb name huh?) and in the 1st week he asked me out and of course I said heck no! But before I said no he kept telling colby that I was "his girl" and I was told him that he needed to back off and relax, and after I said no he said that it was a bet to try and cover it up and so from then on he always tries to talk to me and he just throws things at me during class and is like now obbessed with my white friends (he’s not white im not quite sure what he is but he’s not white) and I just want to beat him up cause no one likes him and his stupid friends! Also he always thinks I’m stoned cause my pupils are so big or some stupid thing like that. Man I hate dumb people.
Mom has latley been reading the family Kristi’s blog and she is an amazing writer. She is so funny. Dad is just same old same old, but he is loving his new calling lol. Every Wednesday he plans something for the scouts that I would love to do, like last time he took them swimming and he dove off the high dive head first and hurt his neck haha. Your getting old dad face it. Joe... is always hanging out with Derek and Matt. Ashely has been good. Her b-day I hope was fun the beehies kidnapped her in the day time which is really dumb but hey whatever. And I’m trying out for all state I don’t think im going to make it actually but hey I just need to get out there this year so that I can be in PVC pipes next year. And not get yelled at everyday cause we suck. Well I have to go everyone I’m leaving until next time (if there is one)
Chel-c

Never overestimate birthdays you'll just end up being sad

So i am now officially 12! Woo hoo!! before i go into the details i want to say i went to mutual and it was pretty fun. So on my birthday i totally forgot until i went in to say hi to mom in the morning. So my birthday was pretty much like a regular day. I got home and found our mom hadn't gotten me any presents. Then i went to mutual and it was so much fun, i loved it!! Yesterday we watched the football game with BYU and USU and we kicked there buttox!!! 34 to 14 BYU won. Brooke came over and we were playing volleyball out in the front yard when it started raining. We went and layed out in the middle of the street and talked for like 20 mins, but it started to get cold and when we got up you could see exactly where we were laying. It looks like when they draw dead bodies in chalk before they move them. We came inside and watched what was remaining of the game. It was so much fun!! Hey Tanner did you watch the game? Well it was so cool cause one time we tackled the other team and they fumbled the ball and we recovered it and scored a touchdown! Well today it General Conference and we are in between sessions, and i'd just like to say tanner you are a hypocrit! you told us not to talk during sacrament meetings since that's what they told us, but yet there you were texting when they told us not to!!!!! Tanner i heard you are having a break down cause your archos broke well just get a cheap ipod and youll be fine. Joe you need to do go camping with dad, before it gets too cold. Chelsea how was you Cortez game did you win? Mom keep up the photography and don't be discouraged. So i love y'all see ya next time bye!

While you listened to Conference, I lost weight...

Okay, during conference we ate cake, drank milk (albeit white water), finished off our yummy hash browns that Dad / Kent made for us for breakfast, with eggs and bacon.  Yum-yummy!  Oh yeah, I also lost about 50 pounds and cleared my skin flaws... See below for proof...

Before Conference

After Conference

The adventures of Tan in the YI3

Holy cow family, it hasnt been to long since i last wrote but it feels like the world has gone and orbited some other star! First lets start off talking to the family. Chelsea, YOU NEED TO WRITE, I love reading yours! (mom make her write) Joe, is it wierd bein in my room without me in my room? Hows the guys? Ashe-Babe, I do remeber mrs. Tanner and if you can believe it or not i can remeber her when i was in first grade probably doing the same dance that she is doing for you still! 12 years later! Dad I want you to write too, I love hearing differnt perspectives on the same events! Mom, you went to a high school football game?!? What did dad do to force you into it? Everyone, even though I fought it all the way up here, I love reading this blog so you all need to write in it more and put some personality into it, dont just relay the events! I makes it feel like im there and it reminds me of you!
Well now for me, first we will start with the good news (actually its all good news...haha nothing bad happens up here) For an update on my apartment, they finally fixed up our bathroom. It still always smells like pee (Ryan and I think coy pees on the ground haha) but i cant stand going to the bathroom. Our lights went out in half of our apartment so for like 4 days i went without lights in our shower kitchen and hallway. Yah i had to take showers in the dark, feeling around for my shampoo and my body wash, hoping i covered every part of my body. It was kinda fun actually, made me almost want to be blind for a week. We still dont have a tv, its been 3 weeks now and we only had it for a day haha. My apartment is always freakin messy and guess what?! im the clean one that always has his room the cleanest and always has to end up cleaning up after other people cause im sick of it! I also made those cookies you sent me family, turns out i had all those ingredients haha (coy has them and lets me use what ever i want) so pretty much you sent me the idea to make cookies lol and i loved it! my roomates loved it too.
Im still longboarding everywhere i go, skateboarding when i get the chance (i landed my first kick flip today! i was way stoked but none of you probably even know or care what that is lol so ill celebrate my own little victory. Yay Tanner *puts a little tiny flag in the air and waves it back and forth*) Anyway....So I had this date thing planned for friday night, and it didnt work out. I was going to go on a date with Lindsey (art chick) and we were going to go out to the dunes but than we were waiting for alexs jacob lakes friends to get here from utah but then they had car problems and to make a long story short they didnt get here till 12 so we didnt go to the dunes with lindsey, i felt bad. But anyway we met up with one of alexs friends from jacob lake that lived up here and went to her apartment and met her roomates and hung out with them. There was one named named Megan, shes pretty cute so i got to know her pretty good, so keep your eyes open for her on these adventures, shes got potentiel. when it came curfew time everyone else went home but me and alex went out to the dunes and slept there, it was a blast! Than on saturday i was dead tired from the night before but i went and hung out with Megan but she had a date to go on so i went and hung out with sammi after she left (alex was hanging out with jacob lake friends) Man was i out of it, it was funny. Than later on that night i took a nap and when i woke up i went back out to the dunes with alex and his jacob lake friends but it was gay so i went back to Megans apartment and hung out there till curfew. so it turned out ok. And that brings us to now so i guess no funny storys but oh well! This is Tanner signing out, stay tuned!

Lady Luck Liz comes Home

Okay, so Friday night it is Homecoming for PV.  Football, hmm, that sounds like it could be fun.  Besides, Chelsea was dying to go to be with all of her buddies and fall in love with -- who was it again Chels?  Even Ashley wanted to go because she wanted to hang out with all of her friends (one of the great joys of growing up in a small town -- EVERYONE goes to the high school football games).

So at about 7:40 we all (Dad, Chels, Ash, Caroline, Matthew and I) got into the van and drove over to Hutchinson stadium.   By the time we got there it was second quarter and the score was Moriarty 20, PV 3.  Oh boy.  It was homecoming for heaven sake.  Just because we were 1-3 and they were 3-1 (ranked 4th in the state).

We sat down next to Jo-Jo and his buddies (Graham, Matt-hue and Derrick) at the 50 yard line.  As the game progressed, my luck -- just like my luck for the BYU -- started to shine through.  The other team never made another point and WE WON!  (Kent you can quit rolling your eyes now!)  It really was a good game and we had a great time.  It was fun to see so many people that we knew there and watching all the kids and their excitement to be with their friends -- Just like the song by Courtney Nelson says, "Friday Night Football Games".  

Saturday was the actual homecoming dance and Chelsea went over the Hollands to help her get ready for her date with Alfonso or Adrian or Allegro or something like that (what was his name again Chels?).  She looked gorgeous and had to borrow Chels' id to get into the dance as she lost hers. Fun times.  

Mom

Boredom!!!!!!!

So it had been awhile since I wrote so here I am. So as we all know I'm back at home again living up to my nickname, jobless and bored out of my mind. Well today Derek text me and said we should go board during their lunch. So we went. Later on I was trying to catch up to them on a level part in the road and as I broke my foot forward to push off the ground my toe caught the ground and i went down, it was pretty cool actually because it looked like I was sliding into home plate. My right foot was under my left knee and I was sliding on my wallet for about three of four feet. Well we thought it was cool anyway. So now i have a cut up elbow, knee, and ankle all on my right side, oh and a new pair of longboarding shorts. I also just got done looking at the durango mountain resort page and it says there opening on November 27th which is almost exactly two months away (lets just hope I'm still here by then). Well thats all I cant think of so i'll talk to you all later. Love ya lots!!

But whose counting?!

So today is Dad's and my anniversary. It was 21 days ago today that Dad and I knelt across from the alter and held hands and said that one word that made all the difference in the rest of our lives -- "Yes". A year later little chubby Jo-Jo came and then 2 years later TanTheMan came and 3 years later little Chels came with all her wild hair and then almost 3 years later another wild haired beauty came named Ashey-babe. What a ride we have had over the years and I wouldn't trade anyone in our family for anyone else. Now we just have to make it another 21 years and beyond -- doing those things that will keep us together in the hereafter.

Love to you all, especially you Kent.

Liz

School!

So i'm sitting in class right now and im done with my work so i decided to write. We have a sub today and she is the weirdest thing alive. Tanner and joe do you remember mrs. tanner? well she is still alive and dancing as always. she did some irish dance for us today and i was scared out of my mind. i was sent an email the other day of this video of a ghost rocking a chair and at the very end this video a thing jumps in front of the camera and scared the poop out of me. I am watching ghost videos and they are flippin scary and the are gonna make me have nightmares. just kidding so how is life going on in idaho. sorry i have to go bye 

The Mama Test

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter.  She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth.  I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that. 

'Why' my daughter asked.
'Because it's been on the ground, you don't know where it's been.  It's dirty and probably has germs', I replied.
At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, 'Mama, how do you know all this stuff?  You are so smart!'
I was thinking quickly.  'All moms know this stuff.  It's on the Mama Test.  You have to know it or they don't let you be a Mama.'
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.
'OH...I get it!' she beamed, 'So if you don't pass the test, you have to be the dad.'
'Exactly!' I replied back with a big smile on my face...
 
(When you're finished laughing, send this to a Mama!!)

Tan in the YI 2

Whatsups my family! So i just went through and read all of the last post and heres what i got to say to them, 1st That picture of the family is freakin hilarious, but i still feel apart of it because of my creepy picture that is staring right at all of you all the time haha! 2nd your hanging out with matt now chel-c? thats kinda odd but hes a funny kid. 3rd You finally met Nich-o-las? its about time, hes huge huh?! and hes funny. i used to hang out and talk to him at random differnt events. 4th PIERCED EARS?! what is going on, i leave and my girls all grow up... and i think thats it for comments on the post. So now lets start with my life up here at the Y. Lets start with the most imporant part of my reason for being up here, school. I really really love all my classes so far, like no joke. My book of mormon mission prep one is my favorite, it makes me dig deep into the scriptures and really learn them, its awesome. It also makes me read some talks and stuff from general authoritys and they (despite my ignorance) have very interesting things to say. My next favorite class is my art class id say. Me and lindsey (a girl i sit next to in that class) sit there and talk or make fun of the good people cause we suck at drawing. (yes i found out i suck) My next favorites would be my social dance, my science class (had a great great lesson today about how relativly small we are in the universe, it was fascinating) and then my writing class than my developing world class. But so all in all i love my school classes. I dont get behind on homework, if i get some i do it right when i get home (i go to youtube and put on eighter my playlist on there or go check out chelseas, keep posting more videos chick i do watch them). So so far i havent had any stress just cause i take care of it quick.
So now for some funny storys. First, my apartment is so freakin/flippin ghetto is hilarious. My roomate was in the shower taking a shower and all of the sudden the roof starts pooring water from the shower above us. it was hilarious! he starts yelling and screaming and like gets out of the bathroom super fast. So then we go and put in a paper to get it fixed and all they do is come and drill out our ceiling. So were left with a huge hole in our ceiling that we can see into the bathroom above us and like talk to the people taking a shower ( i went in to go to the bathroom in the middle of the day and there was a guy in the bathroom above us that was singing at the top of his loves vunerable by secondhand serenade lol, random information) The shower is still not fixed today. Also our cable broke, our door wouldnt lock, the screen broke on the other room that im not staying in, the shower goes cold suddenly, the toaster smokes when you use it so the toast taste funny, and our kitchen is way freakin small. Those are my rants. Another good story was one night when i got home (whenever i get home all my roomates are always asleep) the toliet was clogged and it had a huge dookie in it. So i just held it and went to bed and then when i woke up the next morning my roomate byrant/taylor came up to me and asked me if that was me. I of course said no but he didnt believe me cause he had already asked ryan and coy earlier that morning and they both had said it was them. So we went through the whole day of playing mind games with the other roomates in trying to see who clogged the toliet! Finally, byrant comes out when we are all sitting on the couch and puts his arm to the square and promises on the book of mormon it was him. Me and ryan did likewise but when it got to coy, he went silent and all he could say was (i could find a plunger, i didnt know what to do) it was freakin hilarious and so now if anything goes wrong with anything or if we dont know who did what we always blame coy haha. Another story that has happened to me this week was i got my hometeaching assignments. I got the elders quorum president as my companion and if you guys knew him he is just really socially awkward. So we were told to go around and introduce ourselves to our home teaching people after church. My roomates went and did theres and were back in like 10 minutes so i was like, oh good that was quick. So then Aaron (elders quorum dude) get back from meetings and come and gets me and asks me if im ready to go introduce ourselves. I had just made mashed potatoes and so i thought, oh this will be quick ill just go do it. So we go to the first place, its an apartment from pineview. We stayed for like 8 minutes talking to them so i thought, hm that was a little long, nothing big. We go to the next apartment and its a girls apartment. The girls that we accualy hometaught werent there but we stayed and chatted withthere roomates for 10 mins. Still long and by now my mashed potatoes are defintetly cold at home. But than we go to the last place. Theyre there and guess how long we spent there? 1 hour and 15 minutes there!! just "introducing" ourselves!! an hour and fifteen minutes!! you could tell that the girls there wanted us to go at like 10 but no, aaron stays and talks and talks and talks....It was bad.
Well so thats my funny stories, as for everything else i still hang out with alex alot. We still go over to Sammi and Jodis apartment alot (me and jodi are justs friends now) Both of them makes us dinner like everyother night which is great. Alex and I have gotten into skateboarding alot now, its so much fun! I've gotten really good on my longboard too just because i have to use it everywhere i go. I dont hate my football fanatic roomates, in fact i love them! they are so funny! we laugh all the time when we are together. I did my first laundry the other day and my whites came out white so im greatful for that. Ramen, soup, cerel, toast a nd mashed potatoes are my regular food. Alex and I have an appointment to donate plasma for about 300 dollars a month for some extra money which im kinda nervous about but excited for the money. I dont know what i plan on doing for next semester yet wether i want to stay up here with a loan or go some place else, im just not sure yet. Well I'm loving life, Im hoping you all are too cause its wonderful. Read yours scriptures chelsea, they are awesome. Also keep your head up, youll make it through your freshman year and high school will fly by. (I can still remember when me and dad were hometeaching sis. Rusted and she told me the exact same thing. and i said well it isnt flying by fast enough)Keep bugging me about writing on the blog mom, ill keep calling you just to talk. Ashley, don't grow up to fast, or youll freak me out when i get home. Dad, hows the bishopless life treating you? Joe, i was freakin excited when i heard you were moving to utah! you gotta come up here and visit me. Well i think this is almost a book now and its only covered a week so i better go.
This is Tanner Signing out. Stay tuned for more Adventures of Tan in the YI!
Edit: Leave some comments on the posts, I like reading those!

Decisions Decisions

Well hello family if everything goes good ill see you all here in a couple days. Even though everybody already knows, I'm moving to Utah sometime next week. I'll probably just work till i get my residency in Utah then ill go to school and by then I should have enough money to just go to school and not have to work at the same time which really sucks!! Well i gtg. love ya bye

Volleyball

So this is going to be short but at the moment i am in extreme pain. Well we had a game today and we were clobbered big time by heights. Well as you know i got my ears pierced thursday and ur supposed to not take them out for 6 weeks well my coaches made me take out my earrings and by the end of the game i couldn't get them back in. I finally got them in and my ears are throbbing like crazy so i just thought i would write bye.

 

 ashley

Families and Friends

I am in homeroom right now and i thought i should write about the Arizona trip that we just got home from. Well on the way up there was ok not as fun as it could've been if Tanner and Joseph were here. So when we got there we went to the hotel and it was a pretty good hotel. We saw the swimming pool and it was flippin small so i wasn't too excited about that but anyway, we went to aunt Verda before we checked into the room. We went to her house and talked with her for a little bit then we went back and checked into the hotel. We got inside and immediately started watching tv. Well we got hungry so we went back to Verda's to get dinner. Greg and Shirley's family was there so i started hanging out with Hailee and i showed her my earrings (guess what???? chelsea and i got our ears pierced i know amazing huh) and we had some chicken. Well then we took Hailee back to the hotel with us so we could go swimming with her. We tested the water and it was the coldest thing i have ever felt we were surprised there was no ice chunks floating on the top of the water. Dad bellyflopped into the water and just about froze but the rest of us got in and it was dark in the water because it was night time. We Got out and went back to the hotel and went to sleep. The next morning we went back to Verda's and had the most amazing breakfast ever pancakes and this amazing vanilla syrup. Then we went down to the church and played there for a while. Then everyone else came and we started playing all these amazing things like sing star and guitar hero and all that kinda stuff. Well then dad, chelsea, hailee, holly, steven(i think), and i went to a lake to swim in i cant think of the name at the moment but we found out that hailee can't swim. she would hang on everyone and everything till it just about sank but we had fun anyway. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next day at church we played with baby Kael until he was not happy he is such a chunker now he's huge. We went back to Verda's and then went to the hotel and i stepped on some kinda slug and it exploded under my foot it was sooooo gross. Then we went home and went to bed. That is pretty much what happened so Joseph and Tanner you missed some great fun. I love you bye.

Huh? Did you say something?!

This is our family now. Thanks to Farmington Municipal Schools, Ashley has her own computer, Chelsea has the home computer, Kent has a work computer as do I. Consequently, many nights we all sit together and work on different things, TOGETHER. That is what I call togetherness, huh?

Life is... Life

Hola Familia,
Haha Mr. Marrett (spanish) is paying off. So Tanner, Joe, and Ashley have written so I better before mom drives me insane. So freshman year is retarded, so far I hate not being able to go off campus for lunch. While all my upper classmen friends (Tanith Hanna Matt etc.) are, but I'm glad they sometimes they bring me food :) Tanner I hope you love collage. You better for how excited you were and that dose suck (stink for you mother) that your roommates are football faniticks. But I think you'll be fine. As you said its a lifetime of efy, and at efy you can always find someone to hang out with. Joe just go to collage. lol i love you though. It is so flippin werid to have to whole downstairs to myself . Haha Joe and Tan you were right the bathroom is the dirtest I've ever seen it, make-up is everywhere and all this crap (crude for you mother). School is so hard. It like drains me I feel like I'm going to just break down and sleep. I know I need to find the goodness in it but I just cant find it maybe its hiding. (that joke was for mom haha) Ashley I'm so proud of you for making jv. Now just work your butt (bum for mom) off and you will not regret it its sooo much fun to be on varstiy it makes you feel so good about yourself. I'm loving volleyball at the high school. Tanner you know the last thing you said to me before you left well I applied it and I can totally tell a difference. my life is sooo much more fun! Thanks Tanner. Well Tan the one friend tht you hung out with is the one that I found is the most fun (matt). Matthew is just being so stupid. He talks to me when he wants and thats it. Caroline and I went to this stake activity yesterday and I had alot of fun. Tanner I would like you to know that after caroline and i set up something afterwards. We went to a movie at ricketts park they played enchanted it was fun a bunch of people came. It felt weird without you there, but I met this kid who is named nick he is 14 but he looks like he's 17 haha he's a forigen exchange student. he's so sweet. He reminds me of Alejandro, but his accent sounds is hotter lol. Lakin I think likes him haha finally, a guy she likes. Well i miss you Tanner and Joe. Dad is doing good he hasnt driven me insane. (yet.) Mom is driving me insane though with her "your not going anywhere while your grades look like that" talk. Ashley is.. Ashley. She is my sister and I love her.
Well love you family.
Chelsea your daughter, Sister.

The Adventures of Tanner in the YI 1

I finally made it onto the site, crazy huh? Well lets see what i got to report on, besides like everything! We went to utah on tuesday because some certain law people had to give a ticket for expired insurance so i was not happy about that. Well we arrived and i decided to go shopping the next day at DI and the Gateway mall. I didnt find anything suprisingly so i went to the mall by grandmas house and Chel-c let me tell you that that mall is a ton better than gateway just so you know if you ever convince mom to take you shopping in this world. So the later we headed up to Idaho. I was pretty nervous on the way up there I wont lie. We arrived up to Alda house and talked to her for a while. I found out that she is an amazingly nice and fun lady. (And mom if your wondering, I have every intention of going to go visit her sometime). We than went to bed and woke up and headed out to my new home, the BYUI. We signed in, went and found out that i couldnt get a computer from the school which was way not cool but ended up being a good thing in the end but anyway.... than went to my apartment for the first time. Went in and to my suprise some guys were in there, not moving in but out. The place was a MESS!! mildew all through the refrigerator, every surface had some sort of residue on it and it was just nasty! I did not want to move in after them. So me and mom, i mean mom and i.... left and went and did differnt things here and there and came back and our apartment was clean....luckily! Oh yah during this time i had meet up with my i team, which was an important part to my college transition. In my i team was my first roomate, Coy. (Sorry Matt it wasnt George) The chicks in my group to were really fun, the ones worth mentioning were Jodi and Sami. So yah throughout all my activities and i hung out with Jodi and Sami and Coy. Than later on in some activity, I saw alex morrow standing in some line by himself so i went up and talked to him and he wasnt checked in he had just saw a big group of people walking to some place and he decided to follow them. Haha the same old alex. So he went and checked in and...yah end of that lol. During the free time me and alex hung out and went and played 360 at his place and drove around, im not totally carless! yes! After this day was over mom took me home from Ashleys parents house and when i got there it was 11 and my roomate still wasnt home which really confused me cause hes not exactly a social butterfly so i decided id wait up for him and went for a run around the campus (45 mins all the way around the campus, not cool) Coy didnt get home till 1 which was crazy. Then went to bed and that day was done. Next day had a bunch of I team activities and got my computer from a local computer store thanks to mom. Also my other roomates moved in today and they both are Football fanatics, which is so freakin not cool its not even funny but oh well ill live with it. And off the top of my head i think that this is all worth mentioning from today...next day we did I team stuff too and went to this i night extravagansa or something like that, it was a huge activity that had a BUNCH of activities. Laser tag sumo wrestling, boxing, bungie cord things, ddr, free GOOD food, rollerskating, the list goes on FOREVER it was so much fun. Hung out with Alex Sami and a girl named ashley the whole time, it was fun. After that was over we went over to some persons apartment, (i dont remeber whos it was, i think it was like jodis friends apartment or something) and we played catch phrase, it was way fun. Than we had church today which was AMAZING, it was fast and testimoney meeting and it was way freakin awesome,
in the middle of sacrament though i sat next to this big fat guy and since its a singles ward the whole ward was quiet throughout the whole meeting and this guy kept sleeping and SNORING! way way freakin loud, it sounded like he was gonna eat me or something it was scary. and then the worst part was he would do those sudden loud snores when he like wakes himself up and those were the worst cause they would make me jump. it was crazy.
after church though, i went with the elders quorum president and did fast offerings and it was fun and then after that it brings me home to now where I am.
Well this is Tanner siging out, please stay tuned for The Adventures of T in the YI
Well i just wanna say, THANK YOU mom for bringing me up here and helping me get all settled in and situated, it really ment alot and helped a bunch for sure! LOVE YAH!

Heylo family!!! Well mom finally got me onto this thing we'll see how long it will last. Lets see my car is in trouble again, the cotter pin popped out and now my bolt is stripped and wont go on so im gunna have to go see what I can do to fix it. I was outside for maybe fifteen minutes and I came inside and I was drenched it was so friken hot out there!!! Just had a new roommated move in today, i cant member her name but oh well, she is black and seems pretty cool. My other roommates, Jon and Nate, Nate is pretty cool I watched some TV with him yesterday we talked bout some stuff. Now Jon on the other hand, i think he has said maybe a total of 20 words to me since i've lived here (and i think he ate my package of ham :(). I started work the other day on friday. I missed work, I was going crazy not working, i missed it and i need the money. Well im gunna go watch my dirty jobs now :) ttyl have fun Love Ya'll

Hey Familia

Hi this is Ashley and I have finally got to contribute to this blog. First of all I'd like to say Joe if you're reading this I miss you and I love you be happy. Second Tanner if you are reading this I know you probably haven't been away for a long time but I miss you anyway. School is awesome and my teacher's are so cool. I love you all. See ya'll.

Not funny....Blood....

Another random blog from the Applegate household....

Charlie Bit Me....

The kids and I have been watching these two videos and have loved them. Thought we'd share...

Joe is gone...

Yesterday, Joe got into his car and drove away -- again -- to Las Cruces. I always hate to say goodbye to my kids, but when they drive away so far and in the complete opposite direction of where I am accustomed to taking my vacations -- it is twice as hard.

He called last night and sounded so lonely. His girl friend (notice the space -- it kind of changes the whole meaning) Morgan has said she doesn't want to get back together, so he is embarking on a whole new life -- complete with new acquaintances that HE will have to make. He has said that he will got to the Single's ward there and probably FHE, so I am putting it in Heavenly Father's hands and letting Him watch over my boy.

Write and call home Jo-Jo.




This was a cake from Tanner's 18th birthday. He is finally a major and no longer a minor....

Here a little, there a little....

We just got back from a lovely trip, along the Wasatch way...
We stopped off at South Jordan to spend a holiday...
We called on dear or grandma-ma to see what we could see...
She took me in her workshop and told her plans to me...

Okay, my little ADHD head just couldn't resist the above. As many of you know, we (Chels, Ash and I) just got back from a lovely trip to Utah. Mom is so cordial and always makes you feel so welcome. She lets you know how anxious she is to have you come back. Thanks again Mom!

I had a workshop to attend so I packed the girls in the car (the boys have to work) and we headed north to Utah. You know, my little car knows the way and so it was so easy. The girls are good travelers and so.... zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom (said in the best "elfie" voice) we were there.

This was a low budget trip so we didn't hit any of the movies (there really weren't any that we HAD to see) but we did go to lunch once and dinner once with Mom. Also, I don't know if it is planned -- it really isn't but we also seem to hit it right at the BSS -- with Kristi, Ben and Gwen joining us too (FUN!).

Here are some of the pics of that night....

Cache me if you can...

I know, I know... the Fourth of July is a holiday designed for families . . . after all that is the day we won our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of barbeques. In our family's case, we do most of our celebrating strange, we go to the fireworks on the third and spend time together doing fun things on the 5th. (We pretty much vegged on the 4th and watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for about the trillionth time!)

Anyway, Kent and Joseph came up with a really fun thing to do called Geocaching. For those who have never done it, there are people who go into wherever and create a "cache" -- hiding it in plain sight. They put different things in this cache and then go online. On a specific website they list the GPS coordinates for everyone who see if they can find their "cache".

So on this crazy Fifth of July holiday the Kent Applegates turned into treasure hunters and headed out into the wilds (really we just four-wheeled across the wild terrain in our van -- I'm not too good without an air conditioner!) We actually looked for three different ones here in the Farmington area (out by the lake, up in the wilderness behind the high school and over by where they do the 4-wheel rock climbing competition every year). We were able to find 2 of them hidden pretty well (see the pictures), but the best part of the whole day was we really had a lot of fun doing it. We ended the fun day by going to the Gem and Mineral Show downtown that the city was putting on with the rest of the Fourth of July celebrations. It was cool to look at the different rocks, Kent had an in-depth conversation with one of the rock polisher guys / cutters and Tanner and Chelsea took a nice bonding time out sleeping in the hallway while we waited for Joe and Dad looking at the rocks after the above mentioned convo (okay, they did come in and look at all the rocks first).

We came home and had leftover steaks from the Fourth of July (oh yeah, we did do that) and ate a seeded watermelon (I know, I know Mom / Grandma -- I didn't buy it!).

All in all, it was a great day!

Ooh, Aaw and Ashes...

Okay, I finally have something that I want to share. I have had this blog for quite some time now but have never posted anything to it because I am not as clever as some other blog writers (you know who you are Kristi Bassett!), but I have finally decided that now is the time -- it is time to write.

The other day I decided I needed to hone my photography skills so I took Ashley out in the garden and we took some pictures (see the slide show). I kept the ones I really liked and even threw in a few of my (and her) flower pictures -- since Ash is part of MY "old-fashioned garden" Press Here.

Then last night, we had the delightful opportunity to attend the Fourth of July celebration up at the church. I know, it was really the Third of July but for some funky reason the city always does it on the third. So about 8:30 at night / evening we all headed up to the church because, after all, it is tradition. The streets are filled with people from every nation, kindred, tongue and people and quite a few of them land on our church parking lot / lawn. I figure it is good PR work for the church although we don't really do anything more than just water and mow our lawn.

Then let the show begin. For being a town of roughly 50,000 people (servicing around 100,000 if you count the reservation from nearby Navajo lands) the city puts on a FANTASTIC show -- rivaling any I have seen anywhere else -- including Disneyland. Here are a few shots from last night in my slideshow. The funnest part though, other than just sitting and gabbing with friends (who we consider to be our family here in Farmington) was listening to these two little kids who were sitting about 10 feet behind us. As EVERY firework would go off, they would ooh and aww like it was the only firework that had gone off or would go off. They were so excited. They were truly capturing the spirit of the entire evening and as I looked around at my family (even my big boys were there with us) I couldn't help but think, "ooh, aww" as I watched them interact with their friends and each other (the boys even let Chelsea come with them later to shoot off fireworks). It was truly a magical night.

You'll notice some pics at the end of the show of some hot air balloons. Kent got up at 0-dark-hundred and went out to Bloomfield to see the first balloon festival they have held. It definitely wasn't as big as the one I saw in Provo, nor even as big as the ones in Farmington on Memorial Day, but for a first time I thought it was a pretty good showing.

All pictures are posted on my Picasa web album page.

Fourth of July farmington 2008