We woke up this Christmas morning to about 2 feet of snow, it is very pretty and appropriate if you are staying home and hanging with the family.

Santa came to our house and it looks like he decided to stay:

Santa is also known as Peter

We enjoyed opening presents at 6:45am this morning and then the older people went back to bed for awhile.  Now we are just lazing around and eating, the perfect Christmas day!

Awesome day of vacation:

Slept in until 9:00
Did lots of nothing
Worked out for 50 minutes on the bike at the gym with Audrey and Emma
Went out to lunch with Brian and Audrey
Listened to Jim Gaffigan on Lauren's computer
Watched BYU lose (dang!)
Delivered Emma's treats to her friends
Delivered a treat to my librarian friend and a share the gift card
Ate nachos for dinner
Watched movies with the family

AAHHHH!

On another note, Palmer got a letter from Utah State University giving him a $13,000 stipend for his first year of school.  Very cool.

Reunion Sunday

Our Sacrament Meeting Christmas Program was very nice.  I was up on the stand the entire meeting which gave me a great view of my entire family sitting together on the bench!  Audrey and Lauren arrived safe and sound on Saturday afternoon.  Nothing compares to going to bed at night knowing all your children are safe under the same roof.

Audrey came with me to a girls night out party with some of the women in our ward last night.  We ate and did Just Dance!  It was pretty funny seeing us old women dancing, but Audrey was a good sport and even tried it as well!

We are looking for some new things to do this Christmas season since many of our old traditions we don't have access to up here.  We've found some light displays in Powell and Cody which is just a short hour and a half away that we may go to on Christmas Eve.

I'm looking forward to this week.  All my shopping is done and all I have to do is hang with the family.

They arrived safe and sound!  We all went to see Palmer wrestle his second guy and he lost.  But he pinned this guy later today:

Okay, so I'm waiting for my girls to walk in the door any minute and I'm trying to find something to do while I'm waiting, I'm just a little excited!  Palmer wrestled again today and pinned his guy in a little over a minute.  He looked great!  Emma cheered as well, here is a great picture of her and her cheer friends.

Quick update:

Palmer pinned his guy in the dual wrestling meet today against Riverton in the second period!

Emma cheered at the meet for her debut as a cheerleader and did a great job!

Brian filled in for me as a room mom in Peter's first grade class for their Christmas party.

I spent the day (from 6:15am--7:00pm) in Billings going to the temple and shopping with my new friend Holly.

Audrey and Lauren get here tomorrow!

Eastside Elementary Christmas Concert

It was Lucy and Peter's Elementary school Christmas concert last night.  It was really cute.  I tried to film the entire concert, but I didn't have enough memory, so here's all I got!  The concert was only 1st through 3rd grade which made it nice and short.  The 4th and 5th grades didn't have one for some reason.  Eric wasn't too disappointed in that fact.

A friend and I were planning a temple/Christmas shopping trip to Billings today, but we decided not to go.  The roads are just not looking good.  We are going to shoot for Thursday, hopefully there will be some melting going on by then.

Here is our decorated family room.  The tree looks better in these pictures than in real life!

It's really cool to have a fireplace mantle to hang the stockings on this year.

Palmer had his senior pictures taken while we were in Utah for Thanksgiving.  Here is one of them, I will be getting the rest later.  He thinks his face looks a little swollen for some reason.

Handsome dude!

It snowed!  And although it's pretty, it's also very slick.  Brian drove the kids to seminary this morning so they wouldn't have to slide around the roads.

Brian's work party on Saturday was really nice.  Not everyone came, but those that did had fun I hope.  We had food, played a game, and exchanged white elephant gifts.  Some of his employees were a little skeptical that they could go to a party and have a good time without alcohol, so I hope we proved them wrong!  (Although I'm pretty sure they headed to the bar after they left our house.)

We finally put our tree up and found out that trees look much smaller in their natural habitat than they do in your house!  It was much too tall and Brian had to cut a bunch off.  The tree isn't exactly well proportioned and it's branches aren't very sturdy.  So while we were decorating it it fell over on top of Peter!  It's a good thing it's not too heavy.  Peter thought it was hilarious.  I can only hang very light paper type ornaments on it.  We haven't got the second tree up yet because we don't have a tree stand for it and there isn't anywhere to buy one here.  Shopko was all sold out when we checked there and surprisingly Bloedorn doesn't carry them.  I'm sure Brian can figure some way to get it up.

Palmer got home from South Dakota late Saturday night.  He lost both his matches.  One was against the guy who came in 2nd at state last year.  He feels like the will be able to beat him the next time he goes against him.  It helps to know your competition.  Our school came in 15th out of about 40 schools there, so that's not too bad.

Since our house was all decked out for Christmas we decided to invite a family over last night for Brian's awesome cinnamon rolls.  It was a lot of fun!  Brian made a lot of rolls and after it was over Andy said he ate 8 of them!  Really Andy, I believe that's the definition of a pig!

Andy's basketball season ended on Saturday.  His team came in 3rd.  He coach was impressed with how much he has improved since the beginning of the season.  Andy has decided to try wrestling.  The middle school wrestling season doesn't start until January.  It will be nice to see Andy after school now that he doesn't have practice for awhile.

Bloedorn had Santa come to the store on Saturday and I had the kids go see him.

Eric is not too excited to be sitting on Santa's lap

Lucy loves Santa as you can tell by her blurry face

It took some coercing to get Peter on Santa's lap

He's warming up to Santa a little.  This time he asked Santa for a rope to go with the box.  

On the way home from Andy's basketball game in Greybull on Saturday Emma took a bunch of selfies with her and the kids.  Here is just one of the many:

Palmer left this morning for South Dakota for his first wrestling meet.  He decided to wrestle at 160 pounds after trying to lose enough to wrestle at 152.  He got down to 155 at the initial weigh in and decided to go back up to 160, which makes me very happy, he was really eating nothing for a week or so to lose those last pounds and it's not like he has anything to lose as he has 9% body fat.  Last season he had 6% body fat--way to gain some weight dude!

Andy was ordained a teacher on Sunday by Brian.  His tongue is healing nicely after his minor surgery.  He drank smoothies for a day or so and is back to normal now.  He plays his last basketball game tomorrow in the tournament.  I don't think they will win, but could possibly come in 3rd.  His team has been practicing with the high school team this last week and is really worn out!  He comes home and eats everything in sight!

We had our Ward Christmas Dinner on Wednesday night.  I was in charge of the entire program!  It was a little challenging since I'm not completely aware of what people can do and who to ask to do it, but everyone said it turned out well.  I thought it was a little rough, but everyone seemed to have fun. I had the Youth do a human Christmas tree, Emma and two others played Christmas songs on the flute, I played the harp, the primary kids sang, we sang carols, and had a nativity. At the end Mr. and Mrs. Claus came.  The food was great and there was a lot of it. There was a very large turn out with every chair taken, about 240+ people there.  Many people brought their neighbors and lots of less active members came as well.

Tomorrow is Brian's work Christmas party at our house.  I haven't even started putting up Christmas things yet, so that is the project today!  I felt very indulged yesterday as I finished reading an entire book on my kindle (Slated, a dystopian young adult novel by Teri Terry), it was nice to relax after the Christmas party planning.  

Lucy is finishing out her two weeks of swimming lessons as part of the elementary school curriculum.  She has really loved it and swam the length of the deep end without stopping the other day!  The coach says she's good and should come out for swimming!  

Emma brought home her cheerleading uniform last night.  She has been so busy lately, she went to the state drama competition, she has cheerleading practice everyday after school, and she has been helping with the flag corp tryouts for next year.  The coach asked her to be the captain of the flag corp for next year as well.  I had to check her out of school so she could get her homework done!  Then yesterday she told me she is thinking of going out for the soccer team in the spring because cheer ends at the end of basketball season!  EMMA, stop!  I had to remind her school is for academic learning, not every extracurricular activity you can fit in!  

Emma and Palmer had their band concert the other night.  They played well, even though I wanted more than 3 songs from the band and 3 from the jazz band.  They provide tuxes for the guys to wear and black dresses for the girls, so everyone looks really nice.  The band teacher is very good at picking songs that they can play well.  They don't have the most talented bunch of people, but they played well at their level.  There isn't an orchestra here and I miss hearing more musical things sometimes.  The choir also sang at the concert and did not do so well.  There was only about 30 members and the director, who is new this year, picked songs that were too hard for them.  I would have rather not listened to them and heard more band stuff, well actually just more pieces where Palmer was rockin' the drum set really.  

Picture overload!

We bought two tags from the Forest Service and drove for 45 minutes up in the mountains, hiked a ways and chopped down two Christmas trees!  It was awesome!

Palmer and Peter trying not to collapse two feet into the snow

Hiking up the snowmobile trails

Lucy Lou

Palmer and Andy spot a tree

Palmer and Andy on their way to chop down the tree

Palmer and Andy in the process of chopping

Brian hiking over to the perfect tree

Brian knee deep in snow

Lucy got a little tired of walking

Eric looks so excited to be out in the freezing cold!

My two sweet boys!

Dad with the perfect tree

Bringing the tree out of the forest

My man struggling with the tree

Almost to the truck

Sliding down the hill

Andy fell up to his waist in the snow

Ready to go home, all 8 of us crammed in the truck!

It was really a fun trip!  The trees are a little Charlie Brownish, but they are ours!

Andy and I took a trip to Powell this morning.  It's about an hour and a half away from Worland.  He had an appointment with an oral surgeon to look at the growth on the under side of his tongue.  He had a similar one a year and a half ago and had it removed.  I guess it's a salivary gland that is growing out of his tongue.  Anyway, the closest oral surgeons are in Billings, but they do come to Powell every 6 weeks ago and use an orthodontist's office there so people don't have to go all the way up to Billings.  The surgeon took the growth off which was bigger than the last one and now Andy has a bunch of stitches on the under side of his tongue.  He is in quite a bit of pain as well.  I wish I could run to Jamba Juice and get him a smoothie!  He has to have liquids until tomorrow.  Thankfully the roads were clear the entire trip.  On the way there we saw two bald eagles!  Very cool. I don't think I've ever seen one before.

Emma left for Gillette this morning with the drama team.  It's the state drama competition and it lasts until Saturday night.  She isn't acting, but is doing set design and lighting.  I saw her set design for Blythe Spirit and it looked pretty good.  I didn't know she could do that!

Lucy is in the middle of her class's rotation for swimming lessons.  She is loving it!  She is sad she has to miss one recess to go, but says it is worth it.

We are hoping to cut our own Christmas tree this year.  The permits are only $8 which is so much cheaper than buying a real or fake one.  Once we get it then I will start putting up decorations, hopefully we can go this weekend.

We took a picture of all of us (my kids, my mom, and my sister and her husband) when we were in Utah.  Amazingly enough, we all look normal!  We are a little photographically challenged!

All of us in front of my mom's house on Wednesday November 26th.  The weather was beautiful!

The list of last times has started!  Palmer said as he left for wrestling practice, "this is the last first day of wrestling season practice in high school for me."  Last Thanksgiving and Christmas with Palmer before his mission.  It's not too fun to look at it that way!

The temperature has dropped again.  On Saturday it reached into the 50's and then within an hour dropped to the teens!  It's amazing how fast it can get cold!  We just got the rest of the ice hacked off the driveway before it went down to freezing again.  It was -5 this morning.

I have sweet Lucy home sick today with the stomach nasties.  I think she is over the throwing up now and is just tired out.  She was so disappointed to miss school today.  Now we wait, to see if all of us will end up getting it!  The irony is that just last night I was thinking how nice it has been to not have anyone throw up in such a long time!  NEVER think that!

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner again last night.  They are really wonderful, happy, fun girls.  We lose the one soon, she is going home on the 13th of December.

18 days until my lovely girls fly up here for Christmas, I can't wait!

Yesterday we went to our town's Christmas light parade!  How cool is it that this town that is soooo cold still has a parade the day after Thanksgiving!  It was a little warmer than it has been, in the 30's, so it wasn't too painful.  It lasted about 15 minutes and then everyone went to the grocery store which had free chili and hot chocolate.  And get this, the chili was homemade!  Someone from the chamber of commerce spent two days making it!  Small town score!

I decided to do some Black Friday shopping yesterday.  I walked into the Shopko Hometown store, picked up the things I needed and walked out in 10 minutes.  Yeah, Black Friday here really isn't a thing!  Brian had to work yesterday from 6:30am to close and said there was about 5 people who came in.  I'm not sure the lumber yard is the place to be on Black Friday.

I'm nearly down with my Christmas shopping, which is such a change for this shop on Christmas Eve girl.  I think I'm liking how prepared I am!

This morning as we are listening to Bing Crosby sing Lucy came up to me and said, "Mom, I learned how to blow a bubble and do Sudoku!"  Such accomplishments!

Day after Thanksgiving and we are back home in Wyoming.  The drive to Utah was a little unsettling!  We hit south pass (which is where the Willie handcart company got stuck) and the winds were blowing 65+ mph (there is an electric sign that tells you how fast the winds are blowing), blowing snow, slick roads, and to top it all off the ranchers were moving cattle that day, so 100's of cows were on the side of the roads.  The visibility was really poor as well.  It took us an hour or so to get passed that.  Then the roads were dry with no rain or snow or anything for a couple of hours.  At Evanston we hit snow that got worse around Park City, then Heber was clear, but Provo Canyon was pouring rain!  Every kind of weather!  Here is a picture I took that doesn't show what it was really like at south pass:

The road looked like dry ice the wind was blowing up so much snow!

The days in Utah were lovely!  I loved seeing Audrey and Lauren and my mom and sister and Brian's parents!  I got to see so many of my friends and enjoy the wonderful weather!  My kids were going outside in bare feet!

We had our Thanksgiving Feast on Wednesday with my mom and enjoyed all the food, especially Palmer's Peanut Butter Pie!

The drive back was really nice--completely dry and minimal winds.  We ate leftover turkey and rolls in the car on the way home since it was Thanksgiving Day.  We listened to Palmer's rock play list from his ipod on the way home and it helped to make the time go by.  Aerosmith and the Cars, and Styx are a great way to spend your time when you are stuck in a car for 7 hours!

As we were going over south pass and since the weather wasn't so bad, (only about 30 degrees and the wind was only 35 mph) we took the turn off that I've wanted to take ever since we moved up here.  It said the Willie Handcart site was just a mile off the road.  It was a dirt road and we followed it for awhile without finding a marker.  You could see the wagon ruts from all the wagon trains off the side of the road which was very cool.  We finally turned back.  I looked it up later and saw that it was really 9 miles off the road and it was the Rocky Ridge site.  It's a smaller site compared to the Martin Handcart site in Casper.  It was pretty sobering as I looked around and saw the barren landscape and the winter weather and thought about those poor pioneers being out in the elements with many of them losing their lives.  It really brought home what they went through.  We would like to go back in the spring and really spend some time there.

Slow day today, Brian's working and the kids are getting caught up on their homework.  No black Friday shopping for us!

Utah bound!  Tomorrow we leave the frozen state of Wyoming and enter the heat wave in Utah!  Can't wait!

Few bits of good news:

• Emma is now an official Worland High School Warriors cheerleader!  Go Emma!
• Brian made it safely to Billings without hitting any wildlife (although a raccoon almost lost it's life) and is enjoying the weather in Fort Wayne Indiana.
• Palmer is fine and the van almost fine after sliding into an electrical pole on the way to seminary yesterday.  Just a little ding on the front of the van.  
• Palmer got accepted to Utah State University

That's all there is to report here in the land of ice and snow!  

I've discovered that I need to go shopping as soon as I hit Utah on Saturday.  I was getting ready for church and realized that my only good winter boots are bright yellow and didn't really go with my dress today, so I slipped on my strappy sandels with my maxi skirt sans socks.  I walked out the door at 9:06am and the temperature was -11 degrees.  Within 10 seconds my toes hurt.  5 minutes later when we arrived at the church building my toes were bright red and hurt soooo bad.  Obviously I need warm church shoes.  Emma said I should just wear the yellow boots and deal with it.

I was sustained today as the Ward Music Chairmen and Sacrament meeting chorister.  Something I can totally do!  I have two Christmas programs to put together.  The ward Christmas dinner is Dec. 10th and I'm in charge of the program anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour and I can do whatever I want.  And I'm in charge of the Sacrament meeting Christmas program as well.  Woohoo!  I'm  excited to get started.  Of course the first thing I had to do was to get a substitute for next Sunday since I will be in  Utah!

My talk went well today and Andy did a great job as well.  I got to play the piano in primary again today, such a fun place to be!

Brian is getting ready to brave the arctic weather and drive to Billings so he can fly to Fort Wayne Indiana.  We won't see him until late late Friday night.  I'll miss him!

These are my dear children as they get ready to brave the -20 temps on their short walk to school.  I'm sure you can tell how happy they are!
It's amazing how much warmer 12 degrees above zero feels after you've experienced the other side!

Andy's game was not canceled today.  He played Riverton and they won.  He was playing really well, I luckily caught his foul and successful free throws on camera.  He is #13.

And this is what we do when it's too cold to do anything else at our house!

And another one:

We got some lovely snow today that warmed us up a bit.  On the bright side this snow is very dry and light so it's easy to shovel.  Not so easy if you want to build a snowman, however.

Apparently I spoke too soon.  It got down to -27 this week!  I'm starting to wonder where I really moved, did I take a wrong turn and end up in Nome Alaska, or Canada?  It's amazing what that kind of temperature feels like.  It warmed up to 12 degrees today and snowed a little.  There is a BIG difference between -27 and 12 degrees above zero.  I've never been more thankful for a warm house and warm clothes and cars that work.  I noticed on facebook that other places that got part of this arctic storm closed their schools.  Not Wyoming, they just take it in stride.  Andy's basketball game was canceled on Thursday in Cody.  The roads are pure ice and they didn't want the to risk the drive.

Our family has been saddened by the news of the death of our dear bishop from the Orem Park 8th ward.  Bishop Loveless fell ill shortly after we moved and was in the hospital for weeks without the doctors knowing what was wrong.  They finally diagnosed encephalitis and his family decided to let him go and took him off the machines that were keeping him alive.  His funeral is on Monday.  He was so young (61) and in great health.  His youngest son is Lauren's age and is on a mission.  I don't think he will be coming home for the funeral.  It's been really hard on our ward.  They have been fasting on and off for weeks for him.  He was a wonderful man and said so many kind words to our family.  Our hearts go out to his wife and children.

Christmas is starting to come to our in house in the form of boxes from Amazon!  It's so exciting!  I now need a place to store all of these things beyond the prying eyes of my children.

Brian leaves on Sunday for Indiana again for more training.  I'm sure the weather there will be lots better than here!  He will be gone until Friday and then we leave for Utah on Saturday! Woohoo!  We all can't wait!

Brrrrrrrr............

Wow.  Wow.  I thought I had experienced cold in Utah.  This is serious cold.  It's 7 degrees outside with a wind chill of -8!  They won't let the kids go outside for recess when the wind chill reaches below zero.  Peter, Lucy, and Eric walked the half a block to school completely bundled up, boots, hats, coat, gloves, etc.  Even Andy and Palmer succumbed and wore coats today.  Just opening the door for a few seconds cools your house down about 10 degrees!  This is crazy!  I set the heater to 64 degrees last night and I think it was on all night!  I don't dare turn off the heater completely because we would be icicles in our beds in the morning!  And I just discovered last night that Emma and Lucy's bedroom doesn't have a heater vent!  WHAT?!  They say they haven't been cold, but I think they need to sleep with their door open to get some heat in there.  Maybe I need to invest in electric blankets!  I'm going to leave the fireplace on all day today, it's so warm and cozy in the basement, I'm hanging out there today.

Lucy had her first basketball practice last night.  She's pretty excited about playing since she has never played before.  The high school girls basketball team came and helped with the first practice.

Since it's too cold to do anything but stay inside I've been Christmas shopping online!  It's actually more fun than I thought it would be.  I had to warn the kids that if any packages come and they open them they will get a big lump of coal for Christmas!  Peter wrote up his Christmas list and it's hysterical.  Here is what he wants:

-small batteries
-hex bug
-gatorade
-twinkies
-watermelon gum
-a watermelon
-rope
-a hibiscus flower
-a fake beard
-coal

Apparently twinkies is the theme this year since Eric also asked for it along with coconut cream pie, the lego movie and a lego mini figure.  Lucy is still working on her list, I'm sure it will be a winner as well!

Well, I am going to go sit by the fire and get warm!

Brian and I went on a date last night to the thriving metropolis of Greybull.  It's about 35 minutes north of Worland and has around 1800 people.  I have been asking around about places to go and do things and someone suggested a restaurant in Greybull that is an old speakeasy.  It was pretty cool and very authentic.  The hotel was once a center of bootlegging and there are still tunnels underneath it where they would run the alcohol so as to not get caught.  The food was just average, but I've come to not expect fabulous restaurant food here and it wasn't bad.  The drive was about like driving to Salt Lake except it wasn't!  The time was about the same, but the drive was much more relaxing than driving I-15!

Before we went to Greybull we went to a wedding of one of Brian's employees.  He was married at the LDS church by the bishop.  It was a small short sweet wedding.  Both the bride and groom used to live in Alpine Utah and now live here in Worland.  It's amazing how many people have ended up here who never thought about moving to Wyoming!

Andy did well in his two basketball games even though his team lost both games.  In the game against Powell they lost by 23 points!  They had two players who were over 6 feet tall in 8th grade!  Andy was assigned to guard the one guy who was probably 6'4"!  He did a great job and made a bunch of points, but it was nearly impossible to beat this team.  I don't know what they are feeding those kids in Powell!

The primary program was amazing today!  It was probably one of the best I've seen.  The kids were so reverent sitting up on the stand and all of them sang!  They didn't have them sit in their classes, but had the older kids sitting among the younger ones.  There were very few teachers sitting up with their classes and the kids did great!  It was Eric's last primary program and he said he was glad!  I love the feelings of the Spirit when the children sing.  It's the best sacrament meeting of the year!

We got a call from the bishop today and Andy and I get to speak next Sunday in church!  Andy is not happy about that fact at all!  I'm speaking on Elder Robbins conference talk, "Which Way Do You Face".  I also got extended a calling today, but I won't be sustained until next Sunday so you will have to just wait until next week to find out what it is!  Ha!

Brian looked at the weather forecast for the upcoming week:

Worland, Wyoming, Weather Forecasts -  Metric Units Print forecast  Days 1-7 Mon Nov 10 28°F Tue Nov 11 16°F Wed Nov 12 9°F Thu Nov 13 21°F Fri Nov 14 30°F Sat Nov 15 28°F Sun Nov 16 32°F 5°F -9°F -11°F 3°F 5°F   27°F NW 32 MPH Precip 90% NW 17 MPH Precip 50% SE 4 MPH   WSW 3 MPH   WNW 4 MPH Precip 20% SE 4 MPH   SE 4 MPH   Averages 49°F/22°F Averages 48°F/21°F Averages 47°F/21°F Averages 47°F/20°F Averages 46°F/20°F Averages 45°F/19°F Averages 45°F/19°F

It's 62 degrees right now.  So in three days it's dropping over 50 degrees!  How is that possible?!!  Help, I'm not ready!

I got to ride along with Brian yesterday as he went to Cody and Powell for work.  It was great!  We are both starting to feel better from this cold and it was nice to go someone where with Brian.  On the way home we stopped in Basin so Brian could fix a woman's windows he had installed.  She was very sweet and as we stopped for gas I took a picture of the beautiful evening.

I don't know if I never paid attention to the skies in Utah, but I love the skies here in Wyoming.  They always seem so majestic to me. The highlight of the trip was of course going to Walmart in Cody!  Any excuse to get to Walmart we take, things are so much cheaper there.  We stopped for lunch at Dairy Queen and they have orange julius' which I got!  It's been forever since I've had one.  I remember getting them in the University Mall when I was in high school.  I loved it!

As I was getting the pictures off my phone to put on the blog I saw this picture:

Peter stole my phone and had someone snap this picture!  He's such a goof ball!

When we got home that night a beautiful bouquet of flowers was waiting for me from my dear sister who sent them to help me feel better!  I love them and her!

Today Andy is playing basketball in Thermopolis.  Brian is already there and Emma and I will be leaving soon to go see him play.  Thermop (as they call it here) is just next door, a short 30 minutes away!  Palmer has started working at Brian's store on Saturdays as well as his work release class during the week.  He has a little more time now that football is over and wrestling doesn't officially start until December 1st.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, it's the primary program!  The best Sunday of the year.  It will be Eric's last time in the primary program.  I can't believe I will only have two kids left in primary soon and a son on a mission.  It seems just yesterday that I had at least two kids in diapers and I considered going to the grocery store without kids a grand adventure!  Time flies by too fast.

November in Worland

Beautiful bright blue skies, no snow, no rain.  I think the weather is worse in Utah now than here in Wyoming!  It's definitely cold at night-in the 20's, but during the day it warms right up.  I still have blooming snap dragons in my front flower beds.  I haven't even turned the heater on, we turn on the gas fireplace in the mornings and then after a few hours I turn it off and the house is warm enough for the rest of the day.  

I've got a post Halloween/change of the season cold.  I thought I would just shake it off, but it's taking a turn for the nasty.  It's amazing to be able to be sick and just rest!  I've never been able to do that before.  I've always had to go to work even if I'm sick or had a baby and/or toddler to take care of amidst my feeling yucky.  Yesterday I just took care of myself, wow what a blessing and luxury!  

Since it's November I have turned on the Christmas music and I'm loving it!  I don't think I can ever get enough of it.  I miss the radio stations playing Christmas music as soon as Halloween is over.  I'm still stuck with country music, the 50's music, or bad pop music.  The radio rarely comes on when I'm in the car.  Most people here have satellite radio in their cars, but my 2000 GMC 12 passenger van doesn't have that option unfortunately.  

Andy's basketball team played Thermopolis yesterday and they won by a land slide.  Palmer also had his football banquet and got his varsity letter for football.  His orange W looks exactly like Brian's orange W from his high school, they are twins!!

I'm luxuriating in this calm beautiful morning even though I'm sick.  I love the peacefulness of the house as I listen to music and have time to really read my scriptures without any interruption.  I'm so very thankful for this time in my life.  Our life has slowed down a bit since we moved and I think everyone is a little calmer and happier even though we miss many things we left behind.  I'm very glad we are just a short 7 hour road trip away from home!

Peter came and sang this for me today!  He was so proud of himself for making up this silly song I had to video him and share it!  He's a nut!

Halloween went well last night.  The two wards here combine to have a soup and rolls night and then a trunk or treat in the church parking lot.  It was so nice and stress free.  The kids got a lot of candy in a short amount of time and then we went home, my kind of night!  Emma and Eric went to a haunted house at the fair grounds that was kind of lame, but they had fun.  Peter went as Eric (he wore Eric's clothes and had me do his hair like Eric'), Lucy was a witch, Eric was the shoulder angel from Studio C, Andy wore his Mountain View High football jersey, Emma was Johnny Bench, and Palmer was nothing. 

Brian and I drove to Burlington today to watch Andy play in a basketball tournament.  It's about 40 minutes away, close in Wyoming standards.  It's a small town of about 250 people.  It's almost 100% LDS.  They have 2 wards there!  They lost their first game to Cody and won their second against Burlington.  Here's a few pictures.  Andy is #13.

Wow, a post two days in a row!  I finally bit the bullet and started putting pictures up.  I kept thinking I wanted to paint everything first, but I'm not liking all the pictures stacked in my bedroom.  So yesterday was the day!  These shelves that jut out of the fireplace make things really easy.  With the fire going it makes the family room really cozy!  I didn't get everything hung, but it's a start.  I'm loving the gas fireplace.  I can turn it on in the morning and it really heats up the basement to a comfy toasty temperature.  By 10:00 I can turn it off and we are good for the day.  The upstairs doesn't really need the heat yet because it has been getting quite warm by the afternoon.  Thank you Wyoming weather for not dropping your temperatures so drastically quite yet!

I also attacked our flower beds in the front of the house.  We have several over grown rose bushes so I hacked at them and got them pruned down with lots of major thorn pricks in the process.  I'm not a fan of rose bushes, they are so hard to keep up.  But, pulling them completely out is hard to do without losing a finger to the thorns.

Here's to another day of reading on my couch with the fire in the background, I'm loving this!

Chilly mornings are starting to be the norm.  It really warms up by the afternoon so the kids go to school with coats and then are sweating when they come home from school.  I didn't want to turn on the heat this morning, so I read my scriptures next to the fireplace.

It was so nice and cozy and warm!  Plus since it's a gas fireplace I only have to push a button!  The conveniences of the modern world, I can enjoy a crackling fire without the hassle of chopping wood, hauling it in the house, starting the fire, and smelling like smoke!

Emma finished her "baby" weekend and when she turned everything in to her teacher she said she got the highest grade in the class!  She's an expert!  Here's a few pictures of the baby.  Lucy loved it the most!

It looked a little creepy which was magnified by the extremely realistic baby noises it made randomly throughout the day and night.  The computer chip inside of it can tell how you are holding it and how fast you respond to it's crying.  The teacher said the other students didn't support it's neck well and Emma got full points on that.  It was a pretty realistic and cool experience which caused me to dream about having another baby!

With football over we see Palmer a lot more until wrestling starts.  He has used his time this week applying to colleges.  He finished Utah State's application yesterday and just has three essays left on the BYU application.  BYU's app is so much more involved, but he is almost done.  His birthday party with the missionaries went well.  The sister's are doing a great job here and we enjoyed getting to know them better.  One is brand new from Delta and the other is from Sacramento and goes home in December.  They enjoyed eating Palmer's cheesecake with him!  Palmer got lot's of mission related gifts.  It's so incredible to think that he can start the application process in just a few months!

I got to go to parent teacher conferences last week.  All the kids are really doing well and I was impressed overall with the teachers.  Palmer's teachers talked to me about his plans after high school.  He had already told them he was planning on serving a mission and it's wonderful that his teachers, none of whom are LDS, think it's great.  They all said all the kids have seemed to settle in well and have friends and are doing well in their classes.  I did miss seeing all the teachers at their Utah schools that I know so well and that know all my kids.  I had to introduce myself over and over again to the teachers and I know it will take awhile before they remember me and I start to feel a connection with this high school.  Because my kids are awesome we have a good start!