Plans change for the weekend

Derek and I at the Ward/Neighborhood Halloween party. We are so blessed, our neighborhood is so close. There is always such a good turn out for get together. I am so thankful for this, we miss our family and our neighbors are a type of family. You cannot buy a neighborhood, although our home is not fancy I think our neighbors are very fancy in their friendship and love and kindness and happiness and down-to-earthness. This is the kind of fancy that I crave and want. I am so lucky to have it.

Derek went as Benjamin Franklin and I went as a . . . Ghostbuster. Derek's costume was SO incredibly fabulous! David got most of it with him at a thrift store here. I love the imagination Derek has for his costume. I simply LOVE sharing his life with him and getting the benefits of his incredible personality.

David and Hannah are enjoying themselves together in their utopia, Diamond Mountain. I love that they love this place. It is really in their soul and helps to create a bond between them.

Derek and I were invited to Uncle Daniel's for this weekend and were going to go to Las Vegas to share our nephew, Jon's 12th birthday and Priesthood ordination. We were all ready to go to the airport. I asked Hannah to text Uncle Daniel to let him know what time we would be there at the airport. We got a very surprising text back saying they were out of town and would not be able to pick us up from the airport unless we could wait for 5 hours. Needless to say we did NOT want to wait at the airport for 5 plus hours so we decided to stay home and have our own fun time together. I guess we had a communication misunderstanding. We were so sad we couldn't be there but can't wait til we can see them again.

Fun at work

My job is never the same from day to day, that is one of the many reasons why I love it so much. I went to Austin Texas and back today. On our leg back to Salt Lake City the gate agent came and asked if we would accept a baby leopard on board in the cabin. It would be in an animal cage that are used for cats that could fit under the seat. I would have LOVED to have had it on board. I was already planning on getting a picture to show Hannah & Derek. What an experience! The captain went out to the boarding area to check the situation out like the caring case, the size of the leopard etc. This was a very rare request so he wanted to place a call to the company. Unfortunately we got the word that we cannot transport any exotic animals in the cabin. I can of course see their side but I was still disappointed. But I still love those kind of stories I get from my work. They are usually stories that I could never have even dreamed of.

I had to work on my birthday, well, not that I "had" to, I am lucky and blessed that I love my job so it was ok, more than ok that I worked on my birthday. Plus, I had a very interesting passenger, two in fact. The first was an actor that has been in a TON of movies. I can't remember his name (which is significant) but he was in one of the kid's favorite movies, "Spy Kids". He was the uncle. It is significant that I can't remember his name because he has been in over 200 movies/t.v. shows and is recognizable but not overly so. I have had some "movie stars" from time to time. Most of them (almost all of them) have a hard time being real, not taking them selves too seriously and being able to talk with people who aren't movie stars. This man did not have this problem. He just talked with me just like I was a regular person and he was a regular person. He was not trying to avoid people, he just talked, not overly so but he was able to have a normal conversation without always looking on how to get out of it but and treating others like we weren't there or not worthy of talking to. I was quite impressed with him and his "realness" he seemed very grounded which most (almost all) of the others certainly did not.


The next interesting person was a passenger that wanted gingerale and spicy tomato juice . . . mixed, combined, together, to drink! He seemed very normal and together. Hmmm. Some other passengers smiled when they heard his request and enjoyed teasing him about his unique drink choice. I told him that he was going to make it into my "flight journal", he and the other passengers got a kick out of this and laughed some more. I love my job!

Visiting Uncle Eric's family in Sioux City and a visit to the Mall of America in Minneappolis

We made it out to Minneapolis!!!! We really did not think we would make it. (We were SO blessed to make it home, I was quite nervous, we were so grateful to Heavenly Father to help us)

We love to visit the Mall of America. This is one of Derek's favorite cartoon characters, Sponge Bob!

Another one of Derek's favorite cartoon characters, Avitar.

One of Derek's FAVORITE places ever! This was the first, original Lego store. This was so much fun to watch him so happy.

Hannah and I with Derek (he took the picture) in the new Disney store in the Mall of America. We all love to dress up in the Disney outfits, we did a lot of that in Disney Land.

Here is a great shot of the outside of the princess castle.

Hannah and some of her favorite childhood friends, Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy

Here are some of Derek's best childhood friends, Lotso, Stitch, and Agent P (Perry).

More great childhood friends (the great thing about childhood friends are that they are the best). This is Lotso (from Toy Story 3), Nala, and Sully

Derek and his great buddy, Stitch. This is his favorite Disney movie.

Derek and more of his buddy, Stitch

More buddies, Minnie, Pluto, and Mickey

Here we are in a candy store that is about 100 years old, it was great, we went there last April. This is (from the left) Hannah, Derek, Brandt, Asher, Eli, Kelly, Finely, and Eric. The candy was of course amazing. It was a great store. They kept a lot of the old equipment and had great displays with some history information next to it.

Buddies playing Monopoly together, Brandt, Derek, Hannah, Asher, and Eli

Brandt, Derek, Hannah, Asher, and Eli

Hannah, Finley and Uncle Eric.

Derek and Eli and Brandt sure did get along so well they are always like long lost best buddies when they get together. It is so great to see them. Hannah and Asher had a fabulous time together. She had an Asher magnet on her. It was so cute.

Great Fort Day

Some days are just like this. I think that every kid has days like this. I certainly remember days of making elaborate forts with my brothers and sister, these were some of the best days. Hannah and Derek loved to have Koda help with the forts although she broke most of them.

Here is Derek peeking out from behind his fort

Here is an inside view of Derek's fort, totally awesome!

More of the inside of Derek's fort, forts RULE!

Hannah and her fort.

More silliness with Hannah's fort, the world could use more silliness in my opinion!

Seminary activity

Hey, its Hannah. I wanted to share this cool craft that I made in Seminary. Before I talk about the craft though, I want to tell you about my Seminary class. First off, since I live in Utah, Seminary isn't a before school thing, its counted as release time so, I don't get high school credits for the class unfortunately. I love Seminary. My teacher is Bro. Sullivan, he reminds me a lot of John Bytheway (a Mormon speaker) except Bro. Sullivan is super tall. I have about 20 students in my class! This class is very close to me because it helps me out to remember Jesus and Heavenly Father throughout my day (even though I have Seminary for fist period).
Now for the craft. We were learning about Noah and the flood and so we made an ark of our own. We took two paper plates, cut one in half (the half is the boat part, black and white part to be specific), then cut out a design that we colored and then put onto our plates. The designs were the rainbow and the top part of the boat, then another cutout was the bottom part of the ark. If you notice the writing on the roof of the ark, it says Genesis 7:5. The reason that that is there is because he wrote a bunch of scripture references on the board, we needed to read them all and then choose one that we liked the most. The reason for me liking this one the most is because it says that Noah did all that was commanded by the Lord. We need to liken the scriptures in our lives so if we liken it, it says _(name)_ did all that was commanded by the Lord.
I absolutely love Seminary, I enjoy it so much, words cannot describe it. It has helped strengthen my testimony so much. I love it with all my heart. Bro. Sullivan showed us something I think was a PowerPoint with a church member of the High Council, anyways, it said that we are living in a flood of wickedness just how Noah was and that we need to build an ark of our own. I love what that says. It means a lot to me because I know it is true. Everyday I see people doing things they shouldn't or things that are against or aren't in the 13Th article of faith. I am so thankful that I know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I am thankful to be a member as well.

Fun with mentos and diet coke

We had so much fun "exploding" Diet Coke with Mentos.