"He gots the grasshopper!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday. Wow 22 years...yikes! I have to tell a little story about him. When we lived at the 'apartment' in Oregon City the boys were real good about finding all sorts of homeless critters to offer our home to. I'd find all kinds...allllll kinds....We had an old fish tank that became a little village of critters. Mike and Doug had invited a praying mantis to 'join' our family. So into the fish tank he went with all the sticks and leaves to make it feel more at home. They searched the libray to find out what a praying mantis eats. Discovered it was grasshoppers so they went out shopping the wild back yard for a morsel for the mantis to munch on. They found an abundance of the hoppers and had fun capturing a couple and carefully placing them in the Mantis den. Well to the boys disappointment the mantis wasn't hungry for a few days. One day as J was messing with our new video camera recorder, Mike and him walked over to the Mantis den to capture, for posterity, a look at the wild critter. All of a sudden you hear Michaels little 5 year old voice exclaim...."He gots the grasshopper!" The mantis finally did get hungry and we have Mike's little voice recorded to prove it. WE LOVE YOU MIKE!!

Me fine!

I always thought that 'dog clothes' were just a tad eccentric....but then I realized there is a time and place. We had very coooold weather here...10 to 20 below...our poor Saydie Dog was freezing her tush off every time we needed to take her out for her job. (We don't have any yard). She'd rush outside happy and anxious as ever. Then two minutes out she'd look at us and lift her paws up one by one and seemed to say..."are you crazy". So we broke down and got her a winter outfit and it was hilarious watching her walk, but it didn't take her very long to figure it out.

Sometimes when you ask Max if he wants something or let him know he needs to do something he'll reply "My Fine"....... I escaped once again to Tacoma the weekend of the 12th to get a snuggle from two of my favorite kiddlies. Here's Max with one of his favorite christmas story books sitting under their beautiful christmas tree.

Ryan is definantly into food. He gets his little bird mouth going and sits up in this cute little chair and munches away.

This is one of my favorite pics of a super cute Ryan. Getting him to smile and laugh is priceless.

Tony was sacked out on the couch and Max decided he would take a nap with daddy. So he crawled up onto the couch with his "nite, nite" (blankey) and laid there for about a minute and then "all done" came back down to build some more airplanes with his blocks.

Catching Debbie in cuddle times with Ryan.

These trips come not often enough. But I'm glad we have the benefits to make the flights as often as we can. Thanks Tony and Debbie! So until next time...."My fine"......

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Tis the season to decorate....the challenge is it's a new home and thats always a quantry to try to figure out where all the christmas stuff goes. Thankfully we put Mike and Nicole to work during the Thanksgiving weekend to pull up all the christmas boxes and we had several minds going as to where everything would go. Engineer Mike built our tree in a box and made it look respectful. Then we put everyone to work decorating it. They did a spectacular job!

A not so flattering picture of Mike, but I couldn't figure out how to delete it....sorry Mike. So someday... I need a patient person to tutor me in Blogging 101...any volunteers?

Coooooooooooooooold

Hi! We are alive! The winter deep freeze that dumped itself onto Billings, MT went from several days of below zero temps that took your breath away as you stepped outdoors, to now a much milder 30 degrees. Amazing how you appreciate even a little warmth! And I must say the snow is really noisy...it's really dry and squeaky and moans and groans as you walk on it. No snowmen in sight, it just doesn't stick, but I have seen some creative snow angels on my morning walk to work.

Thanksgiving adventure

Thanksgiving was a really really small group this year. We were able to have Nicole join us for the week and get to know her a little more. I made a menu & posted it on the cupboard.

Looks pretty fancy.....but we really did have lots of left overs.

Doug' sparkling personality added the touches to this pic

Hey Jensons and Mays does this game look nastalgic?? Had to initiate Nicole into the Epperson games.

Wedding in April

Well you guessed it. Mike is engaged to a cute little missy: Nicole Williams. They met in Book of Mormon class at BYU-I last April. She is from South Carolina...without an accent. She is a sophmore studying Childhood Education. She's really cute and smart and seems to like Mike alot and visa versa Mike seems to really like her too.

J and I met her in July when we went to watch Mike & Doug do the Idaho Falls fireworks shoot. We like her alot too. They are here visiting for Thanksgiving week. It's been fun getting to know her a little more. This is a picture of them up on the rim in Billings.

Mike actually proposed to her in Rexburg on the 14th of November. He had her go on a treasure hunt with the help from roomates and friends to find clues at different sites on campus and ended having her go to the class room they met and he had written on the blackboard "Will you marry me, Nicole". This is just the plan B picture if plan A didn't work. There plan right now is Nicole will be going home for the winter semester to spend time with her mom and get things prepared. No actual date set yet...but they are definantly looking at April. We'll keep you posted as the details unfold... (I know I need to change the date thingy on my camera....where is that instruction book....)

Dad Hero

Just when you think your kids are too big for a good dad hero, something like this happens. We were blessed to have Mike stay the weekend with us last Friday because of some unforseen circumstances (ie) a car break down as Mike & I were trying to catch a plane to San Diego for a Kawasaki seminar (a whole story in itself). Didn't happen but we got Mike for the weekend. We decided to drag Doug away from his computer to go play Folph. (Frizby Golf). Our park that is only a block & a half away has a great course. Doug has some really official looking Folph discs. So I, Mike & Doug head to the park, J takes Saydie dog for his piddle walk. We throw 2 'holes' but on the third 'hole' Mike has a big fir tree right in his direct line. He decides to try to throw over the top of the tree and you guessed it, the frizby smacks into the tree and lodges itself among the branches. It's getting dusk and Doug's first words were, "Mike you owe me $10.00." (I'm thinking crimany $10.00 for a disc, holy crow!) Mike decides he's going to try to hit it out of the tree. We gather a couple big rocks and some sticks. He throws.... the rocks fly through the tree and the sticks lodge themselves nicely among the branches. We try to hoist Mike into the tree, but the branches are too dense so he backs out. We throw more & hit the disc once but it only glides down to another branch, which we couldn't see as clearly. Well in the mean while J is standing a far distance away watching the proceedure. He decides to wander over and is chuckling to himself as we are propelling rocks into the tree & it's getting dark. He trys his hand at throwing a rock, no luck. Then he goes up to the tree, looks up, jumps and reaches the first branches, hoists himself into the tree and starts gingerly climbing among these skinny little limbs. He can't see the disc because it's so dark now, so he reaches into his pocket and produces a little pen light. He discovers where the disc is and has to climb a bit higher. I'm directly under him on the ground praying those little branches hold. Pretty soon we hear a thump and the disc has made it to the ground. J monkey climbs his way out of the tree and drops to the ground. Doug, Mike & I were amazed. J's comment was,"Makes feel like I'm 12 all over." A little travel into childhood. And in the eyes of my boys & myself....a Dad hero!!

Hermana Stacey Update

Stacey is leaving the MTC. One last pictures with her district.

The glorious colors of fall!

Fun times doing MTC Service duties

A little too much fun doing service duties :)

Pointing at the BIG BOARD in prep to leave the MTC

One last letter from the MTC: "The weeks have flown by. I'm sad about leaving these great friends I have made here in district 49C. It's been fun hosting some of the new sisters that have come into the MTC. One wednesday there were about 70 sisters arriving and only 10 host sisters. So there were times when I had 3 sisters at a time. What we do is stand outside the sisters dorm building and wait for two elders to escort the new sisters up to the door. Then we take the sister up to her room, tell her to grab her Preach My Gospel, her scriptures and a notebook to write in. Then we wisk her away with the promise she can unpack at 8:00pm. Then we fly down to the main building and get her checked in and give her her name tag. Then we fly over to the bookstore and grab all their books (they come in nice bright blue or yellow bags that are actually quite nice to use when showering.) Then we march them over to their "Home"/ classroom and leave them with a smile. Then we run back to the sisters dorm to start all over again. It was fun! I see all my little 'sisters' around the MTC and it makes me happy when they recognize me. And one of them is leaving with me to go to The Provo Mission Home. I saw her at our little Health & safety meeting...which was by the way a sad waste of the Lord's time...they said the most common sense things that we could sum up the whole meeting into just a few words... in a quote from Elder Holland.."Don't be Stupid!" :) I had one of our "perfect days" aka a day when we try and speak no english. I almost made it all day, I was impressed with myself. We had our last TRC! Yahoo! We got to teach the brother that we taught our first week in spanish (week 4) and he got to see I wasn't a Mute.:) Awesome thing happened, we got to sing "We'll bring the world His truth" with 400 missionaries and they changed the lyrics to apply to us "We are Now the Lord's Missionaries." I think, at least all the sisters and I think the Elders but they won't admit it, were crying by the end. Because we ARE the Lord's Missionaries! Coolness. We are here to preach the Gospel ...wooooooo...My next letter will be out in the field!"

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! I love this picture of Debbie, Max & Ryan as they get ready to slice into the pumpkin to transform it into a jack-o-lantern. Even Ryan is into the mood. We had a fun time when they came to visit!

Airport Adventure

I LOVE the fact that Tony has flight benefits again. Debbie, Max & Ryan came to visit Billings for the week while Tony was working in Helena, MT. They had me fly out to Tacoma Town to help Debbie fly with the kiddlies. Max & Ryan did awesome on the plane. Max was super excited to go on a airplane again and could hardly wait the two hours in the airport for us to board. We had a bit of a complication with me flying standby and didn't know until the very very very last minute if I would get on or not. They let me!! We had a great time with them in Billings. Will post some pictures soon. The highlite at the end of the week was going to a corn maze. There was a whole lot more than just the maze. We had hay rides, cow train rides, Kettle Kar racing, hay bale maze, and Max's most favorite was the "corn box" (sand box with corn kernals instead of sand). I flew back with Debbie to help manuver the suit cases, stroller, car seat, diaper bag, very energetic two year old, going for the ride smiley 5 month old, coats, shoes, blankets all through the security point. And trying to remember to take the bag of liquids out of the carry on and whoooops the cell phone out of the pocket BEFORE entering the buzzer machine. Whew!! makes me wonder how we did it!!

A Fall Phenomenon

Last week here in Billings a strange thing happened. One day it was warm and sunny. The next day it was frigid and cold & snow came tumbling down. We hadn't even had fall yet. The trees hadn't turned they're brilliant colors. In fact they were still all green. Well when the snow came I think the trees were awakened from a warm bliss and wondered if they had missed the fall. Assuming they did many of them dumped their greens. Green leaves all around..."on the roof tops... on the ground."

And it wasn't like they dropped a few, some trees gave it all up. Wow...... so Fall and leaves remind me of a time when I was a kid. My sister and I were outside on a wonderful fall day with leaves all over the ground and we put our imaginations together, got out the rakes and designed houses out of the leaves. We would outline the walls and maneuver the leaves around to indicate rooms and then we started on the furniture. We had nice fluffy beds and crisp couches and fridge and stoves and whatever our homemaking minds could imagine. Then we played house for hours until the sun was setting and the brothers came out & trounced on it, scattering our play time back into reality.

Escape off the "Island"

Last weekend J and I were able to escape off our "Island" and make a quick flight to Tacoma. It was a much needed trip for my well being. I haven't been able to play & hug & spoil & spend Namma time with our little kiddlies for too long.

Ryan is growing so fast and sitting like a big kid in his little play seat.

Max was so fun playing with and he loves to sit a read. His favorite book by far this visit was his astronaut book. We read it 43 times :)

We enjoyed listening to conference with Tony & Debbie. Tony traditionally is the official pancake maker conference morning. He makes killer pancakes!!

During conference Dampa and Max built a Temple out of bristle blocks. Wow who'd a guessed you could make a temple out of those blocks.

During Priesthood session Debbie and I escaped with the kids to walk on Thea Foss Walk Way in Tacoma, right on Commencement Bay. Max is really into bridges and when we came to the docks that jut out onto the water, he wanted to go on the "bidge on wa'er". As we were walking on the 'bidge' he noticed you could see 'bubbles' when you looked down the cracks.

Ryan all cuddled up in his camo blanked dodging the wind but definantly enjoying the ride.

Debbie, Max & Ryan looking over the edge at some crazy suba divers.

Max & Namma on one of the 'bidges' looking out onto the bay. What a fun visit!! We were also able to see some friends and do a lot of walking. So good for my soul!! Flew back to Billings refreshed and ready to tackle life again.

(Sorry about the extra space at the end. Don't know how it got there and don't know how to fix it)

New job

Well last Wednesday I started a new job. I work for a company called Health Port who contracts with St. Vincent hospital and associated clinics to do their release of medical records (ROI). It's suppose to be a part time job but until I get trained I'll be working full. Health Port is a national company which contracts with hospitals and clinics around the USA. So my actual boss is head quartered in Denver but came out to train me. The person I'm replacing had given her 2 week notice, but by the time I came aboard she only had 2 days left to train me. Yikes! I did learn alot in those 2 days and my boss will be here next week also. Basically I process requests to receive medical records and go into the cyber world to 1) retreave them from the hospital system 2) if they haven't been scanned into the computer yet, there are 3 other system to look at depending on the dates & 3) send them off to Health port via cyber world for them to bill & send to the requester. So I'm learning six different systems....boggling my brain. I'm sure I'll get the big picture soon, but until then....pray for me. :)

Hermana Stacey

"Ah! Home sweet home. My chair is third from the right, almost in the corner."

"The view from our classroom. Nice isn't it. It keeps us happy."

"The picture in front of the sign. Hermana McNeil, Howes, Me & Mills. "

"District 49 C

"Me! On my bunk."

"My companion Hermana Mills."

So just a little update on Stacey. She's been in the MTC for almost 4 weeks now. The second letter she wrote she gave us a detailed schedule of her days. Each day for a week. They have very focused days. With classroom, excersize, a day at the Temple, devotionals, special speakers from the General Authorities, laundry times, eating times, companion time, etc. She has 3 other sisters in her district and they all room together. None of them are going to be serving in her mission. She's doing great & picking up the Spanish more & more but it's a challenge.

Some quotes, "This week in Relief Society we had Cheryl Lant the General Primary President speak to us. It was really cute. She taught how to include the children in the lessons. Because we will most likely be teaching families and we don't want to leave out the little ones."

"Another cool thing that happened was at the dreaded TRC. We were suppose to talk with someone in Spanish for 15 and "ride with them on a bus"then teach them the 2 lessons in English. Well the sweet old lady we had couldn't walk to the 'bus' so we just sat in her room and talked. She did most of the talking we just had to respond it was awesome, since my Spanish is still quite rusty. She taught us more than we did her." "Every day is a new experience and I enjoy every minute."

Billings: view on the Rim.

The Rim

Doug with the Billings Temple in the background

Doug & Stacey higher on the trail

Mike on the edge

Looking out over Billings

So if I can figure out how to add pictures to this I will. Billings has two areas of town divided by what they refer to as the Rim. Big hugh cliffs divided right town the middle of town. Pretty impressive. The airport sits on top of the rim and we can see it from our house which is below the Rim. While they were visiting for the week before Stacey left, we took Stacey, Doug & Mike to see part of it called Zimmerman's trail and took some pictures. You can see forever. It's a cool place with lots of bike & hike trails all along the rim. At the parking lot there is a BIG sign that warns of possible Rattlesnakes, which kinda freaked Stacey, Mike & J out. Picture J with two sticks in his hand clapping them together, I'm guessing to "warn" the snakes of our nearness. (We didn't see, hear, smell, or scents any snakes while we were there.) But we did see rabbits, lizards, and lots & lots of grasshoppers.

A trip to Market

So today I have been "little missy homemaker." I started out at Billing's great farmers market. It's located right in the middle of down town and takes up seven blocks. Thanks to several Hutterite colonies the market is filled with mucho wonderful produce. So I pick up (cause I didn't get a garden planted here in Billings,,,,well actually I don't even have room for a garden) a bunch of tender, greenist I've ever seen, Green beans, a sack full of corn which was $4.00 for 12 but this particular stand boasted that each sack had 15. And they did :), some crunchy yummy baby carrots, and some brocoli. J also picked up some, go figure, fancy dancy hot dogs and a grange fed frozen chicken which was worth just listening to the guy explain why we wanted this kind as apposed to store bought & highly refined. After that little sales pitch, I'm suprised any of us are still alive after eating store bought chicken. I get all our treasure home & have to do something with them. I search out the Ball Canning Book, look up the freezing section, and roll up my sleeves. Now I'm feeling pretty good & have filled up a little bit more of the big chest freezer which has been mostly empty since we've move here.

Navigating into the Blog Society

I did it! With a little help.... of course, (thanks Dorothy for the information on the set up site) and (Geniel for helping me navigate through it). I thought I had already messed up the template, so I called Geniel and she assured me anything could be fixed & edited and tweeked. I still have much to explore and figure out (like putting a picture on it????). This will be fun. I will enjoy traveling this road. So along with my wanderings, I will also give updates on Stacey's adventures as she serves on her Mission. Come join me friend!