Falta Duas Semanas

For all of you non-Portuguesse speakers, two more weeks until I graduate... although I haven't officially registered yet, but it is on my to do list. It has been a while since we have posted to the blog, so I decided that I could spend some time and do so. Last week was a ton of fun in Boise. We ate lots, shopped some and shot lots of clay pigeons. We are doing pretty good. Last night though Ben woke up with the flu. He has yakked five or six times. Poor little guy. Besides all of this this are pretty good. School is ever boring, hopefully though I can pull through with some decent grades. I hope everyone else is happy and healthy.

Boy, Did We Have Fun!

What a wonderful holiday it was! So good to have Carl, Steph, Ben, Chrissy, Jon, and Mark's brother Scott in Boise for a few days. And of course, we are so blessed to have Aubrey and Co. right around the corner. We visited, played pinochle, had yummy food, visited, Shopped, shot fake birds, had Christmas early, visited, kissed kissy cheeks, watched BSU lose, watched Shrek I...and II (that's a guttural "sh" says Ben), watched BYU win, had Carl's birthday early, and just gennnnerally enjoyed each other immensely! We missed you, Bousquets and Llewellyns and can't wait to see you in December! And of course, Rick - he is always in our prayers. Love to all of you! Mom

Christmas Portrait Preview

Hi Everyone! We had family portraits taken yesterday at Sears, and we got some great pictures of the kids. These pictures aren't even the cutest ones (I'm saving those for Christmas cards). It was the best picture taking experience we've had with kids, we were very happy. Things here are going pretty well. We think we have our Cincinnati trip mostly figured out. We'll be in Cincinnati from January 5th-February 26th. Grace will join us in Cincinnati on January 16th. If BethAnne is doing well after her big surgery, we're probably going to go to Maryland and Virginia during the 2nd week of February to visit Mark's family and Suzie's family. Then we'll be back in Cincinnati for a minor surgery on February 18th. If all goes well, we'll head back to Boise on the 26th of February. Mark's bosses have been very supportive so he will be able to telecommute during those two months. We're looking forward to the holidays, it will be great to see everyone who's coming for Thanksgiving. Hope you are all doing well.
Love, Aubrey

Happy Sunday!

Hi everyone. I got a fabulous nap this afternoon -- 3 hours, with only one interuption!! Brian took the oldest three boys with him to take Ina and Tom to the airport. I needed it (I was getting extremely cranky towards the end of the week, and now I feel guilty for being less than gracious at times). We had a nice week though. If anyone wants ice cream or animal cookies, just come on over. The boys had fun bowling, watching movies, hanging out, and playing football with mom and dad (the weather was beautiful on Saturday -- actually it was nice all week).
The top picture here is Sunday dinner at the Lee's. They've started a cute tradition (or maybe they've always done this?) of celebrating birthdays once a month or so. You can see Carl and Stephanie with birthday crowns in the background. We had a nice time there last week. The family pic was us today -- I was hoping to doctor it up (change the background, make the boys ties yellow, etc), but I look really tired in it, so I don't think that will work. One more thing...I found a good deal on one of my forums. If any of you need random home teacher/neighbor/friend gifts, you can get a Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Music 3-CD set for $1.99. Shipping is a flat 4.99, so I ordered 10 for $24.99 shipped. That takes care of all my visiting teachees, Brian's home teachees, a primary teacher that we love, filler gifts for in-laws (and you too mom if you don't already have it), Rick, etc. The link is http://www.graveyardmall.com/chcofemotach.html

Well that's about all for now. Love you all!

Halloween and other scary things!

Hi Everyone,
I assume you got my email about our Cincinnati trip. We're a little stressed about the upcoming surgery and the follow-up visit (which will be an additional 10 days in Cincinnati at the end of February). But, as Mom says, "this too shall pass." If you know of anyone with a bunch of extra airline miles sitting around, let us know :) We're grateful for the love and support of family and friends. We are blessed with so much. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our pretty witch and our "scary" messy Grace. We've included an after-bath picture of Grace too which is very cute. Hope you are all well.
Love,
Aubrey

Halloween Pics

All of your pictures are darling! As usual, I'm last to post, but we had a fun Halloween. As you can see, Eva was an elephant and Aiden was a monkey. Eva loves her elephant costume. She wore it today around the house and to visit through the fence with the next door neighbor's dogs (she usually visits with the dogs at least once a day; she has a little plastic chair stationed right next to the fence in the back yard). On Halloween, Eva's preschool had a costume parade and singing concert. She was so cute!! It was so fun to watch. Eva was the only girl in her class who wasn't dressed as a princess (except there was one fairy, but close enough...).

On Saturday, Jeff painted Aiden's room (Eva helped! She's actually a pretty good little painter) and the kids and I raked leaves. There were so many that it seems unbelievable that most of them are actually still on the trees! I actually enjoyed the raking, but after we got them into huge piles, it was like, Okay what do we do with them now? We decided to put off the bagging until Monday (maybe in hopes that they'd miraculously disappear by then?)

Just a Friendly Reminder to Visit the Temple

Oh I forgot!

I wanted to give you guys this amazing recipe for Cranberry Glaze for pork loin roast. I was telling Lisa about it last week. It is so easy - and really makes the meal. Just sprinkle kosher salt on the pork (Suzie and Jeff taught me that), cover with foil, and then roast it for 15-20 minutes per pound. Take it out of the oven when done, slice it, and then pour the juice that was created when you baked it over the top. Serve it with this fabulous sauce on the side, plus Zatarain's wild rice and a veggie - and you have a great meal:

1 can whole cranberry sauce
1/2 C apple jelly (Walmart has its own brand)
2 tsp balsamic or cider vinegar (I use balsamic)
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Combine the suace ingredients and bring to a boil to blend the flavors - takes 10 minutes!

Love you all!

A Boise Halloween!

Hi Everybodee! Boy - Chrissy's well written reprimand got results! So "tongue in cheek," Chrissy - I loved it. So - here's our Boise halloween! Bethanne looked particularly fetching in her "good witch" costume. And of course, we had to categorize and count the treats when we were done! The neighbors were so kind - and generous. Dad and I are well - got our flu shots, you know - and we are SO excited about the holiday season, and anticipate seeing all of you (or talking to in Rick's case) somehow or other in the next two months! We have our tickets to go see the Bousqet family on Dec 27th through Dec 31st - Hurray!
I've had a busy Relief Society season - Broadcast dinner, leadership meeting, and now Thanksgiving dinner for 250 (regional single adults) on the 17th. My schooling is going fine - I'm even settling down to some C's and B's on tests (hurray Mom). With Dad's $100 on the table for every "B" I get, I'm motivated! My sister Di was here last weekend - SO fun. It was temple, food, shopping, and movies.
The autumn has been beautiful and thank goodness for "fall back" daylight savings so I have time to write this and figure out the picture thing (OK, it was easy). Thanks to all of you for your wonderful support of Rick. I love his saying, "This may not be the best two years of my life, but it will be the best two years for my life" and and sounds like he is understanding more what that means! Our prayers are continually with him. Happy Sunday everybody. I love you SO much!

Halloween!

Chrissy, my deepest apologies for not posting sooner. It was fun to see Chrissy, Carl, Steph and Ben yesterday.

We had fun on Halloween. We went trick-or-treating at the mall (Bri got off work early to meet us there - very helpful to have an extra hand keeping 4 sugar-crazed kids in line). Then Brian took the boys around the neighborhood. Tyler is addicted to candy. Cameron is addicted to chocolate chip cookies. He won't eat real food anymore. I'm hoping it's a phase...

We're at Delona's this weekend for Hunter's baptism. Fun but needlessly busy. (7 lasagnas, 5 different desserts...you get the picture)

Suzie, I've been wanting to call you back for at least a week now...what's your cell number? And last but not least...I need Aubrey, Chrissy, and Suzie's favorite recipe (I have to make 7 meals for my in-laws next week!) Thanks to Steph and Mom for already helping me out on this one. Love you and miss you all!

Here are some pictures from Halloween. As you know, Ben was Elmo and loved every minute of it. Steph was able to teach him how to say "Trick or Treat," (it sounded more like ticoteet). Lisa came down for the weekend and we got to hang out with her and her two littlest for half an hour, which was fun. She did us the favor of making cookies (which were intended for Hunter's baptism, but she left some for us, and she even left some cookie dough...) Maybe we should be thanking Chrissy for this, because she was always the one that ended up making cookies for us kids in the past. At least she made them once I became old enough to realize that I had a choice in the matter. Right now we are trying to decide what we want to do for the next year and what company we want to work for. Right now it is looking like we are going to sell for 6-12 months, until I decide what I want to do when I grow up. So that is our life for the time being.

Tsk Tsk

Dear Family,

I am highly disappointed that nearly 24 hours have gone by since Halloween and you still have not posted pictures of your darling children in their costumes. I feel I must forgive Aubrey (she has a good excuse) and Rick (who has an even better excuse), but what about Carl, Suzie and Lisa! Even Mom and Dad are not exempt from this reprimand, for I'm sure that they have pictures of BethAnne on their pre-Halloween! Because Jon and I do not have sweet little ones like you, we had a boring evening last night and therefore have no pictures to post, but you all have none such excuse!

Ok, reprimanding aside, I hope you all are doing well. School has settled done for us since midterms and I think we're finally getting comfortable with our schedules. I gave a lesson to my seventh graders on commas on Tuesday...it totally flopped the first period but went a lot better the next after tweaking it a little, so I guess that was good at least. Jon really likes his competition team and has been designated the "marketing manager" for their proposal. The team and their wives met last week and this is going to be pretty intense, but Jon is so stoked! So that's about it for us. Love you lots and I hope to see pictures soon!