EARLY THANKSGIVING

This year since we are leaving Thanksgiving day for a trip to Paraguay the Phelps family (plus Sylar's girlfriend Sarah) had an early Thanksgiving celebration. We all (minus Alyssia) got together on Monday night and had a really nice time. We started out with dinner...ham, turkey and ALL the fixins' and ended with a family night and games. Rick took the day off and then Kendra and Kaitlyn came early and helped to get things ready. It was so great being with the family!! We all came with a little Thanksgiving thought to share and talked about the things that we are most grateful for. We also shared memories of Thanksgivings past. To end the evening we played a couple of games. We had fun vying for candy in the Thanksgiving Trivia game, and playing an autumn Pictionary. There was lots of competition and laughter. After the games........PIE!! Cream Cheese Pie is definitely my favorite:) I love having grown up kids! Our family is growing and it is a marvelous feeling. I am so very thankful for them and ALL of the MANY, MANY blessings that Heavenly Father bestows upon me:)

Shotgun Shooting

A few weeks ago Rick and I went shotgun shooting (well, I mostly watched) with Skylar & Sarah and Brach & Kendra. It was a cold, windy Saturday morning but we had fun being together:) We finished off the morning with some pancakes at Virg's.......mmmmmmmmmm!!

Halloween Party 2011

Last Friday night Rick and I had our annual Halloween party. We had a marvelous time!! We started out with dinner and had Chicken Tortilla Soup and Aunt DeeAnn's famous Clam Chowder with some breadsticks on the side. We had shrimp cocktail, taquitos, and orange chicken for appetizers. Rick was in charge of the homemade rootbeer (which is always a big hit) and Karen served up a baked apple dessert while Kathy made a pumpkin dessert as well as a chocolate bundt cake. All of Rick's siblings and their spouses were able to make it. (and most of them actually came in costume....yay) One thing that I LOVE about the Phelps family is that they are not afraid to laugh:) After dinner we played a game of clue charades and laughed like crazy!! In the pictures below you will see Hal acting out John Wayne (actually he thought he was acting out Roy Rogers but I guessed John Wayne and that turned out to be right). Brad and Rick are swinging their hips trying to be Elvis. Janice is in the dentist chair. Darrell and Darla are pretending to be cold. Karen is the headless horseman and Ruth is building an igloo. We had a great night with food, family and fun!!

PICKING PUMPKINS

October is Great!! Almost as good as September:) Kendra has been talking about going to the Pumpkin patch for 2 weeks now so we took some time last week to do it. We didn't get there until after dark so we searched the field by flashlight. It was sorta fun:) We bought a bunch. There were only 2 of the white ones left and they looked pretty sorry but we took them anyway. WE ended the night with a classic film....."Murder He Says". It's an old b&w with Fred MacMurray. A really silly film. It was good to laugh! We have some traditional films that we watch in October and this is one. Some of the others are...."The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", "Arsenic and Old Lace" (love this one), "Haunted Honeymoon", and "And Then There Were None". We won't get to them all but they are all fun to watch this time of the year!! We watched "Charade" (with Cary Grant) a few weeks ago and that's a great one too. Do you have any Halloween favorites to introduce to us?? Let me know. Halloween is almost over but we hopefully will get a few more in. FYI.....I love mysteries (especially b&w's) and I don't like 'em too intense.

Elder Phelps....Home at Last!!

Last Saturday was truly one of the BEST days of my life!! Skylar Alan Phelps walked off the plane and back into my arms!! He was supposed to arrive on Friday the 21st and we (The Phelpses and The Bakers) were waiting there at the airport with open arms but......no Skylar. After about an hour a flight attendant walked up to us and told us that there were no missionaries on the flight from Atlanta (their last leg). Another family was waiting there for there own missionary and apparently we both missed the memo of the changed flight plans:( I hadn't checked my e-mail that morning but had checked up on the flight from Atlanta knowing that it was on it's way. Anyway, long story short. The airplane from Asuncion to Buenos Aires had mechanical trouble and so they had to get off. The sad part of that is that none of the missionaries had visas to enter into Argentina so while the other passengers were put up their hotel rooms, six missionaries had to find a nice place on the hard tile floor to spend the next TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. Skylar said it wasn't all bad because after quite a few hours someone from the airport there in Buenos Aires took pity on them and invited them into the VIP lounge where they were treated to all the crackers and cheese they wanted:) AND they had a chair to sit in. The good part for Skylar is that he was able to give away SIX BOM's (3 Spanish and 3 English) and had some great talks with people coming through immigration. You can imagine our dissappointment after expecting our boy to be home on Friday and realizing that he wasn't coming until the next day. BUT.....THE NEXT DAY CAME!! When I saw the first missionaries coming down the escalator I knew my boy was up there somewhere and burst into tears. Sky must of been at the back of the plane because it took another good 10 minutes for him to come down. Gary had been waiting at the top of the escalator because he wanted to be the first one to see him. When I saw the boys coming down I couldn't stay in the waiting area. I jetted right over to the escalator and threw myself into his arms. Kendra was right behind me and what do you know....she was crying too. I really didn't think I would cry but hmm sometimes you just never know what's gonna happen when your a girl:) What a wonderful sight!! We all got to give him a welcome home hug and that began one of the sweetest and most enjoyable days of my life. After getting Sky's bags we headed home where a nice big brunch was waiting for us. We sat around for hours and just listened to our missionary talk and tell us of life in Paraguay and the many miracles that he had seen throughout the last two years. All weekend I was on cloud nine. I am soooooo happy!

RETURNING WITH HONOR

Thirty Eight more hours until our Sky-boy is back with us!! It's countdown time!!:) I know I haven't blogged about our missionary all too much so I thought I would post some pictures. They are all just random and in no particular order. I think this first picture is very telling.....let me tell you....he has been VERY hard on his shoes. I'm not sure how many times he has had to have both of his shoes repaired. He leaves tomorrow and will travel through the night to arrive in SL at 10:30 Friday morning. I'm sure it's going to be one of the BEST days of my life!!

Autumn Picnic

Recently, we enjoyed a family outing with the Phelpses, the Bakers, and the Allens. We had a cookout up at Settlement Canyon just outside of Tooele. Rick cooked up some yummy dutch oven potatoes to go along with the steak and chicken that was grilled up. The fall colors were in 'full bloom' and very beautiful. I love this time of year. It is sad though to think that summer is leaving us so soon. We enjoyed sitting around the campfire visiting while the kids (they really aren't kids anymore) played games. It got pretty chilly and I couldn't stop shivering by the time we were to leave. If we're lucky we'll get to do this at least one more time before the snow flies:)
Rick's new friend...





Rick cooking up some spuds.


Ready for dinner....





The kids playing UNO

My St. George Birthday Weekend

I had a FABULOUS birthday weekend. The kids (minus Alyssia who couldn't miss school) joined Rick and I in St. George on Friday evening where we cooked a nice dinner and had a movie night. Saturday morning we got to go to Sand Hollow Resevoir with my sister Deanna and her husband Kelly who have a very nice boat. My nephew Jeremy was there as well and he brought along his three darling kids. We had a wonderful day on the lake. We skiied, wakeboarded, kneeboarded, tubed, and some even jumped off some VERY high cliffs. Hint: NOT me!! That night even though we were tired we hopped on over to Chili's for dinner where we watched the 3rd quarter of the BYU/U game. We left beftore we could get too worked up about it and hit the hay.
Sunday was nice and relaxing with an 11:00 church block and afternoon naps with dinner, games and a movie (17 Miracles). Nice day.
Monday (my special day:) we went to the Outlet Mall and did some shopping, had enough of that and went back to the house to swim and lounge by the pool with a book (my favorite thing to do)!! That evening I got to open my presents from the fam and then we went to our favorite restaurant, Samarai 21 and had our favorite chef (Leo) and had some yummy food. Afterward we headed over to the Tuacahn Theatre to see The Little Mermaid. Some of us liked it....some of us didn't. I won't say what my opinion was. Anyway, the next morning the kids all had to leave to get back home to their jobs and I have to admit after they left I felt a little lonesome for them. I really hated to see them go. (Rick and I stayed an extra night) I LOVED the weekend with my family. It was a wonderful!!





All of us had a chance to do some watersports:)






Pool Time......





The fam bought me some nice birthday gifts. My very own pair of Tom's from B&K, an osterizer from The Gare, Some goodies and wall art from Kait, and some perfume and a certificate for a massage from my sweetie:)