A VERY NICE THANKSGIVING BREAK

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Well, you can guess what this entire blog will be about! Brian got Thursday and Friday off last week, so we were able to enjoy a very nice, extended weekend with each other. Laura came over Wednesday night to kick off the festivities. We ordered pizza and just hung out. Laura and Vaughn really had a great time playing with each other. We spent most of the evening together and played some old school Nintendo. We had a very good time!

(It's kind of funny but I just realized that Laura and I have seen each other every day for the last five days. It has really been nice to be able to look forward to seeing her each day, even if it has only been for a few minutes. Laura is really good with Vaughn. She plays with him constantly, and really knows how to make him laugh. Laura is also really great to distract Vaughn while I'm trying to cook a meal or clean up.)












Brian was trying to "out-do" Laura's on-the-shoulder trick with Vaughn.














And here's me and Vaughn sharing a moment together.











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The next day was Thanksgiving, so of course we went to spend the day with some family! We (meaning me, Brian, Vaughn and Laura) drove up to South Jordan to spend the day with my Uncle Gary and Aunt Kelly and their kids, and also Grandma Oviatt. We got there at around 2:00 in the afternoon, just in time for Thanksgiving Dinner. The spread was amazing! They had cooked TWO turkeys, and both of them looked to be at least 20 pounds a piece. I thought that was crazy considering the small number of people that were there. But then I found out their neighbor was coming too with her kids. But that still didn't make enough people to merit two HUGE turkeys! Grandma was very kind to make her famous homemade rolls (Poopa, I know you're jealous! You should be!). We brought two pies and some brownies and some of the bottled grape juice I had done this summer. It was a wonderful meal! We all ate ourselves silly and then crashed in the living room to relax.

This little cutie is my cousin Hannah! She was so awesome while we were there. From the second we walked in the door until the moment we walked out, she was playing with Vaughn. I was worried before we got there that Vaughn was going to be bored but I was sure wrong! Hannah saved the day! She make quick friends with him and Vaughn just loved her! She had a toy boom box that played all sorts of songs. She played them for Vaughn and both of them danced to the songs for a while. Vaughn loved it! At the end of the night Hannah insisted that we take it home and give it to Vaughn for a Christmas present. She also sent us home with a turkey she had colored. Thank you Hannah for being such a great friend to Vaughn! You're wonderful!

Grandma was really great to play with Vaughn too. She and Hannah were in the front room with us, and Vaughn would run back-and-forth between the two of them laughing as he ran. When Grandma would catch Vaughn she would pick him up and swing him up in the air. He absolutely loved it! Grandma had to leave early because she needed a nap after all that eating! I wished I could have joined her! So this is a shot of her saying goodbye to Vaughn at the door.




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Eventually we all migrated to the living room and put in a show called Are We There Yet. I thought it was going to be really stupid. Well, it was mostly stupid, but we had a good time making fun of it! As you can see, we were all piled on the couches and the floor. In the middle of the movie, Kelsey was on the floor with her head on a pillow near the couch. Mackenzie looked over and said, "Kelsey, there's a spider." Kelsey jumped up so fast, and there, crawling across the pillow where her head had been was a spider. I told Kelsey I would have screamed bloody murder if it had been me. I thought she handled it very well! Yikes! We stayed until after the movie and then left for home. It was a great way to spend Thanksgiving---with family and friends! And just to add a little side note: Uncle Gary is so crazy! He is just like my Dad! They both say the dumbest jokes, and tease you until you just about pop! But I wouldn't have it any other way! They are both the best!

The next morning Brian and I got up early and went shopping with Linda, Brian's sister. We went to some clothing stores and were able to get seven shirts for about $27! We were really pleased. Afterwards we hung out with Linda and her husband Danny and their kids. This is a shot of Brian holding his little niece named Lorna. She is an absolute doll! She loves Vaughn too. Later on in the day Laura came over to hang out with me, and Brian offered to take Vaughn for the evening. He took Vaughn to play with Lorna and Kalel (Lorna's older brother). Lorna kept trying to hug Vaughn, and in the process she would knock him over. Then she would just lie on top of him, all the while holding her blanket. Brian said it was quite a sight to see! Laura and I spent the evening shopping. Then we went home and bought some pizza and watched a movie together. While we were out shopping we also picked up a pint of Godiva ice cream to share. For those of you who don't know what Godiva ice cream is, you are in for the most amazing ice cream in the world. It is a world-famous Bavarian dark chocolate which they made into ice cream. YUM! If I could I would buy everyone in the world a pint of it. It's that good. (I think it was actually my first love. I think it was Laura's as well.)

So to sum it up, we've had a really great Thanksgiving Break. Thanks to everyone for making it such a fun experience. And special thanks to Laura for spending so much time with me! It's been a blast!

And here's one more for the road....


Love, Lisa

BIRTHDAYS AND SHELVES!!!

Tuesday the 14th was Autumn's birthday (my niece). We only took video of the occasion, so you'll have to check out Emily's (her mom) blog at www.hoodedcow.blogspot.com. And just to let you know, Autumn was SO CUTE! She and her friends dressed up in cute princess outfits and had a great time. Emily made Autumn the cutest cake...I think it was a monkey! Amazing! Emily also made Autumn a wedding dress her size, and it was exactly like Emily's wedding dress. Just so you all know, Emily is so amazing!!! (To the left is a shot of Brian leveling shelves in the basement during construction).

On Wednesday it was Vic Petersen's birthday. He is the man we rent our home from. He is the nicest guy, and I wish I had taken a photo of him as well! He is about 88 or 89 years old now, and he still does work like a teenager! We had a really nice time visiting with him. Vaughn decided to really make Vic's day by running to him three times and begging to be held. And wouldn't you know that Vic picked him up every time?!?!
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Just to illustrate how youthful this man is....This summer one of the horses in the pasture out back had some wire wrapped around it's foot. I called Vic about it, and he came over to check it out. He climbed over the fence just like a teenager would, "caught" the horse, took care of the wire problem, and climbed back over the fence. I was totally amazed! He is just the greatest! I'll try to get a picture of him up on the blog soon. (To the right is a shot of Jared, Vaughn and Brian. Poor little Vaughn had to sit in his stroller for most of the day while we worked on the shelves!)
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On Thursday we went to Brian's parents' house in Springville for his Mother's birthday. And wouldn't you know we didn't take any pictures of that either?! I feel so bad! I guess we've gotten in the habit of video-taping a lot of these events. Anyway...we brought over dinner for her, and then later on we celebrated with one of her favorite desserts, lemon bars! Then we had presents. We really enjoyed being over there.

On Friday, Brian's father came over to help me re-measure the downstairs cellar area for some shelving. We have been waiting for quite a while to try to build some shelves down there, but too many things came up! But we did get it measured in preparation for putting some shelves in.

And then.....today we actually started in on building the shelving!!! Can you believe it?!?! I have been dreaming of this for such a long time, and today my dreams finally came true! We got up somewhat early for a Saturday and began unloading the basement around 8:30am. Brian's dad and brother Jared came over then to help. While we unloaded the basement, Brian's dad went to purchase the building materials. (To give you an idea of how bad the basement was, look at these pictures!) We got the entire basement unloaded and swept out by the time his dad got back.

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Once dad got back, we set in on measuring everything to put up the first "layer." We had to attach 2 x 3s to the wall, but it was impossible because the wall was too crumbly. So we actually wound up attaching them to the floor joists above. Then we had to add three horizontal layers of 2 x 3s to support the shelves. This was extra tricky because there was a water pipe in the way. Just getting this first side of the shelving finished took until 2:00 in the afternoon! It was crazy! I never realized how important it is to have a finished, level basement! But having walls that aren't finished and smooth basically makes building shelves almost impossible! Luckily Brian's dad has done this type of thing enough that he was able to work through these problems!

After a very quick lunch and a small rest, we were back at it again! This next part was a lot easier because we didn't have to work against an unfinished wall. (In this picture we are just starting the second side). We actually built the entire side on the floor, and then lifted it up into place. That sounds way easier than it actually was! It still took quite a while to finish the second half of the shelving, but it went a lot faster! By 4:00 we had finished the second half, and then we had to put in the wafer board for the actual shelves. We had to cut notches out of some of the shelves because of the water pipe.

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I think right now I'll tell you that when we unloaded that basement, we covered our entire back yard in junk! It looked terrible! We just couldn't believe we had fit all of that stuff into that tiny cellar area! Brian's dad said if we didn't want to have a huge headache over it, we could just put a sign out in the front yard saying FREE STUFF IN BACK! I almost put up that sign too! Here's a little something to show you how much junk there was! The only thing though is that this doesn't show even half of what we unloaded! YIKES!!! We could have filled the local D.I. with all of our junk!


Okay. Back to building. So after we had finished the second layer, we added in the wafer board, which was the actual shelf part. In this shot, Brian is drilling a few screws in each wafer board to hold it down. He was having a difficult time doing this because of how tall it was, so I tried to brace him a little bit. It actually worked out really well! The shelves wobbled just a little before Brian screwed down the wafer boards. But once he did that, the entire shelving unit didn't wobble at all....it was as solid as a rock. I even got into the shelves and lied down. And surprisingly it was very comfortable. I told Brian that if an earthquake or a tornado came through and leveled the top of the house, we could always come downstairs and use the shelving for bunkbeds. We could fit twelve to sixteen people in there if we needed to! Once this last step was complete, we cut a few 2 x 3s into shorter pieces, and put them inbetween some of the shelves for extra bracing.

And here is a picture of the finished product!


I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After finishing the shelves we loaded everything from the backyard back into the basement. We had to load it as fast as we could because it was almost dark. So of course the shelves aren't organized like I would like. But now I have a very big project to last me many rainy days!...or should I saw snowy days!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED WITH THIS ENORMOUS PROJECT!!!!

Love, Lisa

HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES?!?!?!
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Our lives have been full of apples for the last two weeks. On Friday the 3rd of November, Brian and I and some of his family members went to a home in Springville to pick apples for bottling. We picked around five or six, maybe seven bushels that afternoon. Then the next day, I went to finish the picking with a friend from down the street. We actually didn't wind up picking any apples...we shook them! Both of us climbed up into the apple trees and shook the branches like crazy. All of the rest of the apples fell onto tarps we had put underneath the trees to catch the apples.
We came back to their house, (the Pate family), and then proceeded to set up everything to do applesauce. Now when I say "Set up everything" I mean EVERYTHING! This family has a reputation for being crazy when it comes to putting up applesauce. We proceeded to set up about 50 feet of table space, at least six or seven camp stoves that yielded fourteen burners, an apple-washing station, a Victoria Strainer, pots and pans, and so on. It was nuts!

We got everything set up and at around 3:30pm we started doing the applesauce. We spent the rest of the day and into the evening cutting, cooking, processing and bottling the apples into applesauce. We started out with only two people, but by around 5 or 6pm, we got some more helpers. Brian was watching Vaughn, so he couldn't be there to help right away. But eventually Brian was able to come and help, and we had around seven or eight people helping at once. By the end of the evening, which was around 9:30 or so, we had finished about 150 quarts of applesauce! And we hadn't even used up half of the apples! I think all-together we got about 14 to 15 bushels of apples. So we agreed to call it quits, and we would meet up again on Monday to finish the rest of the apples.




Monday came way too fast, and we were at it again! But this time there were more people to finish the job. We worked again from the afternoon into the evening, and we were glad when it was all over! I think all together we got well over 230 quarts or so. We still don't have a complete count of all the bottles, but that's pretty close! What a couple of crazy days!

Brian thought we were finished with apples, but he was wrong! I had saved about one-and-a-half bushels of apples to put up for baking.

So on Wednesday, because we both needed a small break, I decided to put up some apple slices. I worked for a good portion of the afternoon and into the evening. I was able to get 21 quarts finished, and I still had half of apples left to do! So the next day I cut more into slices and dried them, and was able to fill a gallon Ziploc bag full of dried apple slices. In this picture it shows the bottled apple slices, the dried apple slices, and a couple of bottles of applesauce.
Brian says he never wants to see another apple again!


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I was happy to have plenty of help from Vaughn while I was finishing up the last of the apples. He really enjoyed getting into the "apple barrel" and picking out his favorite apples to throw. He found a few he really liked, and by the time I got to them to pick them up, he had turned them into applesauce!


I have a somewhat embarrassing story to tell. I tried some of the dried apple slices, and I liked them so much, that I munched on them throughout the day on Thursday and Friday. Needless to say, by late Friday evening I was so sick to my stomach that I had to curl up in a ball on the couch and pray for the Pepto to work! Note to everyone: EAT ONLY A FEW DRIED APPLE SLICES EACH DAY!!!
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Earlier in the week we had planned with the Pates to have a party to celebrate all of our hard work bottling. So we planned to have dinner and a movie on Friday night. So around 6:00pm we went over to their house for dinner. We decided to have a Mexican Fiesta for dinner and then watch Nacho Libre, which happens to by my favorite movie in the entire world now! I love it! Brian and the Pates had never seen it before, so I was very excited for them to see it. Everyone loved it, and we all had a blast together. We of course dressed up in our Mexican wear, including Vaughn.

I do have to add a few photos of Vaughn getting ready for his bath. What a cute bum!!!





































And one more....to illustrate what happens when I get too caught up in bottling, and forget to put Vaughn in his bed for his nap!


Love, Lisa

OUR HAPPY HALLOWEEN






































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This last week was of course focused on getting Vaughn's costume finished for his Halloween debut! Thanks to Emily's help for pretty much two straight days, I was able to finish up the last few bits of it, and I was really pleased with the outcome! (We were sad that we couldn't see Autumn and Prarie in their costumes, but Emily's Dad was visiting from out of town, and they had already made plans to go trick-or-treating with him.) I think seeing the three of them together would have made it a perfect night!

Laura came over Halloween morning to get a sneak preview, and she "almost died." Vaughn was more than happy to model his outfit for her. I hope this photo shows his tail well enough. When I was finishing up the outfit and finally put the little tuft of "fur" on the tail, the outfit really looked like a lion outfit.




Later on Laura brought David over and it was his turn to wrestle the fierce lion!


































It looks like he's letting out a roar, doesn't it?



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At around 5:30 that night, we took Vaughn out to do some trick-or-treating. We decided to make our first stop at Brother Kuhni's house. Vaughn was a little bit confused at first when Melvin's grandson came to the door and plopped some treats into his little pumpkin. But Vaughn got excited when Melvin picked him up. In this picture he's holding the Halloween pencil Melvin gave him. Brother Kuhni felt pretty special to be Vaughn's first stop. He even gave Brian and me treats too!



Right after Brother Kuhni's house, we stopped by the church. They were having a "Trunk or Treat" in the parking lot. That's where people from the ward park their cars in the church parking lot and then set out candy for the kids. While we were there we ran into the Bingham family, who are our good friends. Their little boy Brandon was dressed as a pirate, and he was SO CUTE!!! Heidi is expecting their second child. Good luck Heidi!

Just to mention this...after about the third house Vaughn caught onto the idea that he was supposed to hold his bucket out to the person who greeted him at the door. So we took him to the Drapers home down the street. We stood him up in the doorway, and then rang the bell and left him standing there. When Sister Draper opened up the door, there he was standing all alone, and he lifted up his bucket just like he was supposed to ! What a cutie!!!!! All-in-all we had a great time trick-or-treating! Vaughn got a lot of candy. Since he was sick, we let him have just one piece, and then we put his little bucket away. The funny thing is that now his candy supply is almost gone. I think Brian and I truly have no shame! But what Vaughn doesn't know won't hurt him, right?!?!?

Then today as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I put Vaughn in his high chair. I noticed after a while that he wasn't making a lot of noise, so I turned around to see what was happening. To my surprise he had fallen asleep! The poor little guy! So of course I snapped a few shots, and then took him to his bed. What a cutie!






































We love you all and hope everyone enjoyed Halloween as much as we did!

Love, Lisa