Fight On, Trojans

3 more days until the big game. USC plays UCLA on Saturday for the bragging rights of Los Angeles. More is riding on the game for USC. If we win, we go to the Rose Bowl and play for our 3rd consecutive national championship. Looks like we would play Texas, which is kind of fun, since I live in Texas. I will be pulling for my USC Trojans on Saturday.

Lacey is in Lousiana this week, so her visit was short lived. But she will be back for the rest of the month (I hope). Sean went and got an application to work at the Mall last night. He really wants to earn money for an X-box 360.

Hurricane Help Reaction

The men of our church have been going down south to help Hurricane Rita damaged areas. Last month we went to Woodville, TX. The road to the Lions Club was blocked by lots of trees and the property was in bad shape. About 50 LDS men began to swarm the area. Onlookers said it looked like a swarm of ants. The road was cleared so that vehicles could get to the building and then all the fallen trees on the property were cut up and dragged to the street for pick up. It only took a couple hours.

Update: The Lions Club asked the missionaries in Woodville to come speak to them about the church and our helping hands program. After they spoke, they received a standing ovation. Hearts may be turning in East Texas.

His Hands

Lacey did a great job at Sacrament meeting today. She sang a solo, "His Hands". She has such a beautiful voice. After she sang, Brother Randall, who was conducting, jumped up to the mic and told everyone to stand for Lacey. I guess it's his version of a standing ovation since we don't applaud in church. Never saw that before, but everyone stood for a few seconds then he had them all sit down.

We found out today that the Apostle, Dallin H. Oaks, is going to be at our Stake Conference in January. We have not had an apostle attend for about 10 years, so everyone is getting excited.

Today we plan on decorating the Christmas tree. I can't believe Christmas is less than a month away. But Page went out the day after Thanksgiving and got a lot of the shopping done. This may be the earliest we have done that in a long long time.

Thanksgiving in Louisiana

Well, driving into Shreveport yesterday caused a wave of homesickness to race through the car. It sure feels like home in a lot of ways. We would love to be back in Louisiana if we could. Everything is so familiar. We dropped Lacey off at the Waffle House where Samantha and Shawn picked her up. We all gave Sam a hug. We haven't seen her in so long. So once we got Lacey off and running with her friends for the day, the rest of us went over to JoAnne Rougeau's house. Thanksgiving was different not being in our home, but the food was very good. The turkey was just turkey loafs, but they were tasty, and we had ham, casserols, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and my favorite of the meal, green bean casserole.

The night before I made a pecan and cream cheese pie, an apple pie and pumpkin gooey bars. Page made a pumpkin pie, Lynn brought banana pudding. Think we had enough desserts? I managed to have a gooey bar, pudding, pecan pie and apple pie. There goes my diet! Zach was fighting with his Dad, so didn't come to dinner. So Sean was the only kid there. But we went back to Frank and Lynn's house and Zach was there and he and his Dad made up, so Sean and Zach played Play Station 2. We ribbed each other about USC and LSU football, and talked about our kids a lot. It was a lot of fun just to hang with the Rougeaus.

We were going to leave at 8 pm since it was a 2 hour drive home, but stopped by the Merrills for a second....... an hour and a half later we give them all hugs goodbye and run down to the Martins.... an hour later, we give them hugs and head home at 10:30. Well, by the time we stop to get some munchies for the ride home, since we didnt get enough to eat during the day, we didnt get out of town until 11:30. All the fast food places were closed ... imagine that.... so we bought chips, dips, candy, peanuts, crackers, and drinks at a gas station. Like I said, we didnt get enough to eat earlier.

We roll into the driveway at 1:30 am Friday morning. I was tired and went to bed. I woke up at 6 am this morning and Page was already out of the house for some Christmas sales. I cant beleive people get up that early to shop. Now the Christmas season begins!!!!

I think we are going to try and decorate the house for Christmas this weekend.

Frank and Lynn Rougeau were great hosts. Love ya guys!

o.k... as you can see Sean and Zach are having a great time. HaHa

Lacey got to hang out with Sam and Shawn for Thanksgiving (Shawn is camera shy)

Lacey's Home !

Ok- I know I am way too hyper (except for my thyroid,which I just found out on Monday is Hypo... but that's another story....) I'm on my way down to one of my clinics in Jasper when I decide to call Lacey, thinking she is in the airport in Idaho Falls ready to come down for a visit. When she answers her cell she informs me that she is lost and cant find the airport. I tell her she has to check her luggage in at least 30 minutes prior to flight or they wont take it. "really?" she says. Really! She only had about 10 minutes to find the airport and check in. So of course I freak out and call Page to get her to freak out. Once I got everyone all in a tizzy, Lacey makes it on time.... But it is not my fault, I'm diabetic and have a hypo-thyroid... so you understand...

I come home at 3 yesterday to get Page and Sean to go get Lacey. The house looks so nice... all ready for the princess to arrive....

What happen? We don't leave until almost 4- but off we go. Half way there we get a call from Lacey, she's landed! I guess they made good time and all. We told her to get her luggage and meet us out on the curb. We get there and no Lacey. Where is she? She is not waiting in the passenger pick-up area, but the bus loading area, but we figured it out because we are so smart.

We all get and give big hugs! It's good to have her home. She makes us laugh. Page needs to make a church bookstore run, so we go a different way and of course, I miss the turn off, and its in the middle of rush hour, which is driving me nuts. But the good thing is we see a Macaroni Grill and decided to eat dinner. I love their Rosemary Bread (but my breath doesnt). You would be proud, I ordered the skinny chicken with only 8 grams of fat.... to bad I ate two loaves of Rosemary Bread with olive oil (oh yumbo!)

We get back on track and go to the bookstore, but of course they dont have what Page is looking for. We drive by the Houston Temple.. so pretty!

Then head home (2 hours away) and look for a wells fargo bank to make a deposit. Find one! Oh darn, no deposit envelopes... we need a new bank!

2 hours later we are home. Lacey loves the house. It is nice, I have to admit, just a tad too small. So we are all together again for the next 6 weeks.

Page is getting over the flu, and I might be getting it. If all goes as planned we will be in Shreveport with the Rougeau's for Thanksgiving. I have to make Paula Deen's Apple Pie tonight to take with us... have I told you Im in love with Paula? Don't worry Page, I love you WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more !

Stake Dance

Saturday was our Youth Stake Dance in Longview. Page was going to drive but she came down with the Flu on Friday night, so I stepped in and drove. The Stake Center is 2 hours north. A long way to go to a dance. We left at 2 pm because Sean and some of the other boys had a Priesthood Leadership meeting. While they were at the meeting I walked around Sam's Club. After the meeting we took the kids to Burger King and I had my first fast food burger in almost 2 weeks, since I have been on Slim Fast. You know what.... it wasn't as good as I thought. After the dance I took the boys to Sonic for a treat (and too see Brooke- a cute girl that works there- but she wasnt working on Sat. haha). When it came time for me to order something, I decided I wasn't hungry and decided just to drink bottled water I brought. Aren't you proud of me! Anyway, the dance was not very well attended. But the kids that went seemed to have fun. There were a couple girls in prom dresses and I told Sean I would give him $10 if he would ask one of them to dance. He said he would do it for a X-Box 360- yeah right! Todd and Jared said they would do it, but when it came down to it, they didn't either... so saved me $20.

Before the dance, we have a pit stop at Burger King. Sean, Haley and Amanda

The Cotton Eye Joe- they do it like in Shreveport, not Bozeman

Sean not only can dance, but sing! Jared, Sean and Todd

Sean and Haley slow dancing

It's fun to stay at the YMCA. Bree, Sean, Jared and Gabe

Sean, Jared and Gabe rocking to YMCA

USC 50 Fresno State 42

OK another thriller game last night! The game started at 9 pm our time, and I was at the Stake Dance in Longview. The dance was over at 10 but its a 2 hour drive home so I figured I would get home just about the end of the game. I tried to hurry too much on the way home and got a ticket! ugh.

Anyway, when I got home it was the end of the 3rd qtr, and it appears Reggie Bush busted in the 3rd, since we were behind at the half. I missed the explosive 3rd, but watched the fourth as we lost the lead and were losing by 1. I was dieing. We couldn't lose! Luckily for us, we were more dominate on offense and still Fresno had a chance to tie it up at the end of the game, but we intercepted the ball in the end zone and Bing ran it back to the 40. With that we ran out the clock and won the game. Whew! Great game. So we only have to beat UCLA on Dec. 3rd and we are in the Rose Bowl for the National Championship. I didn't go to bed until after 1:30 a.m., so needless to say I was so tired when I got up at 6 am to get ready for early Sunday meetings.

Fight On, USC, Beat UCLA !!!

Don't these look yummy?

Happy Fall Y'all

Last night for family night we made carmel apples and decide to deliver them to some members of our ward. We first took a plate of them to the Bishop's house. When we got there both cars were in the driveway, but the house looked dark. We knocked and rang the bell, but no answer. Were they asleep? They have 3 small kids, and it was after 8 p.m.... so I guess if you snooze you lose....

We then went to the Drakes. They live outside of Diboll. They live way out in the boonies, but they have 5 kids. They also invited us to dinner after church when we first moved here and we wanted to return the favor, so we drove down there to deliver carmel apple. They seemed to be really excited.

We then took a plate of apples to the Bells. They live close to us. The kids were asleep, but we went in and visited for awhile. We had a good time. We stayed until 9:30. We all planned to have a movie night sometime soon. They have a new big screen tv.

All in all, we had a very nice evening. I hope we made the Drakes and Bells day end a little bit nicer too. Don't worry about the Bishop, Page went out and bought more apples and we might try to make a delivery to them tonight.

USC beats Cal

I love Saturdays in the Fall. Especially when USC is winning. 2 more wins against Fresno State and UCLA and we are in the Rose Bowl playing for the National Championship. I hope we 3-Pete. I can remember going to the games when we weren't winning too much. Now that we are ranked #1, I live too far away. But Sean and I got to see them play BYU in Provo last year, and they play Arkansas in Ark. next year, and I'm going to try and go and see them.

Sean had Jared, Todd and Gabe over on Friday night to play X-box and I ended up making them oatmeal cookies, which they scarfed down. They also spent the night so this morning I got to cook eggs, sausage and pancakes for the boys. In return, we had them help us put boxes up in the attic to make room in the garage, but we have so much stuff it looks like our garage is still full. I don't know if we ever will be able to get that pool table set up. I would like to get rid of all of it. We don't even touch the stuff but we haul it from place to place.

Well the boys just all went to Todd and Gabes house to play ping pong. I'm glad they are all friends. The boys in the Ward are good guys and I'm glad Sean can hang with them and they all have the same standards.

Sean made varsity on the tennis team. He beat the #8 kid on Thursday. He was ready to play the #7 kid on Friday, but the kid said he didn't have his good racket and wanted to wait until next week. So they just played for "fun" and Sean beat him 6-1 before the kid said he had to go. Nobody can believe Sean only picked up a racket last Spring in Montana.

Still warm in Texas. 80 degrees in November is so different from Montana.

Elders come for dinner

Elders Chappell and Edwards came for dinner tonight. Page made crockpot chicken and I tried out a new Paula Deen recipe- crumble top apple pie. It turned out good. The secret ingredient is apple sauce. I also made a lattice crust top, very fancy. As you can see my diet is going well.... ha ha. Actually I'm sticking with it pretty good, but it's only been a couple days, still not grumpy yet.

I went on splits with the elders after dinner. We taught a guy named Devilin. I thought it was funny that "Devil" is in his name. We talked about prayer a lot and keeping the commandments. It actually was an enjoyable experience for me and I could feel the spirit. Made me glad that I have the gosple in my life.

Sean asked us today if we could have a foreign exchange student come live with us. Seems like his good friend, Diego, from Ecuador, is losing his placement becuase the host family's mom lost her job. We are ok with it, but Lacey is coming home in 2 weeks to spend 6 weeks with us and we have only one spare bedroom. Maybe he will have to share Sean's room for awhile. It's not a done deal yet. But we may have a guest living with us until the end of the school year.

Slim Fast

Well, Page and I decided to go on a drastic diet. Slim Fast. Yeah, I've tried it before and usually end it in a few days due to starvation, but I went to the doctor on Thursday and he told me I have to limit my daily caloric intake to 2000. That's like one value meal at McDonalds! geez. He wants me to lower my blood sugar too. Put me on medicine to help with that. I have to take it serious, but what do I want to do all weekend? Make desert recipes from Paula Deen. Am I crazy? I made a peanut butter pie. If you love peanut butter you will like it, but if not, then probably not your favorite thing to eat.

I got sick this weekend too, and stayed home from church. I have been in bed most of the day.

I did watch USC beat Stanford, still undefeated and still ranked #1. UCLA lost yesterday to Arizona which made me happy too.

So tomorrow I start my slim fast diet. If I get a little grumpy the next few days, please forgive me.

We even have a scarecrow in our yard- so beware all you crows!

Fall has arrived