Felicia's little lion

Mercede's little scarecrow

I hope we have some Halloween posts with our little spooks spotlighted. About the only trick-or-treaters we had at our house were Carmen and Richard with their grandchildren. They were so cute I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Michael the poser

While I was taking pictures of Taylor with her hat and head band, Michael came over to the stool and did his own little pose. It was so cute I had to take a picture of it.

Head band

Taylor also made this head band that can be used with an interchangeable flower. She is really getting good at this crochet business.

Hat maker

Taylor crocheted this hat with it's cute little interchangable flower. Isn't it cute? It's made with cotton yarn for style and comfort.

Birthdays galore

I made this cake Saturday to celebrate some birthdays in Jeff's family--his, his brother's and his nephew's. However, I also had members of my own family in mind as I downed a piece. So here's to you, Steve and Kristin. Happy birthday a bit early to you both. Cake has already been consumed in your honor.

Here are the two main decorators with their creation.

Taylor

Michael

Isn't he the cutest poser

Family picture

This old house turned out to be a fantastic place for a family picture

Taylor

What a beautiful Fall day it was today, just right for taking pictures. The sky was overcast and it had just rained and the leaves were at their finest. We got some fantastic pictures. When I get them all edited I will post some of them.

Playing in the back yard.

We were swinging in the back yard when the sun peeked out of the overcast sky for a few minutes. I said to Marilee, "quick, get the camera". We snapped a few pics of our cute little grandson while the light was good. Here are some of the results.

Tide Pool

We took a boat trip to an Island that had wild horses and a "shelling" beach. It was a beautiful day and we had a picnic in the sand. I wish we could have walked farther on the "shelling" beach because most of the shells had been picked over but it was fun and we did find some good shells. This is a tide pool on that island.

Jack

Kennedy

Tristan

Imagine the joy of being able to have all the sand and water you want being a kid. That's what these pictures depict.

Another sunset

One more sun flare

This is a sun flare taken on another day

Sun flare

I practiced on taking sunflare pictures & it really did work. You use a low ISO, high f stop (22) and a wide angle lense with a fairly high shutter speed. The trick is to balance all those factors to get the right exposure.

Sunset at Emerald Isle

I took so many sunset pictures I had a hard time deciding which one to post. They were ALL gorgeous.

The Kelsey Kids

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get three kids in a perfect pose? This is about as good as we could get. Jack should have been named "Jumping Jack".

Winds of Change

Change is always hard for me. However, fall is one change I look forward to. I really enjoy the weather here in North Carolina in the fall. We went to the beach for a week and it was beautiful. It's always amazing to me that you can actually get in the ocean and swim in October! We have about another month of "perfect" weather ahead of us.
Last week there were some changes announced in our church meetings. The bishop informed us that some of the ward boundaries were being moved to strengthen weaker wards and relieve some wards busting at the seams. Our ward was one of the ones losing people. This meant that some of the permanent families in the ward were moved into another ward. We barely made the cut-off.
Chris and I were aware of another change that was going to happen in our ward that was not known to everyone else until today at our stake conference. There was a lot of stake business so the first half hour or so was dedicated to this. One of the first announcements was that because of the boundary changes our stake president lost one of his counselors. Our bishop took his place. In turn, our ward got a new bishop. Can you guess who it is??????
Again, change is always hard for me, but I am looking forward to supporting my husband in his new calling. It seems the busiest people get called to these kind of callings. I feel like we have been so blessed and it's a pleasure to serve the Lord from whom all our blessings come. I know He loves us and cares for us. I see His hand in my life every day.

Pie baked in new oven

Here's a picture of my first pie baked in my new oven. I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! I also baked bread and a pizza at the same time in both ovens. I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! Thanks once again for a Christmas we'll never forget. Joyce brought me some Wenatchee apples along with a recipe which she described as "To die for!" We'll let you know if that's true after dinner today. Here's the recipe:

CRUNCHY CARMEL APPLE PIE

INGREDIENTS FOR PIE:

1 Pastry crust for a deep-dish pie 9-inch

1/2 C sugar

3 T all-purpose flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

6 cups thinly sliced peeled apples (I used golden delicious and fuji)

1 recipe crumb topping (see below)

1/2 C chopped pecans

1/4 C caramel topping

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING:

1 C packed brown sugar

1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 C quick cooking rolled oats

1/2 C butter

DIRECTIONS FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING:

1. Stir together brown sugar, flour, rolled oats

2. Cut in 1/2 C butter until topping is like course crumbs. Set aside

DIRECTIONS FOR THE PIE:

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt.

2. Add apple slices and gently toss until coated

3. Transfer apple mixture to the pie shell

4. Sprinkle crumb topping over apple mixture

5. Place pie on a cookie sheet so the drippings don't drop into your oven

6. Cover edges of pie with aluminum foil

7. Bake in a preheated 375 oven for 25 minutes. Then remove foil and put back in

oven for another 25 to 30 minutes without foil.

8. Remove from oven. Sprinkle pie with chopped pecans then drizzle with caramel

9. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy warm or at room temperature

Catch Up

Last week my work sent out a memo reminding us of Black-Out. This is when we can't use any of our paid time off. Unlike the past years, where I used all of my time by August, I still have quite a bit left that I have less than a month to use. I called Brendon and asked what the chances were of him getting Saturday off cause I want to take a personal day. Brendon found a way to make it work, so what did we do?...... we went CAMPING!!! You're surprised, I know. Sadly, the summer is almost over and we haven't gone camping nearly as much as normal. We had to try to squeeze another trip in. I left work early on Friday, got everything packed up, and when Brendon got off work we made the 10 minute trip up Hobble Creek. Ha ha!! Yeah we literally camped 10 minutes from our house. We got a great spot at the campground, with power and water, and enjoyed a nice weekend of some rest and relaxation. We were camped right by the creek and there weren't any other camp spots by us, so it was more like our usual trips that don't include a campground. Chevis enjoyed the creek and Michael is a born mountain child, so he kept himself entertained in the dirt with "Whinnin a Teen" (Lighting McQueen.)

We are really excited to spend our next scheduled vacation in Cedar! haha not really but we are looking forward to seeing the family and actually (hopefully) having some time to spend with everyone. After work on Tuesday we will head south..... and let the job hunt begin. At least we will be out on some kind of a hunt! Traditionally we spend the deer hunt camping, so we are hoping to get us a big one! haha

We also wanted to post a few pictures from our trip we took to Strawberry. This was over Labor Day weekend. While we were up there, we took a drive down to Deer Creek and took Michael swimming in a lake for the first time. He did a lot better than we thought and even made a little girlfriend. Her name was Aurora. Mom was staying at our house and watched Michael on the first night and the whole next day. (Grandparents are such a blessing!!!!!) It was hard leaving him, but we took advantage anyways and visited Park City, where we saw the Ski Jumps and the Bobsled track. You'd think that living up here we would actually take advantage of our surroundings. However, this was the first time either of us went to where the 2002 Winter Olympics had events. Then we took a ride on the Alpine Slide and the Alpine Coaster. Coaster was waaaaayyy better! We had a really great time and we are so thankful that we have the ability to take some time off work here and there to enjoy the outdoors!

Jack

Tristan

Kennedy at the beach

Emerald Isle

sunrise at the beach

Almost done!

We finished installing the cabinets and appliances at around 5:30 today. When we started installing yesterday it became apparent that in the 50's there were 3 choices for building materials, straw, sticks, or bricks. Mom and Dad being the wise people that they are chose bricks. Apparently when you choose bricks it doesn't include "sticks", aka 2x4's. We had to abandon install and purchase the necessary anchors for hanging cabinets to plaster and brick. I took the day off work just in case and its a good thing I did. It went pretty good and with Bretten's help we finished quicker than I had planned. I wrote a letter to explain how all this came about and left it along with the bow on the oven. I wrote a P.S. on the bottom and said "there is even talk of going in on some cabinet doors for next Christmas". Just wish I could of had those all done too! Shouldn't take me too long to make the doors. Let me know what you all think of them. It was a fun project. Pretty fun taking a hammer to the old cabinets too!

Happy Campers

Better late than never. I was going to post some pics of our camping trip back in July but never seemed to find the time. We had a great time camping with Brendon and Taylor and Michael up Spanish Fork canyon. It was the perfect camping spot. We went on a fun four wheeler ride and had a good time shooting targets. I tried my hand at being Ansel Adams with the camera as you will see in the pics I posted. Good food, good time with family, good relaxing time off. We really appreciated all the time and effort they put in for us to be able to camp with them.