Anthon's Ordination

My nephew Anthon turned 12 over a week ago and we headed down to North Carolina for the wonderful weekend.  When worthy young men turn 12 in the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints they receive the priesthood of God, the Aaronic priesthood. The same priesthood Aaron, Moses' brother, held that we read about in the Bible.  We believe in the same organization of Christ's church that existed in the Bible with apostles, prophets, and teachers and so forth.  Click here to read 13 brief statements about my beliefs...the 13 Articles of Faith.

We were able to be with Anthon on his birthday! Daniel is the third oldest of my siblings and it's always fun hanging out with his family. I wanted to leave right at 5am or earlier and we left at 5:04 (or something around there) so not too far off.  We arrived at Daniel's ahead of schedule which was nice.  It takes just under four hours to get there.  After breakfast and changing clothes, we all headed to Adventure landing to have some serious birthday fun!

First up, go-karts.


We thought all of our kids would be able to go on the go-karts by themselves...we've never been on go-karts before so I had no idea!  Apparently there are height restrictions. We finally figured something out.  Clark went by himself, and Lee and Cal went together.


On a different round I drove with Haley, Lee took Shanna, and Elden went with my Dad.


It's a far away picture, but I love Elden's face on this one! He was so excited to ride with Grandpa!








Clark and Anthon are about 7 months apart. It's always fun to have cousins close to your age.
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There was an arcade at Adventure Landing too. In addition to "buying" a bunch of tokens with Daniel, Lee and I got some too with the other tickets we bought that day. We had LOTS of tokens and every got 35 each--even my parents!






They had lazer tag and mini-golf too.




For several of the arcade games if you win you get these paper tickets.  When you're done playing you redeem the tickets for cheapy prizes or candy.  Pretty fun! The kids had a great time here!


That afternoon we had lunch, had a great time visiting, enjoyed Bob the gecko and Lee and I went on a mini date to Aldi and Arby's.






Athon's birthday party was after lunch!


Amy got a great deal on some spray frosting and Anthon enjoyed decorating his birthday cake.




The next day at church Anthon received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a Deacon. We're so proud of you Anthon! We loved being in Raleigh that weekend. I also went to Young Women for a little bit with Ila and Lizzy, which I enjoyed.  The young women even sang a welcome song to me! Sunday night we arrived home about 9?  Can't remember.  On Friday the girls mentioned to their teacher that we were going to Raleigh.  I saw her in the hallway at school and she seemed surprised that we were going so far in one weekend.  I told her "It's only 4 hour hours away!"  Ha ha.  Thanks for the great weekend Daniel and Amy!


And to finish off with the random stuff.  Sharp Shopper had 1 ounce packs of cheese 8/$1.  I bought a bunch and shredded them for some meals.  Great price!


Our run-down looking porch is in the process of getting a makeover!  Guess it will be a long time before it's finished as concrete paint should be used only when it's above 50 degrees so it can cure properly.


The rusted railing is gone though, along with the old, worn fake grass!


It looks only slightly better than this right now.  The concrete is in rough shape. Tim (the guy who is doing the project for us) will be installing black railing for us.  And to think we wanted this done before Thanksgiving!  Too bad we didn't do it sooner when it was warmer out. 


My parents also stopped by for lunch last week the kids had a "snow" day.  Well, there really wasn't much snow!  It was fun being with them at Daniel's and seeing them again a couple of days later.




The kids enjoyed being outside though!


The snowman Haley "built" from the several feet of snow that we got, ha ha.  It looks more like a cute mole to me though.


Wow, blizzard conditions for sure!


Another group photo.  Clark and Cal gave my parents their own piano concert too.


Happy Winter!

First of the Year Happenings

Here we are, half-way through January! Crazy!  Hope you are all enjoying your fresh new year!

For our New Year's celebration we were in Pennsylvania at my brother's place.  We turned the heat way down in our house since we were going to be gone for a few days.  When we got home it was 51 degrees inside.  Brrr!


Since we were going to see Darrell and his family the very next day Clark stayed up in Pennsylvania for some extra cousin time and Jessie came with us. She had fun with the dress-up clothes.




Stephanie and Andy gave us the game Clue for Christmas.  We finally broke it out.  We've played it several times since!  I think it must be Shanna's favorite game at the moment.


We brought home some incredibly delicious chocolate milk from New Jersery, made by Halo Farm.  OH yum!


We were going to have Tim Tam Slams in December, but it never happened.  And then at Christmas there were so many goodies anyway, it seemed a waste to pull them out then.  So we broke them out for a family home evening treat.  My brother Sam served a mission in the Brisbane, Australia area for our church-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  When he came we were able to try a few things from there like Vegemite (yuck) and also Tim Tams.  He told us some story about prisoners in Australia eating them for something or other as a tradition.  Can't remember the fake story at all.  But they do have Tim Tam Slams there!  You can by these chocolate biscuits at World Market. That's where I bought mine.


To have a Tim Tam slam, get some hot chocolate.  The hotter you can stand it the better. 


Get a Tim Tam.


Bite off a little corner on one end.  Then bite a corner off on the opposite end....like bottom left and top right.


Dip an exposed end into the hot chocolate, and use the other exposed end as the opening to the straw!  Start drinking. Enjoy the hot chocolate and then the melted, gooey, yummy biscuit. (See the Christmas decor in the background?  I could not bring myself to take down the Christmas decorations.  We don't have very many decor items in our house because that's not my forte, and I knew as soon as we took them down our house would feel empty like we're trying to sell it or something.  Plus I didn't want Christmas to be over either. It went by much too fast! While I was painting the boys' room--see below--Lee took down the decorations for me.  Thanks Lee!)






We've had a couple of snow days too with school starting off with a two-hour delay, then canceled right after 8am.  Lots of snow, I know! We love snow days though!  Even if there really isn't any snow!




My kids (except Elden) had fun wearing their "new" snowpants that day.  It was a good thing too as it was kind of wet and muddy out.


We have an awesome hill here to sled on.


For a date night Lee and I played another game Stephanie and Andy got us--Dutch Blitz.  It's really fun, even though I lost three times!  I need to play again. Not sure if I'll get better at this game or not.  It may be like ping pong.  I don't think I've ever beat Lee at ping pong.  And if I did I am sure it was because he let me win.


Last week I finally painted the boys room.  We recently purchased a bunk bed for the boys.  I thought that it would be much better to paint their room before the bunk bed was set up.  The thing holding me back from painting this room is the fact that we have two huge metal storage shelves in here holding food storage and other items.  Really, it's like our pantry in their room, but also is home to our three-month food supply (not yet done!).  We don't have any other place to store the food at a good temperature, so that room it is.


While Cal was "practicing" the piano. He made his name Cal out of gummy lifesavers. 


Last week the temperatures got pretty cold...about 8 degrees.  Well, our poor washer out in our unheated sunroom, froze on us.  After a couple of days of it not working I bought a space heater and left it running by the washer for a few hours. The washer FINALLY turned on!  YAY!  I actually got the water to come out that afternoon, but then after it filled up with water it stopped and would agitate the clothes or move at all.  The heater somehow unfroze some other working washer parts and it started washing.  I was about to bring our clothes down to Raleigh to wash... (Upcoming post!) With nothing to do with the washer freezing, I think we might be purchasing a new washer/dryer set soon.  The middle agitator really isn't working and the knob I push in on the dryer to start it, seems to be on the fritz.  They are all still working though!  Laundry is a very easy task and I am so grateful to have a washer and dryer in my home!  We've used laundromats since we've been married for about 5 years.  And that too is still a luxury, all things considered.  But it's so awesome having them in your house for sure! (And for certain....Lee, he he.)


Wow, what a great way to start off your new year....you now know about our laundry situation!  Ha! Truly, we hope it's been fantastic thus far.