Hey Slackers

You siblings aren't the only ones missing out on your Christmas gifts to each other--we grandkids want to hear your stories, too! Post your memories or email them for all to see as soon as you can. Somebody should at least post the theme on the blog...

Filling in the Blanks--November

Nobody has posted in awhile, so I am just filling in some blanks. I will mostly post pictures instead of words to guarantee your entertainment:)

Jeffy had his 27th birthday last month. (It's banana pudding that I made myself)

Jess, Derik, Jeff, and I went to the Salt Lake Temple Thanksgiving weekend.
Jess and I hadn't been inside before. Loved it! We walked around and saw lights afterwards. 

Jeff had never been inside this part of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building before.

or this part...

Jeff loves panoramas and aerial views, so I took him upstairs...we turned around and saw Amy & Family, and Grandma!
We took them to see Jessica's baby, Isla. She's beautiful and sleeps a lot. A perfect baby:)

We surprised Jeff and Derik with a USU vs. BYU basketball game! (Jeff's b-day present).
Isla slept through the WHOLE thing--proof that she is a great baby. Then we drove back home to Logan that night
...then drove Idaho Falls...got home at 2am. It was great!

Good Morning Everyone, It's been a while since I've posted anything here (even though I do the weekly e-mails), so I think I will post my thoughts about this beautiful time of year. I'm sitting at the computer, looking out the window, watching the snow gently falling on the beautiful huge pine tree we have in our "back yard." I remember a similar scene many years ago. I tried to put Amy off until after Christmas, but she wasn't to be put off! As I held her in my arms that Christmas morning and looked at the snow gently falling out my hospital window, I couldn't help but wonder if Mary was as happy to have her baby here as I was. I think I kind of bonded with her that morning. We had our Family History Christmas Devotional and Luncheon this past week. It was held in the "Little Theater" of the Conference Center and Elder Falabella of the Seventy was the speaker. His message was very sweet and simple. If we want to give gifts to the Savior - Smile, observe, then serve, love children,love each other, keep the commandments. I can't believe how quickly I have come to love the missionaries in our zone. They come and go, but the stories of their lives and their devotion to the Savior stays with me. They are such a good example to me. I especially enjoy our Samoan, Tongan and Tahitian missionaries. They are such a spiritual, musical, happy people! Remind me to tell you "The Secret of the Camel." One of our sisters gave it as her spiritual thought this past week - very thought provoking. Today, we are giving the Sunday School Lesson on the Family and we are saying the prayers in Sacrament meeting. We will soon head over to the Conference Center for "Music and the Spoken Word," and tonight we have tickets for the First Presidency Devotional at the Conf. Center. Yesterday morning, we went to the Salt Lake Temple at 7:00 a.m. It doesn't get much better than this - just wish you were here to share it with us. Love you all, and can't wait to get your Christmas cards, or a Christmas e-mail! Mom/Grandma, Carolyn

It has been a very nice Birthday week for me.  Thanks to all of you for the cards, gifts, phone calls and visits. 

One of the best gifts I received was that on Friday, we traveled to Preston to the courthouse to have the judge sign the probate papers on the Davis estate.  Yup!  the ranch is sold, signed and delivered!  Many lessons have been learned through the past 4 years; one of which is that land and money and possessions really don't bring happiness.  I always pray that you will have sufficient for your needs, and that there will never be contention in our family because of  "stuff."

Because of that little trip, we stopped at Jen and Troy's and celebrated my Birthday.  The kids had balloons and streamers up, lunch and a Birthday cake and some good, fun visiting.  We both agreed that the best part was receiving hugs from all the grandkids.  We stopped in Logan and I got a winter coat, and we stopped in at the Lewiston State Bank Loan office and paid a short visit to Jana.  It was so good to see her and get another hug.  Then we went on to Tom and Laura's for another visit and dinner, then on to Clair's brother's house in Honeyville for a wonderful piano concert with two very talented young people.  We were bushed, but it was a great day.

Yesterday morning, we went shopping early to the closest Walmart.  That is the time to go; everybody sleeps in on Sat.  Walmart is always painful for me, but this particular one is in a rough neighborhood, and it just never "feels" very good there.  The bright spot is that there is a "Dollar Tree" close by, and since I am a dollar store coniseiur, it's a pretty good one.  Yesterday afternoon, I went over to the Church History Museum and took my time going through the exhibit on the Presidents of the Church.  Sure love those good men.  Last night we went to a "strange" concert over at the Conference Center.  They were plugging music and arts in the schools in the nation.  It was kind of crazy and not very well done.  Pres. Monson was there, and I'm sure he would have liked to leave at the intermission when we did - along with many others.  We had free tickets, but many others paid from $25 - $40 for theirs.  I think I would have asked for a refund!

I'm going to try and add some pictures on here, but you know me, so it might not happen.

Next week I will finish my "gratitude" paper, and tell a little bit about some of the amazing people we work with in our zone. 

Love you all - Mom/Grandma/Carolyn

Jana comes to Philly!

I know I post a lot of pics, but I just had to share some from Jana's adventure visiting us. We had the best time. She came for about a week, and I wish she didn't have to go back. Shawn was gone for most of the weekdays with rotations, so we partied without him, but he got to join us for the fun on the weekends.
Day #1 Amish Country

We drove around and did a covered bridge tour. This one was our favorite. 

Outhouses at the Amish school. Can you imagine?! I love the bonnet and hat to show boys and girls. What a simple playground

Here is the school 

petting zoo

Amish Farms are soo beautiful

Poor Kanyin spent so much time in the car on our adventures. She did well keeping entertained.

Yah we just made some soup inside a pumpkin. Sooo delicious!!

FHE carving pumpkins

We live close to a place called Forbidden Drive. It is a walking/running trail. It is so so pretty.

I built up a few more muscles carrying this monster :)

We found a covered bridge on our walk

late night hockey game! 

Go Flyers!

Philly time!

Philadelphia is getting a temple!

Reading Terminal Market in Philly. There are so many different food options! We had some amish pretzels and Thai food

Silly shutdown....at least Jana got to see the outside of Independence Hall

Betsy Ross's house.

Elfreth's Alley is the oldest residential street that is still a residential street. 

Kanyin fell right into a good mud puddle. Her pants and shoes were coverd! She was pretty distraught as you can't tell. A nice lady saw what happened and let us into her house to get her cleaned up.  

Can't go to Philly without a cheese steak

Crazy New York City!  9/11 memorial is always humbling to see

Yes those are real rats. There are some interesting people in NYC

Jana in the overwhelming times square

We went to Valley Forge the next day. I had a photo shoot to do there, so Jana and Kanyin walked and played around while I took pictures. It is such a beautiful place and lots of history. 

Jana's last day Washington DC! And the government knew Jana was coming across the country to see DC and decided to end the shutdown just for her :) We were super happy we were able to see the monuments etc. 

art museum

Kanyin loved loved collecting rocks everywhere we went

Everyone loves saying hi to Kanyin. Oh yeah...we had some indian food. 

Jana's so strong!

Natural History Museum

Shawn being Shawn

of course we had to do a photo shoot to capture the gorgeous Jana! More pics from her photo shoot are here You just have to scroll down a bit.

Sorry for the billion pictures! Pictures is kind of my thing if you can't tell :) I have been LOVING the pictures you guys have been posting. It is crazy to see how fasts everyone is growing! We miss everyone so much.  We are going to be coming for Christmas, so we'll have to have a get together some how, some where.
 I can't wait to hear about Dallin's homecoming. So crazy his two years are up. I am taking an institute class and our teachers are a senior missionary couple serving here from Rexburg. They work with and lived close to Dallin and they always tell me he is a favorite missionary and just so good. Thanks for being such a great example Dallin!   

Videos of dallin

Sorry it took me awhile to get these up. Thought I better get it done before he gets home!!! Jana flew home yesterday after visiting us for a week. It was pure awesome and a party. I will post pics soon.
https://vimeo.com/77436945

https://vimeo.com/77436666

I hope the links work for the videos.
Torrey

If wishes were fishes...

"If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry."

We wish all of our photos would "turn out", meaning
all of our kids would hold still, we would all smile at the same time and be looking in the same direction, we could figure out the timer on our camera BEFORE the first shots were taken, and no stray cats would invite themselves to our family photo shoot.   BUT...
Nathan and Amanda were good enough to let us go to Grandma's farm for the photo shoot (It was Jessica's idea last year and we stole it fair and square for THIS year.)  The cute bench is an
authentic TROY-built!  If you like it I can hook you
 up.  I know a guy.

Honestly we're just glad that the task is behind us
once again and we don't have to do it again for another year.  (You will get to see the one that "turned out" on our Christmas card.)

"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"

But "almost" was enough to get Stilman's name in the Herald Journal.  (He "almost" made the insurance goal with "a rocket of a 20-yard shot to the top right corner" but it was tipped off by the opposing goal keeper.) The mighty Preston Indians soccer team were victorious 1-0 crowning them district champions and winning them a trip to the state tournament in Boise!  What a thrill!  Therefore, the whole family is looking forward to an all expense paid vacation to Le Bois (courtesy of...El Jeffe) to cheer on the biggest brother this weekend. --Hopefully we'll get to spend some quality time with the Travis's while we're there! (Stilman's #18)

That is what's been going on around here.  Mostly soccer, soccer, and more soccer, with a little soccer in between.  (5 out of 6  kids playing?!  That's CRAZY!) We're glad it's all about wrapped up.

Happy fall to y'all!

Look who we saw!

Look who came to our house today!!!!!!!! Best surprise ever!!! One of the Elders from our ward called and asked if they could come by. We figured it was one of the two Larson boys.  Turns out Dallin was on exchanges with one of the Elders from our ward.  It was so fun to chat and see how much he has grown. The pic below proves Dallin's taller than Shawn :)  We have a little video too that we'll post later.

I threw this one in there so you can all oooww and aawww over my curb side find. The hutch was an ugly brown, but nothing spray paint can't fix. Love free things  :)