My new friends!

Yeah!  I have made some great new friends here in Arbon.  And it only took me a couple of months to make them, not like my Provo experience at all. :)

Sheri Stewart has especially been so kind to me and has taken me under her wing.  She invited me to one of her famous Christmas parties.  She also invited me to go on a temple trip w/ her and Michelle Hayden.  Early in the morning we drove up to my beloved Logan to attend the temple there.  Cache Valley will always hold a special place in my heart.  After the temple we ate at Angie's.  I've never really been impressed with Angie's especially not with all of the other amazing options there--Sabora, Firehouse, and  Blue Bird.

Then we went to my favorite store ever, DI!  I was in absolute heaven.  I forgot how good the Logan DI is.

My friends and me all dolled up.

Adoption Profile

This is part of our adoption profile.  We have been working on getting all of the adoption stuff done so birth mom's can learn about us.

Dressing up to go to a company party.

I love these next 3 pictures because it depicts are relationship so well.  We are spontaneous, enjoy being together, and laugh a lot together.

Sledding in our backyard.  We live in a beautiful place and love to take advantage of the outdoors.

Feeding the farm animals.  Isn't that little black sheep so adorable.

Enjoying an impromptu tea part with my nieces.

Jacob playing the guitar for a family sing-a-long at Christmas

Helping my niece bowl at a family get together.

Fishing in Idaho.  Did I mention we love the outdoors?

Jake enjoying the BYU football game with nieces and a nephew.  Jake has a way with spreading his enthusiasm and excitement.  He makes things fun and kids love to be around him.

We love to celebrate the holidays.  We have a tradition to make gingerbread houses every year.

Having fun in the snow.  Where we live we get a LOT of snow.

Shantell wearing a wet suit and getting ready to go swim in the Snake River for the Spud Man Triathlon.

Unusual Invention

What sicko invented this?  I wonder what somebody would be looking at that they are so concerned about privacy?  Hmmm.

Valentine Suckers

Look what I made today.

Aren't these so fun.

I plan to give these to the girls I visit teach, the primary kids, neighbors, and my nieces and nephews.

I made these by melting candy canes together.  See this site for more info.  I like this craft because it is easy and cheap.  I got my candy canes for 12 cents at after Christmas sales.

How can you tell if a computer is male or female?

How can you tell if a computer is Male or Female (without holding it up)?

Five reasons to believe computers are female:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.


2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.


3. The message “Bad command or file name” is about as informative as, “If you don’t know why I’m mad at you, then I’m certainly not going to tell you.”


4. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.


5. No matter what your initial investment, you find yourself spending half of every paycheck on accessories for it.

However, another group of computer scientists (all female) think that computers should be referred to as if they were male.Their reasons follow:

1. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.


2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.


3. As soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.


4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.


5. Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.

Jake found this at macbigot.com.  It is a pretty funny site w/ a lot of bashing of dumb politics.

Pretender

Halloween 2009

This year Jen hosted another one of her famous Halloween parties.  I love that she does this because it gives us an excuse to dress up and a place to go.  (I'm a Halloween Grinch--I do not like constantly opening my door to trick 'or treaters)  This year we played pin the tail on the cat, a Halloween trivia game, and toss the candy.  We also had loads of finger food.  I took my latest craze of mango peach salsa and Food Should Taste Good multi grain chips.  Both from Costco.  Yummy!

Jake and I dressed up as characters from the old TV series, Pretenders.  Jake's parents have all of the  seasons on DVD and they have been passed from family to family.  So although we figured that nobody else would recognize who we were we hoped that Jake's family would.  I dressed up as Miss Parker and Jake was Jared.

Chloie was so cute as a giraffe.  She decided early on that she wanted to be a giraffe for Halloween.  Luckily Jen was able to find a giraffe costume.  However before she found it, Jen kept asking her if she wanted to be a witch or a ghost (something a little easier to come up with) and Chloie kept saying yes, a giraffe witch or a giraffe ghost.  Too funny!

Here kitty, kitty!