Bishop's Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday we headed on over to the best pumpkin patch around and got our pumpkin picking groove on. I don't think we've ever spent so much time there, and we didn't even do it all. It was quite a warm day and by the end we were all a little dirty, tired, and grumpy.

Time is flying by!

I can't believe it's almost November! That's just crazy to me, where has all the time gone?

I've been very busy...

I have been sewing. lots. I've been working on the kids costumes. Happy to announce: They're Done!!!!! You'll have to check them out here.

A few Fridays ago (I've lost track!) I got together with one of my best girl friends from high school, Shannon. We had fun talking about old times, updates on our families, we talked and laughed just like we used to. It's always nice to be able to reconnect with old friend that knew you when... We had another best girlfriend, Danielle and I ran into her mom the next week at a candle party. We had a fun little group of friends, but after graduation, went our own ways. It has been great to reconnect with them through our blogs and in person.

Last Tuesday I had to speak at Enrichment night on Preparing for the Holidays - Thanksgiving. It pushed me to finish my Advent calendar I started a long time ago. I will post a picture on my other blog soon. I was so nervous. Dry mouth, tongue tied, fast talking, the works.

Friday we went to the ever famous Bishop's Pumpkin Patch. I will save that for it's own post.

Notes to Myself

Last week as I was preparing my last minute stuff for our Joy school group I grabbed my lesson plan that I had jotted down a few notes on the night before. As I was going down the list of stuff to do I noticed something new, and chuckled

Apparently I need to give someone his snickers bar.

Meet Cooper!

Last night we brought home our new puppy Cooper. He is so cute and the kids love him. We are slowly adjusting to the new addition. We had a rough night last night, at 4 a.m. he was wide awake and wanted to play. Miss P has decided she has to carry him everywhere and I have to remind her often that he can walk on his own. So far we have had no accidents in the house! I attribute this to Tina, our breeder and friend. She has done a great job training him and teaching me what to do. I am such a newbie at this whole pet thing. I really want my kids to have a good "pet experience".

I did not grown up with pets in our home. Oh, we had a dog or two, but they were outside dogs and were dirty and stinky. They were usually my brothers. They weren't trained or up to date on their shots. I wouldn't really call them pets. Perhaps, backyard houseguests, is more acurate.

Hopefully Cooper will be clean, trained, healthy and, not stinky. Hopefully.

Politics....my dirty little secret

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Care About The Election

I love this!

Okay, now before you go freaking out, I do care about the election and I am going to vote. But I am embarrassed to admit I really dislike talking about politics. I don't mind other people imposing their wisdom on me though. Case in point, Ryan's cousin is very interested in politics and she wrote up a great post about the economy and what not. She shares some excellent info so I am linking to it here.

Somewhat related, a while back I saw a great video called "The History of Stuff" It really got me thinking about my spending habits. Now I need to find a way to translate that to my actual spending. Anyway it is interesting and if you want to you can find it here.

Donner State Park

(Oh boy, am I behind here! This trip was in the begining of August right before school started.)

Four days after getting home from Van Damme, the kids and I packed our bags and car again and headed up I-80 to Donner Lake with some friends from our ward. It was a little warmer than I like, but we did have the lake to cool us down. It was a huge campground and the kids had lots of fun climbing on the big rock, riding their bikes, fishing, and swimming.

Miss P had a touch of the flu, but not too badly that we couldn't still enjoy ourselves. If it had been really bad I would have packed up and gone home.

Everyone was assigned a meal so we only had to cook once, which is the best way to camp with a group! I made pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob and dutch oven potatoes. I though it turned out good except that I started making it a little later than I wanted so we ended up eating later than expected. Sorry to those starving little children!

Here are some pictures from the trip:





If you look closely you can see O-Dog in the middle of the boat and Big D's face on the left side of the picture.


Miss P loves playing in the dirt.

The day after we got home O-Dog got the flu and it hit him hard! He threw up nearly all day and his already little body was skin and bones. I felt so bad for him!

The next Monday Big D started the 3rd grade. Thanks to Grandma Lewis he was able to do it in style. She and Aunt Carrie took him shopping for special Back to School clothes. Thanks guys!

Van Damme State Park

I finally finished my latest sewing project so I feel compelled to update the blog. Since I haven't posted anything from our last 3 camping trips, I thought I would start there.

Van Damme State Park

The Biennial Moses Family Camping Trip (aka BMFCT, try saying that five times) this time around was held at Van Damme State Park, the last week in July. Originally we were supposed to go to Big Sur, but since it was on fire at that time, we changed it to Van Damme. Unfortunately, not everyone could make it. (We missed you Allen, Dad, Matthew, and Silverstein family.) But were happy to have Heather all the way from Chicago, and Mom, Stuart and Kaytlyn from Utah.

We stayed up in the meadow loop, for those that have been there before. The older kids just had a ball with their bikes and scooters and climbing the tree in the meadow. The younger ones had lots of room in the meadow to wander and the flattened grass kept them relatively clean. (Notice the bandage on O-Dog's nose: The night before we left, he jumped off the bunk bed ladder and his face met the edge of the toy box. Ouch!)

We spent time doing some geocaching, thanks to Garrett. The great thing about geocaching is that it took us some places we would probably not have known about and we were able to go on some mini hikes for the kids. It really was a lot of fun finding the containers and seeing what "treasures" other people had left. I highly recommend this for a fun activity when you go camping. Then Paul took all the kids on a real buried treasure epedition. They were all in awe of the bounty they found buried in the beach across from the park entrance.

We had some excitement on night in our campsite. I had put Miss P and O-Dog to bed and was leaving the tent when I heard a crunching noise coming from near the car. The kids lantern I was carrying was useless, because when I held it up to see what was making the noise all I could see was fur. I went running the opposite way throught the trees and over to our main campsite where everyoneone else was sitting around the campfire. (I know, nice mom huh! Runs the opposite way from her children when a potentially vicious critter may rip through the tent and drag her babies off into the woods to live as feral children... what is wrong with me????) Anyhoo, my heart was beating so fast and I couldn't catch my breath, but I managed to blurt out that there was a critter in our campsite. Well Ryan and Garrett grabbed their flashlights and ran over ther in the dark with all the kids at their heels. The next thing I heard was "SKUUUUNK!" and people running and screaming. Still sitting safely by the fire, I hoped he didn't spray. Thankfully the skunk just threw up his tail and ran away. Can you imagine if he had sprayed our tent????? Apparently skunks like Fritos, who knew????? We had a good laugh about the whole thing!

Other highlights from the trip included:

*The Girls trip to Mendocino for ice cream and a little shopping.

*Heather finding an alligator lizard under a log.

*Burying all the kids in the sand, one at a time.

*Hanging out at the beach under the bridge.

*Finding and purchasing our new favorite game, in the game store in Mendocino: Ticket to Ride (thanks Matt and Em! We are playing it lots!)

*Seeing the Devil's Punchbowl and hiking through lots of poison oak before realizing what it was and only one person getting it.

*All the yummy food that everone made! (Dutch oven potatoes, cowboy breakfast, spaghetti, thumb pies, goat turds, s'mores and more)

Good Morning!

It's not every morning we look out and see a turkey hanging out on our porch, so I had to take a picture. After snapping a few, O-Dog and Miss P chased him away. Only then did I notice he left a little gift to remember him by.... if you know what I mean.

Thanks, Jerk.

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

On my to do list:

1. Win this adorable dress, as seen in all it's glory, here.

That's it. That's all I have to do this week. Let's see if I can get it done.

Not really. See what I'm currently working on, here.

Family Night at the State Fair

On Monday night for FHE, we surprised the kids at went to the State Fair. The kids had a ball: riding the carnival rides, looking at the animals, eating treats, watching the chinese acrobats perform, taking in all the sights and using all their senses!


Ryan found a promotional thing on their website where you can get 3 free ride vouchers if your child reads (or draws a picture of) 3 books. You can find it here. You can't use it on the "big" rides though.



This was the first year Big D has gone on the "big" rides. I thought for sure he was going to toss his cookies, but he was okay. He was so proud of himself. He even went on the big roller coaster.


Miss P was unsure about it all in the beginning, but squealed with delight when she saw these Care Bears!

O-dog is in the forced smile phase. But still cute! He couldn't get enough of the roller coasters and was so mad he was too little to go on the big one with Ryan and Big D.

I wish I had more pictures, but I forgot to charge the battery so the camera died halfway through the evening. On our way out we each got to pick a treat. The kids got ice cream. Old traditions die hard and I had to have a warm funnel cake with strawberries on top! Then I made Ryan buy me some cotton candy.

The end.

Google Tagged

Lisa tagged me a while back and I am finally getting to it. I will be updating our blog with our summer happenings, sometime soon. With 2 camping trips back to back, sick children, school starting and then Joy school starting: with me teaching this week, I have been pretty busy!

So here it is. I guess I was supposed to find pictures for all my answers from the first page of Google images, but I cheated a bit and typed in my keywords several times until I found something on the first page that I could use.

Name?

Favorite Food?

I love Mexican food. I could eat it everyday!

First Job?

I considered photoshopping my face onto hers, but would that be breaking the rules? Yes, I was once a carnie. I was 14 and worked at the State Fair. Our trailer looked very much like this one. I met some really "interesting" people those 2 summers. It was so fun! I used to make cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, etc. We used to make caramel popcorn with the leftover caramel from the caramel apples, I love Fair Food!

Nickname?

Betcha never would have guessed that one!

Where were you born?

This is beautiful Penticton , British Columbia. I can hear you now....She's a Canadian, EH?!!! Yes, that's right folks, I am a Cannuck. We moved to "The States" when I was 2.

Bad Habit?

The real reason I haven't been blogging............

College degree?

Wow. See that?


Bad Habit: Procrastination.
College degree: ... Someday.
I have no words.

Where I want to go?

The fabric store. Without my children. I could spend hours and hours there, matching up fabrics and planning new projects. Sadly, this almost never happens.

Favorite Place?

This is McWay falls in Big Sur. The beautiful beach is off limits to people. Isn't it dreamy? We were supposed to go camping there 2 weeks ago, but with the fires in Big Sur we had to change plans. I love, love, love Big Sur!

Favorite color?

I love almost all shades of blue/green. And who doesn't love polka dots??????

Favorite Animal?

In 8 weeks we hope to have a new daschund puppy!


Past Love?

I feel like I am copying you Lisa, but I'm really not. I had a major crush on "Bailey"for like 3 years. Oh, that smile and those eyes! Anyone want to have a White Squall viewing party? I own it ....on tape.

What I'm doing now?

Like I don't have enough to do already!

Where I live?

In a little house. But if the economy doesn't change soon, it'll be ... in a van down by the river

Favorite Object?

Mine looks "slightly" different though.

Grandmother's name?

How could I choose only one? When I typed in "Ruth and Mary" these lovely ladies popped up. Both my grandma's have passed on to the next life...

Do you think the one on the right looks like Katie Holmes? I do.

Age?

...and loving it!

Dang this took a long time! I tag Shannon, Heidi and Chelsea. I would totally understand if you didn't do it though.