Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I'm thankful that the holidays are finally here.
This year we were able to host Thanksgiving!
Here are some pics from the fun day...
John and Scott in the kitchen before everything started...

John with the Turkey (our first Turkey making experience...by ours, I mean John...lol).




Here are Scott, Monica, and Grandma Gray...

Here are Darl and Ross...

Here is Alexis and Amelia...

Here are the dogs trapped inside our bedroom...

Here are Amelia, Darl, and Ross...

Here are the Gray Grandparents...

Here are Scott and Monica...they just got engaged! Congrats!!!

Mom and Scott...

Grandma, me, and Alexis...

The rolls...

We had a slight mishap in the kitchen...good thing they were old dish towels...lol

Here we are with the masterpiece...aka Turkey...

Here is John cutting the Turkey...

And here is the after party...Nap time begins!


It was a lot of fun having family come to our house this year. I really enjoy Thanksgiving because it is a good time to reflect on the things that are positive and things that we are thankful for. I've had a lot going on the past couple of months and I haven't taken the time to be as thankful as I should. In fact, I have been quite the opposite. This weekend was good reminder that I have tons to be thankful for and also a good reminder that everyone has trials...and I need to be thankful for those too. :)

Hiking!!!

I've been really into hiking lately so for some reason. I'm SOOOOO happy that the weather is getting nicer outside.
when we were in Tucson, my parents took us on a hike. It was fun (except when my dad realized we were going the wrong way and we had to hike back up a hill)!

We found a rock in the shape of a heart. :)

Here are my parents...

Here are John and I...

Here are John and I hiking at Lost Dutchman's on my Birthday (we always take a hike on my Birthday...it's a fun tradition)!

Birthday in Tucson

This year for my Birthday, we went down to Tucson to celebrate with my Grandma Shipley. My mom made her famous cake that I absolutely love!!!

Cardinals Game

John and I went to a Pre-Season Cards game this month. It was a lot of fun! We even won! I wanted to make sure to get to a game this year because most of the games are on Sunday and this game was on a Thursday.


We had a blast!!!

Steve Chandler

On Friday, I was able to go to a conference with Steve Chandler as the speaker. I had never really heard of him before...but apparently he has written like 30 self help books...ha He gave a great seminar on how to become better motivated though the everyday language we use. One my my take aways is that we need to avoid using the word "should". The word should could come across as indecisive and negative at times. I'm going to give it a try this week avoiding the word "should".

Steve also said that one way that we can help motivate ourselves to to think positive about every situation we are placed in. It was a really good conference, but everything he said were things that we all should know as adults. All of his points seemed very common sense to me. If you have a good attitude, you will be happy. If you have a crappy attitude, you will be miserable. I suppose it was a good reminder of those simple truths. :)

On more exciting news...we got another boat. We got rid of our last boat because John was having surgery and we thought that he wouldn't be able to boat anymore (clearly we were wrong). He is doing great and we thought it would be fun to be boat people again!!! I'll take better pics of the boat when we go out. We went out last night...but it was dark.

Mt. Ord

This past weekend we went to Mt Ord to go "glassing" for deer. For those of you who don't know by now...I have been drawn to hunt a deer this year. I'm not sure if I'm ready to hunt, but I'll give it a whirl I suppose. The hunt is at the end of October, so at least it won't be too cold out. Anyway...back to this past weekend...it was a lot of fun! We were able to take the quads out and the weather was so much nicer than Phoenix (although it still was warm out).
Here is John glassing for deer (he didn't know he was being photographed...sneaky sneaky...).

Here is John once he has figured out I was taking pics of him. Isn't he cute?!?! His smile melts my heart. :)

We brought the dogs...they lasted about 2 miles and then were out of breath.

Playing in the cow water...yuck!

Jack gave up so we took turns giving him a ride on the quads. It was quite comical!

Here is a pic of me...

Here is another pic of me on the way back down the mountain. :)

Wig Day

Last week we had a wig day at work. It was really fun to see what everyone came up with! Here I am sporting the "Fro"...I think it looks sassy...lol

Here I am with my work wife Jessica. She wore a red wig. Hers actually didn't look too bad...

Here is Bri (my manager)...she's not wearing a wig...ha

Cake Pops

Why can't these...


Look like these???
Actually I don't think I did to bad for a first try. I think next time I'll use a mold instead of doing everything by hand. Cake pops are a fun treat to make and you can get really creative with the designs. October will bring some fun pumpkin cake pops (assuming I master the technique). :)

Girls Camp

This summer, I had the opportunity to go to Girls Camp. It was a lot of fun. I have always heard about Girls Camp at Camp Lomia. It was way different from my camp experiences in Tucson. Both camps were super fun and spiritual!!!