Baker Christmas Slideshow. . .

Wednesday Night . . .

Quiz Meet #1 Slideshow!

Matt's Dolly. . .

On Sunday afternoon we celebrated the birthday's of 3 young men on my side of the family. In the evening, we celebrated a birthday on Rob's side of the family. Matt isn't really a young man but he IS younger than me. I guess he must have been thinking young, though, because he asked for a very interesting thing for his birthday. . .



He wanted a dolly.



I try to be accommodating so I bought him a dolly.


He actually wanted more than one dolly so my in-laws were happy to grant his wish as well.


We also got him these wooden things with wheels on them that he can use to push things around on in his garage. Maybe he'll use them to push around his new dollies. . .

He and Marr have two REAL dollies that are pretty sweet. . .

Anyway, we had a nice time at the party hanging out with family. . .

Jeanie likes to go all out. . .

Gloria helped with the decorations. . .

We all really like when Jeanie goes all out. It almost always involves candy. . . yum. . .

I hadn't seen little Max since we celebrated Kelsey's birthday in August so it was fun to see how much he's changing. He was all smiles. . .

While Baby-Hog Gloria held Max, I went outside and watched a very sweet interaction between 2 cousins. . .

These two had a very interesting conversation. I wish I could have recorded it.

The next best thing to having it on video, however, is to have it in a slide show:

Happy Birthday, Matt!!

Operation Appreciation Slideshow. Finally.

I've been working on a slide show for our event at Gowen Field last month for several weeks. I took over 250 pictures, of course, and I've been trying to narrow them down to the best of the best. I also have a slide show program that I really like but it always screws up the music so I decided to try something else. I'm not thrilled with the picture quality of this program but the audio is much, much better than the other one so I finally decided to finalize it and upload it to Youtube. The song I uploaded with it is by Darryl Worley who is also the artist we worked with but the funny thing is, it's also the song that gave me my blog title almost 4 years ago. The chorus says, "I love this crazy tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful beautiful life." I didn't even know Worley was the artist who made that song popular until I heard him perform it live at Gowen Field for Operation Appreciation.

Setting up and pulling off this concert was one of the most stressful things (to me, anyway) that we did all summer. It took the better part of a week to prepare for, we worked with some high ranking officials and our good friends out at the base put their necks our there for us not REALLY knowing if we could pull it off. We also had weather issues and several other unknowns. It was a LOT of pressure. In the end, though, we pulled it off and everyone was happy. Worley put on a great show and, once everything kicked off, I was able to relax and enjoy the concert.

This is a video I found on Youtube that explains a little more about what the event was all about:

Have I mentioned that I'm glad summer is over????

Slide Show of Idaho Down . . .

(The slide show looks much better when you watch it on YouTube. Scroll over the top left hand side of the video and click on the title to open it in a new window.)

The Trailer Project. . . Slideshow With Commentary. . .

(Blogger cuts off part of the screen when it's embedded, so if you click on the title in the top left hand corner, you can watch it full screen on Youtube. In my opinion, it's well worth watching even though it might make you feel a little ill. . . )

Roseberry Slideshow. . .

Quiz Meet Slideshow. . .

Still working on a very LONG post about last weekend's road trip and quiz meet. It may be awhile before I have the time to say everything that needs to be said so, for now, here is my slideshow!!

Quiz Meet Slideshow. . .

Quiz Meet Slideshow. . .

(Live For Today, Natalie Grant)

Colleen. . .

A slide show is kind of the same as just one picture, right?

Happy Birthday, Colleen!

Facing The Giants. . .

Today was the real test for me to see if I've truly overcome my fear of horses. It's one thing to be able to saddle a pony, another to ride an average sized horse, but it's another thing altogether to meet and even ride a huge draft horse!


This is Lisa and Max. Max is the tallest horse in the state and just a few inches shy of the tallest horse EVER:

Lisa invited us to help her with the horses and we were a little surprised at their size even though she had forewarned us that they were big! I'd say big is an understatement!

The girls helped groom and feed the horses and then they took turns riding them. This is Megan on Rocky:

Gloria on Rocky:

Before putting Rocky away, Lisa asked the girls if they could give him a little haircut. She said his mo hawk looked funny and she needed someone to give him a trim. Of course the girls were happy to oblige. . .

The girls were pretty happy about EVERYTHING. . .

After we put Rocky back in his stall, Max got to take a turn with the girls. . .

He is younger and bigger. And, Lisa warned us, a little unpredictable. . .

Gloria and Megan insisted I take a turn and that's about the time I decided it was time to see if I had officially conquered my fear. Nope, I hadn't. But it was fun while it lasted.

Lisa asked the girls if they would like to ride Max bare back on the way back to his stall and, while they were a little uncertain at first, they courageously did it anyway!

Before we left, Lisa introduced us to Buster the donkey. It was a fun ending to a fun afternoon!


We really did have an amazing time with these horses once we got over our initial surprise at their size! Lisa said we could come back anytime and Gloria has already asked me several times this evening when we can go back. I'm pretty sure it will be sooner rather than later.

Because I have no self-control at all, I put some of the 90 pictures that I took in a slide show. It's not quite the same as being there in person but it's pretty close. . .

A Christmas Trailer. . .

Melanie, Byron and the entire youth group put together a really cool program for this Sunday. Here's another sneek peak:

(slideshow music: Reliant K)



Oh yeah, and then there's this:





And that makes more sense if you watch this:


I'll be there. And I'll have a video camera. . .

Thankful Thursday

Counting my many blessings. . .



Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Another Party. . .

We had one more party for Zach on Sunday afternoon. This one was just the family, including both sets of grandparents, and we went to Tulley Park. Grandma Kaye gave in to Zach's request to try on his new tattoo sleeve.

We had a yummy dinner of ham and cheesy potatoes. . .

. . . with Krispy Kreme donuts for dessert. . .

It was McKenna's first experience with donuts. . .

I don't think it will be her last. . .

It was a little chilly and windy out so when Zach scaled this tall tree. . .

. . . he felt like the wind was blowing it over so he didn't stay up there long. . .

Zach was getting cold so Grandma Jeanie encouraged him to start opening his gifts. . .

She sent him directly to the package that contained the warm hoodie!!

Once again he got lots of great stuff. . .

. . . and got to be the center of attention. . .

Well, except for McKenna but she's much cuter. . .

This was the first time I've seen Cody in awhile since he's mostly grown up now and holding down a good job. He turns 17 next week!! Wow!

The last gift Zach opened held 2 sets of really nice dumbbells. Two 10's and two 15's.

The rest of the party was spent showing off our muscles. . .

. . . and laughing. . .

Kelsey showed us her special talent. . .

I'm pretty sure she gets this flexibility from her mom!! I'm so impressed, Colleen:

All that talk about muscles and flexibility and exercise led to, of course, a serious round of arm wrestling. . .

It was another very fun family party!!