Gobble-gobble, pictures-pictures...Christmas lights! Whoa!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was great to see the extended family and my Ashley:) Lets see we had, on Gayle's side of the family...Blake and his three kids; Troy, Haley and Cooper; Matt and his wife Michelle and their three kids;Madelyn, (don't know how to spell her name), Lexi, and Mark; Heather and her husband Rob with their two kids; Brittney and Emily and the family's friends, Pat and Ken, along with Jeff and all of us, with Ashley! Is that enough on the list? :) The day after Thanksgiving we had a little birthday party for Emily. She turned 11 yrs. old. The kids love birthday parties! Late, late night, to early morning, we got about 4 inches of snow up in Crestline! There was a crazy night storm with lots of thunder and lightning and tons of rain before the snow! It was awesome, and very festive:) Good ol' Dad had that wood burning stove going. Oh so nice. We got to spend time with Joshua and his girlfriend Samantha. Love her! She is so sweet and pleasant to be around with. It was a long weekend of good family times. Now...Jeff is currently on the roof putting up Christmas lights (I can hear him scurrying about), and I will be doing some homework; and then some Christmas decorating in the house. Hard to believe Christmas is next! Kent can't hardly contain himself! He wants everything decorated and lights up all around, now! We are a family that loves Christmas lights! So here are some pictures of the weekend...

Hiking adventures!

Jeff took Kent on a father/son hiking day, on the West Fork of Oak Creek Trail. They had a great time. I wish I was there; but I have been working on an 8 pg. research paper for English class. My eyes hurt. Anyway...it was a beautiful day today, and the guys had tons of fun! All is good, just trying to finish this semester. ALMOST! :) Enjoy the pictures...

Nothing too exciting, just an update!

So, I am really, really, REALLY looking forward to the end of this semester! In fact, I have a total of six, maybe 7 school days left...THANK GOD! This semester has been harder for me, and I am so ready for a nice break, a nice Christmas break:) Ahhh, Christmas, I could go for a candy cane right now. Those help settle unhappy stomachs (the delicious peppermint), and they are so Christmas:)

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks. Be making a trip to Crestline. Staying with Stafford folks:) Always a pleasure.

So Jeff has started his steam engine project. Here are a few pictures of his progress...

You are looking at the frame and castings.

Did somebody say 27 years old?!

So Joshua and I celebrated our 27th birthday, Saturday! We were at our folk's house in Chino. Mom and Papa, and Joshua with his friend were there. It was fun, but short! Apparently Mom and Pappy had to go back to California that afternoon. So that was a bummer. Joshua ended up staying down there anyway, which means our time was cut short because he was supposed to come up to Williams for a night. Oh well, at least we got to be together on our birthdays. We had pizza, played Crockett and some cake of course! Jeff created a forest fire on that cake....it was BRIGHT! I wish I had more pictures to post, but we were all having so much fun, we forgot about the camera. Thank goodness Jeff took the "blowing out the candles" pictures!

I love the month of November!

So here are a couple of pictures from last night, Halloween, and also the picture from when we went to get our pumpkins a couple weeks ago.

We have Talon, Aidan, Kent and Samantha getting ready to go trick-or-treating. The kids had a great time and we were out for about two hours and then our friends came over to make rice crispy treats and Tim and Jeff played ping-pong; while Adi and I played the Wii. It was a fun night and the kids didn't get to bed until after 11pm! Of course they still got up before 7am this morning. Yes.

On another note, what do I always seem to do every year? Family of mine (Ashley, Mom) you know this....yes, it has started...I am already listening to Christmas music. There is something about November (okay and the end of October) that I have to start playing it on the piano, and listening to it in the car. I can't help myself. It is my tradition:)