SO GRATEFUL...

I have spent the last few minutes viewing a couple of blogs I love. I am so inspired by these beautiful women in my life. It sometimes seems so easy to complain and forget to be grateful in all things. I start to feel ashamed of myself which only leads to more not feeling happy with me. (A destructive thing) I subbed for primary on Sunday and in the opening exercise the counselor told the kids that they needed to always be nice to others and that meant to be nice to themselves too!! I was so happy to hear the children being taught that. I dont really remember that being taught to me. Maybe it was and I dont remember (and maybe these children wont remember either) but I was grateful for me to hear it once again as a child of God. I have so much to be thankful for~and I so love this time of year. Fall as well as the holidays. I love family, mine and my extended. It feels like life is so busy that we dont get to spend much time really sharing with each other and I want my family, all of them to know how deeply I feel for all of them. My parents, my children and their spouses and grandchildren as well as my siblings and there spouses and my nieces and nephews. I love you all so much. I think Heavenly Father must love us all alot. We really do have an awesome family. Not perfect by far, and our share of growth opportunities and perfect in all our inperfections!! I am grateful for the gospel~for the amazing atonement which covers all of those imperfections as we allow ourselves to use it and be grateful for it. I am grateful for FREEDOM, for a land God proclaimed was a good land. For men and women who are willing to go to war to protect her. I am grateful for fabulous friends who prod me along the way. I am grateful to have had a voice that could sing praises in my life. (its kind of sad to see it weaken) When I look around at all the challenges others have I really am grateful for my own. We come from good people who have paved the way. Im challenging myself and anyone who wants to renew themselves to look for things to be grateful for and repent quickly. Be willing to see things a new way so that we can always be winners and everyone else can be too. Enjoy Thanksgiving and the upcoming Holidays. Remember Christ in all of it.

HALLOWEEN GANG AT WORK

These are the gals I work with at the Ribbon Retreat in Shelley Idaho. They all dressed up except me. I had been sick, so at the end of the day I dawned pigtails and crazy ribbon.

Soccer and Utah

These are the watermelons that my sister in law Betty grew this summer. She has a new home in South Jordan, Ut. I am so impressed. We havent really tried hard to grow them in Idaho and now Ill think we'll try. We got to taste some and it was really good.
These are the vines that those melons came from. Right over the fence.

This is the garderess Betty Root. She is Joel's only sister. We love her and miss her. She has always lived in Shelley and moved to be close to her daughter and grandchildren.

This is Joel's daughter Kami Perez. She is the wonderful mother to the darling girls Makia and McKell below. I was along ways from her and used my zoom. She probably wont be very happy with me. I love you Kami!!

This is Kami's fabulous husband, Marciano. He is a great guy and the soccer coach to these adorable grandkids...

This is McKell, the youngest of 3 girls in the Perez family. She loves to be a princess, and she is a good soccer player.

This is Makia, she is the oldest of the Perez girls. She is taller than grandma now. Not fair. She just turned 12 and went into young womens. She is a beehive and is so happy to be in mutual. She also got voted into student council. Congratulations!!!!

This is Bailee Waters, another granddaughter of Joels oldest daughter Laura. Bailee is such a cute kid. All of them gave us new school pics and WOW what beautiful kids. My camera went out of battery so I missed pictures of Tanner, Bailees brother, and Kailey the other Perez granddaughter. Sorry kids, Ill carry more batteries next time. We loved seeing you this weekend.

What's Inside!!

I'm listening to Carol Tuttle on K-talk. Its interesting to hear someone talk about things that are fairly congruent with me. The outside events could be a reflection of what is going on inside. It seems that everything rolls back to our thoughts. Im just rambling now and I hope this might make some sense. We live a good portion of our lives being ruled by our mind or EGO. We believe we are a dual person (even if we aren't conscious of it). So whatever is going on on the outside that brings up fear is just a reflection or a mirror of what could be going on inside. So when we are able to get in our heart or spirit for snatches of time we are able to re-think or re-mind ourselves who we really are. (Sons and daughters of the King). It is a stretch at times to get in touch with those kinds of things and at the same time It is just so Fabulous...In the relief society talk by Pres. Uckdorf (ms)he told us a scripture What you Believe you will See!! This is the same things we are being told by alot of other teachers in the world today. We have to own our thoughts and change them if we don't like them. Im so grateful to the awesome people in my life who are part of my own remembering. Its so great to be a mother, wife, daughter, aunt, friend and all the other things I get to experience at this time in my life.

80th Annual Shelley Spud Day Parade

It has been a beautiful weather week, until this morning. Rain and lots of it. Thanks to my daughter Amber who loves to experience EVERYTHING~I made my way to Shelley (3miles from home) and watched the parade. It seemed to be a bigger deal this year, at least the parade was longer. And we experienced yes you guessed rain. The float with the new Miss Russet was soggy and she was sitting down holding an umberella. I took some pictures of Shelley highlights (which mostly of my family attending the parade). Jennifer and Shane with Hailey and Paige were there, as well as Amber, Garrett and baby Hesston. Ashley and me. After the parade we walked over to the park where they had lots of good food, exibits and lots of things to buy. We werent there long. They always give out free baked potatoes with the works and chocolate milk so we ate and then wandered awhile. Garrett was having a blast, and we were having one watching him. This is our friend Deb's vinyl store called the 4 Sisters. She is such a great friend and talented gal. She a loft at the top of her store where she and her two boys live. On the second floor she has a slide that goes down to the bottom floor where they have a playroom, and a great meditating,exercise area for her.

This is the back of her store and her backyard. She is so clever, she put the sod and walkway in last Tuesday. Rather Zen!!

Im not sure who this gentleman is, but he was sure having a good time.
Shelley grade school kids got to be in the parade. They were sure saved from the rain.

This is some of the "fam" Hailey,Paige,Amber,Garrett,Ashley Jennifer, and Shane in the back.Here comes the rain!!J.J. and her kids did an early morning 5K race, Hailey is wearing her shirt. She beat her mom by one second.

This is Ashley and Garrett in the back alley before the parade started.

This is Dustin on the Haslem float. His bestfriend Brandon was killed in August on a motorcycle. Brandon also raced cars and they had his number 3 car in the parade in memory of Brandon. We all love and miss him.

1st Annual Rolling Hills Classic

Wow! What a great day. This is Jennifer Saunders by oldest daughter. She had an idea some months ago to develop an event to support Autism. She has an amazing heart and desire to be of service. I think none of realized until today how much work she had gone to singlehandedly over the past year. Calling, talking, and meeting with people to pull this event off. She created a fun run and a 5 and 10 k run in Rexburg, Idaho. She got sponsors to donate money and materials and prizes for this event. I have to say there were times that it appears she had had a phone implant done because she was always talking to someone about something none of us understood. I would have to say that it was a grand success for her 1st year. Her next year should be even greater. She loves athletic things and has certified as a personal trainer. She has some clients and has started her own line of clothing called Buttingear. (get it Butt in gear) These pictures will hopefully show some of what went on. Congratulations Jennifer, You did it!
The day started off by preregistration folks picking up there shirts and bags for the race, and new registrants signing up for whichever race they were interested in. That part was a little crazy and will be tweeked abit in the coming years. This is a breed of people who go about the country doing races and marathons. There were singles, married and families joining in the races. As young as 5 or 6 and as old as 60 plus. This is serious business to these folks. Some are really out to win and others love to run for a cause.
Miss Rexburg Miss Merrill singing the national anthem. Then they were instructed where each race course would go and then off to the starting line. In the meantime, the booth folks were fininshing up including the national guard who brought a great blow up play area for the kids to play on. There was a petting zoo where a minuture horse was as well as a little goat and a bunny. There was icecream, milk,watermelon and bananas. Great Harvest came to provide delicious bread for all the patrons of the day. There were health booths, a dentist office, mobile library, crisis intervention group and much more.

There are Jennifers husband parents, Bob and Joyce Saunders. Shane is definitely a fan!

This is Amber my second daughter, Jennifers younger sister who came has support and to take pictures for her.



This is the finish line where JJ and her mentor are standing as well as those recorders of time and numbers are sitting on the curb. Ashley my youngest daughter and her roomate Kara and our friend Tanisha who also ran the 5K.

This is a cute Jamba Juice banana guy who came to advertise for Jamba. He was in good humor for the day.



This is the Dare car, to promote being drug free to the kids and adults alike. He would turn his sirens and lights on, the children loved it of course.

Off to college

Last Saturday Joel and I took Ashley to college at BYUI. She has a nice apartment which she will share with 5 other girls. Her roomate is from Shelley as well so she does know somebody. she has a roomate from Washington, 2 from Missouri, and one from Kansas. She says they are really nice. She has a date from a guy from Colorado. She says no big deal he is in her ward. She is taking a couple of online classes and taking on a clogging class. She says she is carring 16 credits. She was going to try out for softball but is going to wait to see how school goes and how she handles the homework. By the picture you can see that her dad was in on the action~telling her where she should put everything. It was cute and entertaining.

OFF TO COLLEGE !

My first granddaughter

Grandma & Dakota


Ashley & Dakota

This is picture of Dakota J. Storer. She is 13 going on 20... She is a great girl. She came for a couple of days at the beginning of the summer. She and Ashley had a blast together. She lives in American Fork, Utah.