Christmas 2008

I was dreaming of a white Christmas (which wasn't too tough, since it has been snowing for the last week and a half), but still, there was even more snow when we woke up on Christmas morning.  It was so beautiful outside - thank goodness we didn't have to go out in it.

Ken and I celebrate Christmas with our traditional picture by the fireplace (which only gets turned on about once a year).  With no children or family around, Christmas feels like it's missing something, but that's why we have friends - to help fill the void.


We were grateful that Andy, Amber, and Kylee braved the snow to come to our house.  We enjoyed spending the day with them (eating and playing games), and helping Kylee celebrate her first Christmas.

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas - here's to a very Happy New Year!

Let it snow, let it snow . . .

I love snow - I love to play in the snow, go sledding in the snow, and I don't even mind driving in the snow, but I don't like getting stuck in the snow. We've been getting snow for the last few days (I've lost track of how many inches we've gotten, but I'm pretty sure they're measuring it in feet now), and I've made it to work without any problems. Then today, I got stuck on my way to Grand Jury Duty (I was hoping they'd cancel it, but they didn't.) Our parking lot gets plowed, and the streets get plowed, but no one seems to do the driveway in between the parking lot and the street. This results in a huge amount of packed, icy snow at the end of the driveway - which I got stuck on. I was grateful for the guy behind me who offered to pull or push me out. Ken was at home too, so between the two of them, they pushed while I steered. Once I got out onto the street, there was quite a bit of skidding, but I kept it slow and steady and made it to Grand Jury Duty on time. Now if people in Flagstaff would stop doing illegal and dumb things, my 4-month stint would be done by now.

This picture doesn't really show just how much snow we have on the ground, but at least it proves that yes, we do get snow in Arizona.

Ken's Yearly Gig

Ken and his friend Jacob (the guy on the right in the video), played last year at our ward's Christmas party.  This year, they added a few more players.  After one mighty rehearsal, Ken and his friends (Tin Purcent) were ready to play at the ward Christmas party.  The music was awesome - and a lady even commented that she'd "pay to hear them play".  The funny thing is that the singer (Chad) gets paid regularly to play, and Ken used to be and hopes to someday again be paid to play - I guess that means they did a good job.  We recorded the whole thing, but only had room to attach snippets of two songs - hope you enjoy it as much as his groupie did!

Yeah - it's Christmas Break!

This is what I've been looking at for the last few weeks.  Ken studied, and studied, and studied some more as he prepared for finals - poor guy.

But now finals are over for this semester, and this is what I came home to today.  

Ken loves to play his drums - and he finally had time to play without feeling guilty that he wasn't studying.  He was so excited - he got to practice tonight for the ward Christmas party.   And he's even more excited to play at the party on Saturday.   I love to hear and watch Ken play - I'm his best groupie - and I can't wait until Saturday. 

T'was the week before Thanksgiving . . .

and all through the house . . . the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.  Okay, so I did something I've never done before - I put up Christmas decorations BEFORE Thanksgiving.  It started innocently enough - I started to listen to Christmas music a few weeks ago, then Ken started talking about the artificial tree we bought after Christmas last year (for only $3), and before I knew it, the tree was out of the box, fluffed, lit, and decorated.  Well, you can't have a tree without the rest of the decorations - so out came the boxes, and well, the rest is history.  

However, just because we have the Christmas decorations up, does not mean we are skipping over Thanksgiving;  we have much to be thankful for:  a home, a job, an opportunity for education, our family and friends, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, health, food - I could go on and on, but you get the idea.    Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all, a good night.

Hiking with the Pavlovich's

On Veteran's Day, Ken and I went on a hike with Amber, Andy, and Kylee Pavlovich in Sedona.  The weather was a lot warmer in Sedona than it was in Flagstaff, thank goodness.  In fact, it was just perfect for hiking - not too cold or too hot.  We did the Courthouse Loop - a fairly easy hike, which even Kylee could do.

We all enjoyed the views . . .

. . . but some had a better view than others.

It was a fun hike, and we all enjoyed it.  After a picnic lunch, we stopped at The Brown Cow for homemade ice cream - yummy!  Thanks Amber, Andy, and Kylee for a fun afternoon!

A Day in the Phoenix Sun

Ken and I went to Phoenix on Saturday for the day.  As an early Christmas present to himself, Ken bought 2 tickets to watch the Portland Trailblazers play the Phoenix Sun's in Phoenix.  I figure, if Ken gets to celebrate Christmas early, than so do I.  So, before the game, we spent a few hours shopping.  I don't really enjoy shopping though, but if I can get someone to come with me, than it's not so bad.  The last store we went to was IKEA - a giant nightmare of household products.  Ken aptly describes IKEA as "sensory overload".  After spending almost an hour meandering through the giant maze, we were both feeling dizzy (and I say, "thank goodness for the arrows on the floor or I'd never make it out of the store"), I finally find what I'm looking for, sort of.  And even though it's not exactly what I'm looking for, I buy it anyway, because by this time, I am exhausted, and just want to make a purchase so that I can check it off my list. 

 After checking into our hotel (which we only paid $40 for on Priceline - yeah!), we walk quickly to the bus stop, only to wait for over 30 minutes for the next bus - apparently they only come every hour on Saturday.  The round trip bus fare is $2.50, which is what the bus driver tells us.  Only,  she doesn't tell us the machine doesn't give change, until after she asks me what I'm waiting for - thank goodness I only put in $1's and not bigger bills.   The game was fun - 2 people sitting in the middle of Phoenix fans, cheering for the opposing team.  It would have been better if Portland had won, but at least Phoenix scored over 99 points, which meant anyone with a ticket stub got 2 free tacos at Jack in the Box.  Okay, so has anyone ever eaten those tacos?  No wonder they give them out free.  I think I would have felt I deserved change back if I had just bought those.  Maybe I'm just a food snob, but the tacos at Jack in the Box leave a lot to be desired.

All in all, it was a fun, but full day in the Phoenix sun.  The temperature was surprisingly warm for Nov. 1 - it was 88F at 6pm, so we're guessing it got into the 90's.  It's a great time to visit, but there's no place like home.

Halloween 2008

I love carving pumpkins and eating candy, but I've never been a real fan of Halloween - too much stress trying to come up with costumes, etc.  This year, however, I decided to work on getting over my bah-humbug attitude.  Ken and I started planning our costume months out, to avoid the panic of "what do I dress up as?" and I found a website with some great "couples" costumes ideas.  My favorite was me dressing as a bunch of grapes, and Ken dressing in a straight-jacket . . . "Grape-Nuts"; but Ken didn't want to wear a straight jacket all night.  So instead, we went to the student physical therapy party as the following.

I went as a heart.

Ken went as a cop.

And together . . .

 . . . it's a "cardiac-arrest".

Amazingly I had a good time - dressing up and at the party, but of course it didn't hurt that there was plenty of candy to keep me happy.  Below are some of our favorite costumes from the party - people really get into this Halloween thing :)

BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Great Temple Experience

I've been working for almost 3 years to find Ken's relatives so that we could do the temple work for them. Finally, I had enough names researched and gathered to take some of them to the temple.  On Friday, Ken and I went to the Snowflake temple - I wish I had had my camera with me.  We were there in the evening, and it was so pretty with the lights - it just seemed to glow.

Ken was able to do the baptisms for his grandfather, great-grandfather and a few other men in his family tree.  After he was baptized, he baptized me for his grandmother, great-grandmother, and  a few other women in his family.  What an amazing experience - not only to do the work for our own relatives, but to also have Ken perform the ordinances. 

Pauline Eva Fishback DeVoll - Ken's Grandmother

Pauline Amalia Strauss Fishback - Ken's Great-Grandmother

The Schnells visit Flagstaff

Sept. 19-20, 2008

Kris Schnell (brother) and family, along with Ernie Schnell (father) and his friend, came to visit Ken and I in Flagstaff - what a fun weekend.  We all went to Sunset Crater State Park, where the 3-generations of Schnells posed for a picture.

At Wupatki State Park, we all posed for a picture by one of the ruins, while someone offered to take our picture.   I had the setting on black/white by accident, but it actually turned out pretty cool.

We discovered that this is how the petroglyphs must have been made.  

The Painted Turtle

Aug 17 - 22, 08 - Ken and I spent a week volunteering at the Painted Turtle - a camp for children with medical issues - in Lake Hughes, CA.  The week we were there, all of the children had Type 1 Diabetes, so we learned a lot about that disease and the realities of dealing with it on a day to day basis.   We aren't allowed to post pictures of the kids, so you're stuck with looking at pictures of Ken and I and the camp itself.

The volunteers were there a day before the kids got there, so we had time to get trained and oriented to the camp.   The sign I am standing in front of is the name of the road we were on, not an indication of my personality.

There were a total of 12 cabins.  I was assigned to Yellow 3, a cabin of 10 11-year old girls.  Ken was on the other end of the camp in Blue 4, a cabin of 10 14-16 year old boys.

Each cabin had a room for the kids - don't they look so cute and nice - and a nice bathroom for the campers.  The counselors had their own sleeping area, on the other side of the cabin, but they weren't decorated as cute as this room was.

There were lots of activities for the kids to do - canoeing, archery, crafts, horseback riding, ropes course - and that kept us busy from morning to night.  My favorite activity was the one where the kids got to paint the counselors and volunteers - it took me 2 days to get the pink and purple paint out of my hair.   One night at dinner we all had to come to dinner with "wacky hair".  This is as wacky as I got, but the kids had a lot of fun with it.  Most of them used a combination of hair spray, colored and mousse, and lots of hair elastics.  

On another evening, the kids went to a carnival.  Ken took his turn being the "target" - and as you can see, had a lot of fun (even though I think he had his ears on upside down).

On the last night, the kids were all asleep and the counselors and volunteers in our cabin got a little silly - it was late and we'd been playing hard all week.  We were impatiently waiting for the promised milk and cookies that would be delivered soon.

Ken and I had a lot of fun, even though we didn't see much of each other - we were too busy keeping track of the kids we were assigned to.  It was an exhausting week, but definitely worth the effort and we're already looking forward to going again next year.   We headed home with very fond memories of the Painted Turtle.

Dogtown Lake, AZ

Aug. 8-10, 08 - Ken and I planned a weekend camping trip to Dogtown Lake, just a few miles south of Williams, AZ.  We had heard that the lakes in the area had been stocked with fish, so Ken bought a fishing license and packed his fishing gear.   Not being a fisherman, I planned on relaxing and prayed that the monsoon rains would let up for the weekend so that we could have a dry camp.

Ken fished for many hours, in many spots on the lake, and finally caught something . . .

but we threw it back in the water.   I wasn't in the mood for crawfish.  We didn't see very many other people catching fish either, so maybe it just wasn't a good area for fishing.

I relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful scenery (including the blue and grey herons and other birds), while Ken . . . 

studied and worked on a paper that was due on the first week of school.   At least he was happy.

All in all, a very relaxing, dry, and enjoyable weekend was spent at Dogtown Lake.