Thanksgiving 2013

We had a very nice day with our family and some of the kids' friends from college.  We started our day with a couple hours of traveling, a shingling party at Uncle Jo's house, and then a delicious meal mixed with some humor from Sylvia.  After that came some shooting, in various forms, a candy ball game, pie and ice cream, and then we headed back home when it got dark.  Super fun day;)  And I am very grateful for the many blessings the Lord gives us daily.

This week at our house...

Saturday is pizza day at our house and if we have something different, we are in deep trouble! 

 Helping Dad with his shed project-making more workspace.

 Flowers and vegies in the grow shed.

 Pouring a cement floor.

 Cooking the rest of the pumpkins for pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin bars, etc.

 We have been working hard to stay on track with school, so the kids get some incentive rewards for getting all their work done.  This one they chose to go 4-wheelin' on Rattlesnake Hill.  We also enjoy a beautiful sunset.

 We had an aphid outbreak in the grow shed, so we ordered some ladybugs to help get them under control.

 Harvest for the day.

 The pepper plants have been covered with aphids and I've had to spray them every day.  I sure hope the ladybugs can help me out.

 Ada wanted to make her own batch of pancakes real bad, so she could be the one to turn them.

 We've been working on our assignment for art class-a self protrait.   And if that's not hard enough, we are to paint it with watercolors, only using red, yellow, and blue, and mixing all our own colors.  HARD!!!

 Rather scary, I know.  Mouths are really hard, and there is def. too much green in my blonde hair.  Better luck next time:)

The backrubbing/ hair braiding train.

 Helping Dad get his wall up.

1st week in 1st area

We got our first letter from Elder Zhao in his first area-sounds like he is doing great: 
"My first week is awesome. It's really busy here because we have to bike everywhere, and there are lots of hills here which makes it even harder. We taught two lessons in English and four in Chinese. My companion's name is Elder George, but they give him a Chinese last name Zhao (the same as mine) but I'm the real Zhao though. He is from Indiana, yes, a white guy speaks Chinese. I'm learning gospel terms from him and he is learning daily conversations from me. We actually have three people with a baptismal date with us on Dec. They are the mom and her two kids. The mom is from Hong Kong, and her kids were born here, so we taught them in English. The weather is really nice here, it's usually above 75 degrees. Missionary work is not that hard though but the biking is FREAKING HARD. it's ball time now haha, so i better get going. My first P-Day is kinda crazy, I have lots things to do, I will talk to you more on next P-Day."

Elder Zhao is leaving for the missionfield!

Just got a letter from Jiaxin saying he is leaving in the morning for his service in the Arcadia California mission.  We are so excited for him-he sounds like he is doing great.  His address is at the right if you would like to write and encourage him:)

 Elder Zhao in front of the Provo Temple.