Blessings 101 and Tagged again!

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with your blessings? This is how I have been feeling lately. It seems as if the planets are in perfect alignment over our house and I don't want to do anything to upset the balance of the cosmos! Our three adult children are all amazing. We have a son in law whom we just love. They all have a desire to be obedient to their earthly parents (can you believe that means me?) and to their Heavenly Father, they are all making righteous decisions and we couldn't be happier. That in and of itself is a tremendous blessing, but lately I have been feeling so grateful for where we live.

We are living in the best kept secret in Southern California. Our house stands at 6000 feet amidst tall pines. Here is a picture of our house in the winter and a picture of our house in the summer. We get snow every winter which I know sounds so strange for So Cal.



We also have our very own chapel that we don't have to share with another ward! I know, I know....everyone altogether now with one big....Awwwwwww.... We have our own stage, satellite dish and baptismal font. The time for Sacrament never changes. It's been 9:30am for the 18 years that we have lived here. Here's also a picture of the road from our house to the chapel.




I also really enjoy the wildlife that can be found in our area. Here's a list of animals that our family has actually seen with our two eyes: Rattlesnakes, bats, owls, blue jays, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, roadrunners, bobcats, coyote, red tail hawks, deer, bear and bighorn sheep! We have mountain lions, but we haven't met one in person, hubby has just seen tracks.

There are only 3000 full time residents in our little community and it has been such a wonderful place to raise a family. I am so grateful for all of the wildlife and nature that our Heavenly Father has created for us to enjoy. I certainly do!!

Now I have also gotten tagged again!! Maybe I shouldn't have enjoyed it so much the first time!! lol

Anyway, so here goes:


1. 4 places I visit frequently:
*Work
*Target
*Coldstones
*Post Office


2. 4 People who call/Text/Email me regularly:
*Hubby
*Brooke
*Brittany
*Vicki


3. 4 favorite foods
*Shrimp
*Kraft Mac and cheese
*Creme Brulee
*Anything from Claim Jumper


4. 4 Places I'd rather be:
*In Utah with my kids
*In the temple
*Greece
*Australia


5. 4 Movies I'd watch over and over:
*Newsies
*Anne of Green Gables
*Monty Python and the Holy Grail
*George of the Jungle


6. 4 Bands/Groups I like to listen to...
*Rockapella
*Neil Diamond
*Rod Stewart
*Michael Buble

WIPE OUT!!

One of my very good friends in my ward has a son who is going to be on the tv show "Wipe Out"!! His name is Tyler Jorgenson and his episode is going to air next Tuesday, July 29th!! He's not allowed to tell anyone how he did, but he HAS made the remark that he's preparing for the "mocking". Hmmm...wonder what that means? Check him out next Tuesday night!

I've been tagged!

I'm it! I'm it! I've never been tagged before and I'm so excited! Redhoodoos tagged me and she is my new favorite friend! :o}

Can you just feel the ground shaking beneath your feet? That's me jumping up and down!

Okay, so I am supposed to list six words that describe my life. And this shows that I need to GET a life, because I thought about this all night. It is definitely harder than you think but here goes:

1. Blessed
2. Miraculous
3. Routine
4. Family-oriented (Hey, don't give me no flack, that's ONE word!)
5. Enjoyable
6. Purposeful

So nothing earth shattering but that describes it pretty well. So now the second part of the tag is to tag five others. The following people have been duly warned!!

Brittany - You need to do this if you would ever UPDATE your blog!
Diane - Okay, you got me started with blogging in the first place...now you're it!
Brynne - I can't wait to see the words YOU come up with!
Lisa (Is that a garage door on my ceiling) - No running away into the beautiful outside where you live...you're it!
Tyler - With your twins, you should have some interesting things to say!

Toodles....I'm off to your blog to leave you a note!

Kitchen Ditcher's Quiz

Scroll down to take the quiz. I can't get it to scoot up! Click on "TAKE QUIZ"

If anyone (other than immediately family) gets 100%, let me know. You may win a prize!

P.S. In order to avoid any more confusion, this quiz is how well you know our family! lol

Kitchen Ditcher's Quiz 1) In which temple did this family start their eternalness? Los Angeles, CA Salt Lake City, UT Logan, UT Honolulu, HI

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Latest fashion arrival from India!

My sister-in-law has recently returned from a service and humanitarian trip to India. If you haven't already read about her amazing experiences, go check her out at http://coloradomcewens.blogspot.com She's got some pretty incredible photos from an orphanage and a leper colony.

While she was over there, I asked her if she could get me an authentic Indian outfit and here it is!! You can't imagine how comfy this clothing is! I seriously could wear it everyday! The pants underneath kinda look like "I Dream of Jeannie" pants but getting a closeup while still on me would have given you a little too much information about myself if you know what I mean!




Look at the cool beading! And try not to notice the sunburn I got this weekend!

This clothing makes you feel very pretty and very exotic. Here is my best attempt at looking exotic!

Thanks for getting this for me Pam. You're the best!!

Missionary vs. Wile E. Coyote

Well, before I start this post, I want to issue somewhat of a disclaimer and let everyone know that the two missionaries assigned to our ward are very valiant servants. They are not slacker missionaries (you know what I mean), they are obedient, VERY hard working and have raised the level of missionary work that is being done in our little community very substantially. But even the BEST missionaries need a little diversion........

This post is also dedicated to Redhoodoos who shared with us a photo of a coyote that she saw in Yellowstone! So Redhoodos, this one's for you!

In keeping with the recent direction from the Brethren, the missionaries in our ward live with a member family. Sister M. LOVES having the missionaries at her place and is a great second mom to them. However, Sister M. has a little fountain in the front of her yard and a coyote comes daily to drink from the fountain. Well, Sister M. also has a 4 year old little boy and worries constantly about the two wildlife animals mixing! We live in a tiny little mountain community of about 3,000 and seeing coyotes can be a daily experience.

So the Elders get permission from Sister M. to try and eliminate the coyote. (as in, dead) Since I think the ACME company is no longer in business (beep, beep, road runner music in the background) the Elders came up with a plan. I do not know how in the world they did this, but the Elders captured a squirrel, (which also can be seen on a daily basis) and...well... I'll leave the rest of that part to your imagination. Needless to say, it won't be eating nuts anymore.

Now switch your minds from The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote to Jurassic Park. Remember how they tried to lure the T-Rex by tying up a live goat? Enter recently expired squirrel.

With squirrel securely in place, the Elders sit on the roof, with bow and arrow in hand, and wait for Wile E. But Wile E. turned about to be very wily, because at midnight the Elders decided this was a waste of time, they were tired and so they went to bed.

So what happened to the squirrel? In the morning, all that was left was the tail. Compliments of Wile E. Coyote.

Bad boys, Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

I saw something kind of exciting the other day. Well at least it was exciting for me in my work-a-day world life. I was at one of our local malls, the kind that are currently called lifestyle centers where the stores are outside and not enclosed. Things have truly become full circle. I am old enough to remember strip malls where the stores were outside and then enclosed malls became popular and these strip malls were converted and enclosed. I clearly remember thinking how cool enclosed malls were because you could now shop inside in case of inclement weather. Not that we get a lot of inclement weather in Southern Calif, but I still remember thinking they were so cool. Now it's back to being outside and called lifestyle centers. Yet I digress.....

I came out of one of my favorite stores to see a crowd gathered around a parked car. There were also two police officers with their cruiser parked askew on the street. Then I also saw the cameraman and another guy holding a microphone on a long pole. I'm sure there is a technical term for the microphone guy, but I don't know what it is!! I'm sure they were filming an episode of "COPS". The two officers were tapping on the windows of the parked car and my first thought was that someone had left their child in their car. The temperature was probably 95 degrees and all the windows were rolled up. My heart groaned at the thought that this situation might turn out to be fatal.

Well, there was something left in the car and it was the car owner's dog. The officers waited around for quite a few moments then decided to take action. One officer laid a large tarp across the windows on one side of the car while the other officer tried to get the dog's attention on the other side of the car. The cop with the tarp took his billy club and attempted to break the window behind the driver's seat. The club bounced off the window and once he dropped it on the street. It took the officer five tries before the window finally crumbled. A cheer rang out through the crowd as the officers guided the dog out of the car. A young mother with two kids in a stroller had some bottled water which they poured over the dog and gave him a drink.

A few minutes after freeing the dog, the owner arrived. He was a young man of about 24 or 25 and guessing by his hand gestures was trying to tell the cops that he was just over at another store and was going to be right back. The cameraman zoomed in on him, as the officers guided him to the curb and had him sit down. The cops didn't care too much about the story they were being given. I wondered what kind of ticket he was going to get. Was this a misdemeanor or is cruelty to animals a felony?

The crowd finally dissapated, the young man had his dog returned to him and drove away with a smashed window. The last person remaining was a security guard sweeping up the broken glass in the street.

All in all, I was just glad that no one was harmed in the filming of this episode, man or dog!

ER

THIS...

PLUS THIS.....

UNFORTUNATELY EQUALED THIS....

Hubby's summertime project is to replace our upstairs back deck. During the demolition process, DH stepped back thinking there was something there and fell through our deck. On his way down, a rusty old nail caught the back of his leg and we had to run him to emergency where he ended up with some internal stitches (the nail cut into the muscle) and 8 external stitches.

While growing up, his mother told me that they were on a first name basis with the emergency personnel at their local hospital. If anything was going to happen to my husband as a child, it would be to get stitches. Whenever someone would call her and tell her that she needed to come quickly because one of her sons was hurt and needed stitches, she knew immediately which son it would be!

So here's to one more battle scar for hubby. Because it has happened so often, he takes it very well. In fact, he was joking on the way to to the hospital. I was laughing so hard...he had me in stitches!! Groan......I know.....