PRE-THANKSGIVING CHRISTMAS SPIRIT...

I know it isn't Thanksgiving yet, but I just had to decorate one tiny corner and start the Christmas music...even though the house is for sale we may have one last Christmas here in this great house! I love my little cream and gold village.  I try to add something new to it each year...found two new trees today...the big one to the right behind the "JOY" and the sparkly tinsel one. 

THE BEAUTIFUL COLORS OF FALL...

Our maple tree is so pretty right now!  Wish the leaves could stay on the branches a while longer!

FEELING A BIT NOSTALGIC...SOME OF THE THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT YAKIMA...

 The beautiful trees and fall colors...

 Franklin Park behind the house a few blocks away...

 Chestnut and Yakima Avenues in the fall...

The wonderful historic houses...

I LOVE THE FALL...

I hate to see the summer go by and all my flowers die off, but I love the fall! We tried a square foot garden this year...here is a little display of our harvest.

THE TREK WAS AWESOME!

I wanted to post some pictures from our Stake Trek. It was such a great experience. We had an "awesome family"! I wore sunglasses the entire time so when we arrived at "Zion" I took them off for a family picture and voila! Racoon eyes! Check out Mike's beard! That went off about 1/2 hour after we got home! It was really hard, but such a neat experience! We pushed our handcart 21 miles in four days in thistle that was as high as our thighs and through dirt six or seven inches deep and as dry as talcom powder. We were able to portray the "Moulton" family thanks to the history given to us by mom. The Moultons were our ancestors on our dad's side. They traveled by handcart with the Willie company. Thomas Moulton was my great-great grandfather. The history tells of some extraordinary hardships they endured. I am really grateful for their sacrifices. It sure made me appreciate my heritage alot more after having this experience! They had seven children and everyone made it to Zion. They had a very fragile baby that rode in a handcart the entire way. Thus, we were noted to have the only "baby" on board. We tried to make it fun taking a baby with us! It was pretty funny carrying "Charles" around. By the time we reached "Zion" the kids had named him "Chucky"! We had a great rap...my favorite line...yo...our cart is our crib, with baby an' bib!" We got some good laughs!
Brandt did an excellent job with all the pictures! He put together a DVD to music for the upcoming Stake Standards Night.

HAPPY MONDAY...

It was a little cooler today...if you call 90 degrees "cooler". Aphids were destroying my flowers...Mike sprayed Malathion on everything...after we sprayed we looked at the fine print and it said..."do not spray on petunias...it killed every single solitary blossom that was blooming a week ago, but it must have killed the aphids because the petunias and verbena came back as full as ever! Go figure... we couldn't get the lawn mower started and had to rent one, but it was nice to clean things up today...I love the fall and can't wait for some cooler weather!

CRICUT CARDS...

I decided I needed to use my Cricut machine more and get busy making some cards...made two of these to give away with gift cards.