Rick's Halloween Skeleton

This is the break in Rick's shoulder. It looks really bad to me and I think he'll need some kind of screw. Story is down below on "Halloween Boo Boo".

Trick or Treat

Tonight was a perfect night to sit out and hand out candy to the trick or treaters. This is "Rodeo" he came to get a free hand out.
Rick, Deron and Chopper shooting the breeze and watching all the fun. Rick's costume is his hospital gown that he hasn't yet taken off. I threw a blanket over him so he wouldn't get cold.

Carson was a cowboy and loved walking up and down the sidewalk with all the little trick or treaters.
Chopper was dressed as a jailbird and Carson really got a kick out of him.
Kenzie was a lion, this is actually last night at the party. Tonight she was an Egyptian. We had our annual Chili / Indian Fry Bread dinner at the church parking lot. I went early and rolled out the dough for the fry bread. Wow I ate too much tonight.

Halloween "Boo Boo"

Pumpkin Carving - I love to get the seeds and bake them with lots of salt and butter.
Kenzie co-hosted a Halloween Party with 3 other friends Friday night. This is Cedric who was manning the music and has his own DJ business.
This is Gina (Moriah's mom) the party was at her house. The night is still young and fresh
and we are still happy.
I'm estimating about 75-100 people showed up. That's why I'm glad it wasn't at my house.
The boys hovered around the food the whole night. We had pizza, nacho's, bbq meatballs, and various desserts. We did run out of pop and water. We rented a blow up jumping haunted castle
that they played on and they basically danced and stood around and talked in the cold. It was 54 degrees. I sat by the fire most of the night. It was a long night for me. Rick drove over the night before to go motorcycle riding with Shawn his buddy up in the High Desert in California. He crashed his motorcycle and thought he dislocated his shoulder. His friend Shawn rode back and got the car and drove it to Rick which took about 2 hours. Then Rick drove back to Arizona and took himself directly to a hospital. I called him around 10 p.m. and asked him where he was. This was the first contact I had from him. He was too afraid I'd get mad or something. I found out he was at the hospital and that his right arm right below the shoulder was broken! It hadn't been 9 months since his last motorcycle mishap with his broken ankle. So I got home around midnight from Kenzie's party and the gate to our backyard was open and all 3 of our dogs were missing. So I call Jon, Derek and Michael to come help look for them. Jon was the first on the scene and finds all 3 dogs on the next block up roaming around. Derek drives me down to the hospital and then I check Rick out and we get home about 2 a.m. What a night. Rick is resting and waiting to go to an orthopedic surgeon whenever we can get in. Hopefully he won't need any surgery. Hope your Halloween was less frightful.

Free KFC

I didn't know what I was getting myself into to when Kenzie asked if I would take her friends to KFC for free chicken. The last time I heard they were giving away grilled chicken the lines were long and they ran out of chicken. But we went to the KFC on Higley and Brown and it was totally empty. I thought for sure they weren't having the special but sure enough they were giving away grilled chicken breasts and biscuits. And we had the place totally to ourselves! Happy Birthday Colonel Sanders we love you.

Carson's First Quad Ride

Everyone came over after our Stake Conference. We finally had a Sunday that Rick didn't have any Bishopric meetings till 6 p.m. so he got out the little quad to take Carson for a ride.

Rick has been dreaming of the day when he could take his little grandson for a quad ride.
Carson didn't cry but was scared and shaking while riding around on it in the backyard.He much prefered sliding down the slide.
But eventually he warmed up to the idea. Rick had fun anyway!
Chopper enjoyed chomping on his steak bone. I love these Sunday's when we can all relax and enjoy family time and the beautiful outdoors together.

Wallin's Halloween Bash

This is Rick and I in our Hippie Outfits at the Wallin's Halloween Bash. It was the event of the year! It was over the top crazy!
This is our nephew Doug and Anna as Shrek and Fiona. They looked so great!
This is Ryan as Dumb and Dumber. He played the base guitar in a cool 80's style rock band.
They even had a mechanical bull I tried to ride. That bull bit me back. All my horseback riding experience couldn't even help me. This is Brandon just before flying off.
This is the live rock band called the "Mud Sharks". It was vibrating loud and Rick and I had a lot of fun dancing to it. Wallin's really know how to put on a party! Thanks for inviting us "old folks".

Go Dog Go

You've got to see this cool set up. We passed them up on our way home from the bike race in Southern Arizona.

Cochise Classic Bike Race - Douglas AZ

This is the start of the 92 mile bike race down in Douglas Arizona. It's called the "Cochise Classic". This is Jon's 2nd year in a row riding and Derek's first year. Rick's done this race probably 10 times. They all did well Jon coming in 13th overall and Rick and Derek probably 9 minutes behind him.
Here's Jon still smiling on the ride.
Jon and Ivette at the end of the race. Ivette and I passed off food and water bottles while I drove the whole course. It was tedious driving and sometimes down right dangerous trying to maneuver in and out of cars and bikes. I'm getting too old for this kind of stuff!!
Another one of my chores after the ride. Derek doing a deep stretch.
Every one hashing over the race. Something bike riders tend to do after every ride.
On our way home we saw this cute doggie side car called "Hawgdog". They were darling.

October Camping in AZ

Kenzie had a whole week off of school so we decided to go camping. We picked a nice area just 5 miles north of Payson "Flowing Springs Campground". It took a little over an hour to get there. We were camped right next to a stream (East Verde River). The leaves were all in fall colors and it was spectacular.
Kenzie spent most of her time catching up on her sleep.
Danny and Carson enjoying some time together.


Carsons first HAPPY Meal at MacDonalds. He looks pretty happy.
We heard a bobcat howling in the night down by the stream and there were big cat prints in the
side of the river in the morning. Our food was untouched in the night thank goodness. There were signs posted about "Beware of Bears". So I was kind of worried the whole time about that. In the night I heard dogs barking and cans rattling and for sure it must have been a BEAR!!
We borrowed a pop - up trailor which was very comfortable to sleep in. I served everyone breakfast in bed with hot cocoa and oatmeal. The temperature was in the low 40's at night. Danny said the car temperature was 37. But it warmed up nicely during the day in the high 70's.
Carson sitting on the "whale rock".
Everywhere you looked it was beautiful.
Except for here. There was a fire about 2 months prior and we wanted to go hiking to some waterfalls and pools but the area was closed because of the burn. It was called Cold Springs and is suppose to have 7 pools to swim in with cliffs to jump off of and waterfalls. Maybe next year we can go. So Sad. This is Houston Mesa Road just outside of Payson.

Carson's 1st Birthday Dance Party

Carson had a BBQ dance party for his first birthday. He had fun bobbin to the music and eating or smearing pudding all over his face.


Here he is rockin out to the beat.
The theme of the party was farm animals and Lachelle made a cute cake with a cow and sheep
grazing in a pasture.
Everyone had a great time! Happy Birthday Carson our Number #1 Grandson.

My Hide Out

The weather is absolutely beautiful these past few days. It even rained this morning and a rainbow appeared. I took the dogs for a late walk this morning and watered the plants. I will be having the activity girls coming over today for an activity. I'm excited to have them. We are dipping pretzel rods into chocolate and then putting different toppings on them. The straight pretzel reminds them to "hold onto the rod" or (the word of God). I also have a game and they will talk about prayer. I had a neat experience with prayer last week. Derek couldn't find his wallet and he had looked all over the house for a day and a half. He was leaving for conference the next day and it was getting serious that he find his wallet. I was looking in his room everywhere for it and decided to give a heartfelt prayer to find it with all the faith I could muster. I had a really heavy feeling that it was not in his room but to look outside in the backyard. He had been playing with the dogs the night before and I thought that maybe it could have fallen in the bushes somewhere. So with the help of the dogs (not really much help) I started rumbling through the bushes. It hadn't been 5 minutes since I said that little prayer and it was like the wallet just jumped out at me when I was pushing around the flowers. My lesson today for the girls is on prayer and I will be sure to tell them that story. Sorry my bloggings have been off. But since the temple is closed for 2 weeks I thought I would dedicate my time to getting back to doing genealogy. I feel like I'm back in my little "hide out" again letting the world pass me by but getting excited at finding more family names to take to the temple. Our stake temple day is coming up and I want to have a bunch to take.