Monday, September 29, 2008

Fall Leaves





Sunday afternoon we took the kids up American Fork Canyon. We had a lot of fun hiking around the picnic area and up a small trail. The leaves were beautiful and I just kept thinking, why don't we come up here more often? Seriously! I don't need to wait around until Bern wants to go up. I could just bring the kids up on my own but wait Luke is walking/running now. Oh yeah. Two kids on my own next to a river could get a little tricky especially since Hope is extremely adventurous. Oh well! It was a beautiful afternoon. Here are some pics of our cute fam.

Ryan Shupe Cont.

Ryan Schupe and The Rubberband!





A few weeks ago, we went to Thanksgiving Point Waterfall Garden Ampitheatre to see Ryan Schupe and The Rubberband ( I might be spelling that wrong). Jeff and Diane were good enough to come with us and we took Hope. I didn't think Luke would make it through the concert so Lindsey, Trev, and Mom arranged to watch him for us. We had a lot of fun and we were glad we could spend some time with Jeff and Diane. The Gardens at Thanksgiving Point are beautiful. Also, we ran into some friends of my dad, the Bells and the Vandykes. Hope didn't want to leave( we left a few minutes early). She said the show wasn't over. Check out her dancing video. Funny!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

The economy.. what a nightmare!

With more banks closing their doors and businesses going under things are looking pretty grim. No wonder the LDS church leaders have been telling us for years(and by years I mean decades)to get out of debt and have a food storage. Now, we are by no means debt free but we are working on it and the last year or so have started building a food storage with things I know my kids will eat(because let's be honest, what is the point in storing foods that you can't rotate through). Still, the news is a daily grim reminder of how bad things are getting and groceries are more expensive than they have been in a long time. My sis in law Diane posted an interesting idea on her blog. WHO will be our next president? I truly don't know who I will vote for but hope to get people talking about it because I do think that it is important to vote. In my eyes, John McCain is a war hero and at least has similar views in foreign policy and more experience than other candidates but is too soft when it comes to sealing our borders and drilling for oil. He is not a true conservative or capitalist. Still, Obama scares the crap out of me. He is a very persuasive speaker and is a very intelligent man but it is what he insinuates that resembles socialism, talking about mandatory volunteer service in our schools and community responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I am all for volunteering in the community but I think that people should do it because they want to not because they have to. What ever happened to personal responsibility and freedom and independence? I am not obviously for big government. I really wish the Mitt Romney had been elected as the GOP candidate purely for his experience in economics because let's face it, our economy sucks! I will probably vote McCain, lesser of two evils.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Money Saver! Thanks Diane!

I am reposting this so all of you can enjoy the savings. My sis in law Diane clued me into this website. If you order from retailers online this could save you money. The website is retailmenot.com. All you do is type in the store's website in the search bar and it will give you different coupon codes that you can use online. Some have printable coupons. I saved $10 on my Children's Place order for my kids' fall clothes. I looked at a couple of others: Gymboree has coupons also. I know Diane bought some clothes for her husband and saved some money. Also, an anecdote. I have been having a hard time getting Hope to want to say her prayers at night before we get into bed. So, last night I'm explaining why we pray and that we love Jesus and Heavenly Father and we need to say thank you for the things we have. etc,etc. Hope says," I want to invite Jesus to my Ariel birthday." How cute is that? How do you answer that? So I say, "OK. Tomorrow night when we say prayers, you can ask him but he might not be able to come."