Update me please!

I can't believe how long it's been since I last updated my blog so i'll try to be brief and add lots of pictures.
In celebration of my birthday forever ago we went to Great Falls to go on the billy goat trail with Zoe, but we found out that we couldn't take her on the trail so we took another trail and enjoyed the lovely scenery. Here are some photos from that trip. We ended up walking for about 3 hours!! We were utterly exhausted by then end, but it was fun.

Happy Birthday to me!

Beautiful Fall leaves

On the trail

Zoe and Me

Zoe looking cute and a bit tired!

1) Gary and I drove down to Tennessee to have Thanksgiving with my parent's and Jenny. Amy and her family came down from Chicago as well. I got to interact with a very active niece of mine which is quite different from the newborn I held awhile ago. We had a very nice dinner together as a family, went out to see the Harry Potter movie, trim the tree and just spent quality time with each other. I also went to see a chiropractor Jenny goes to and since I had never been to one before I didn't know what to expect, but when she was done cracking my back and the like I felt like a new woman! I wish I could have that done every week.

One big happy family

Savannah (niece)

Another one of my niece, because well she is just so adorable!

Don't ya love how they "tied" our tree to the car?

Yum!

2) I participated in the festival of choirs this year before the First Presidency Christmas devotional so every Sunday for 3 weeks I went up to the stake center to practice our songs. I also participated in our ward choir so lots of singing which was sort of hard on my voice, but good practice. The performance went well as well as the other ward choirs. The only unfortunate thing was is that the Stake center the day of the performance had no heat in the building so everyone was freezing and kept their coats on. Not a lot of people stayed for the devotional after-wards since they could go home and watch it there. We stayed along with Gary's parent's and just bundled up to stay warm. We enjoyed the devotional as always.
3) Gary is now the ward employment specialist and is learning what he needs to do to help members find jobs. It can be a little overwhelming for him with all of the people who are in need of a job.
4) I've always hated where the computer was next to the basement door since it cluttered up the room so we decided to move it to the library. We had to move some bookcases around which took awhile, but once we did we were able to fit in the computer desk which I think is a great spot for it. I'm really happy with it. I think that Gary still needs to get use to it, but with this arrangement it really opens up the room and it looks so much better.

5) Gary has been sick for the last week, but it didn't turn into pneumonia which is what normally happens when he gets a cold.
6) Gary has been slowly working on our unfinished room putting up a wood frame around the room so that he can start putting up the drywall. He won't be able to do one wall since we still need to put a window in before we close it up. We will most likely do that in the spring.
7) Since Gary can't work to much on the unfinished room right now he has moved on to the library. He 's done a lot of demolishing the last few days and today I helped him finish it up and move all of the wood paneling out of that room so he can start installing lights and added the framework. Here are some pictures of other projects we have been doing around the house.

Uh oh!

Ta da! All done!

New shelves Gary installed so now we have more storage! Yay!

New cabinet!

Till next time!

Fall is here!

I love all of the fall colors that we've had this year. Check it out!

Found this beautiful tree on the Temple grounds.

This is my favorite tree in the neighborhood because of it's vibrant orange color. Picture's don't give it justice.

These last two pictures aren't the best quality, but I still like them.

10 for Saturday

Patuxent State Park

Absolutely Beautiful!

Black-eyed susans

1) A little while ago Gary and I and his family took a day trip to the Patuxent state park to do some hiking. It was a beautiful day.

Brandon Sanderson

2) Gary and I went to another signing for Brandon Sanderson who has a new book out called "Way of Kings".

Future Missionary

3) Gary and I took a Friday off a couple of weeks ago so that we could go to the Temple with Jen who took out her endowments. She will be serving her mission in Billings, MT. Jen had a farewell party this past Sunday and we spent one more day with her last night. She left early this morning and will report to the MTC tomorrow! I know she will be a great missionary.
4) I continue to get allergy shots every week. I pray that I will show some improvement in the next few months.
5) Still getting use to our new ward. We had a linger longer this Sunday to get to know each other, but a lot of the time I just talked to me I knew. I did meet a couple of sister's who introduced themselves to me.
6) A little out of order, but on Saturday we had a service project for the youth at the Temple. The youth love this activity so we had a big turn-out. The youth started to put up Christmas lights around the visitor center. Literally millions of lights are put up every year so you have to start early. Youth and adults help out every year.
7) Gary and I haven't done any projects lately which is fine with me, but we still have lots of things we want to do before winter comes along.
8) I threw a baby shower for my friend at my house a week ago. She's having a baby boy and will be her first baby. We all had a great time.

Baby-shower for my best friend Juila

9) Enjoyed conference this year.
10) That's all for this week!

Cute picture of Zoe

Fort Washington

Fort Washington
September 2010

Fort Washington has stood as silent sentry defending the Nation's Capital, for over 180 years. As technologies advanced so did Fort Washington. Fort Washington is one of the few remaining Seacoast Forts in its original designs.

Gary and I along with a couple of our friends went down to see the fort. It was a beautiful day and it was very interesting to explore and learn more about. We went on National park day so we didn't have to pay a fee to get in which was awesome!

Front Entrance

Reminds me of a hobbit hole :)

There were tons of butterfly's all over the place. It was beautiful! I could of stayed there all day and watched them. It was very peaceful.

Home Sweet Home

Friday October 1st marked our 1st year of being a happy home owner. Coincidentally, it was also Zoe's birthday so we had two things to celebrate. We talked about how it was coming up and was getting excited about it, but when the day came we almost forgot. What I won't forgot is all the hard work and sacrifices that were made to make it possible for us to have this beautiful home. We looked at so many homes that looked beautiful on the outside, but were total disasters inside. We put a bid of at least 5 homes and were rejected every time. When we had almost given up hope we found this jewel among all the garbage we had looked at. It was a little bit higher price then we wanted to pay, but we are glad that we did. We were amazed that this house was in such good condition and that almost everything in it was new. We were surprised to find that no one had put a bid on it yet, because we were sure that there would be other people wanting this beautiful home. Yet, the Lord was mindful of us and guided us with his hand to this place where we would call our home sweet home. How blessed we've have been this past year has been truly amazing. Soon after we had bought this home we welcome Zoe our little Yorkie-poo into our little family. She has been a lot of fun and a true joy to us. If we ever have a bad day she is always there full of energy and ready to cheer us up. She is extremely playful and very lovable. I can't believe she is a year old now it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we got her.

1) I decided to get allergy shots since they have worked for my sister Amy so for the last couple of weeks I have been going to the doctor's to get my shot.
2) Gary just got over being sick from a sinus infection which lasted for about a week. I'm glad he is feeling better.
3) About 2 weeks ago Jen survive a head on collision as she was going to our house for our Writer's group. It wasn't her fault, but both cars were totaled. Both of her airbags went off, but she didn't break any bones she just had lots of bruises on her knees and had a sprain wrist. She had a hard time walking, but she is doing a lot better now.
4) Last week we had a special sacrament meeting that consisted of 4 wards in our stake. Everyone had suspicions that it was going to be boundary changes and normally when rumors fly around it is usually wrong, but this time everyone was correct. Our ward was affected the most since they dissolved our ward so Beltsville no longer exists. Gary and I both knew that it was going to happen, but when they actually confirmed that it was true I felt kind of sad. I have been in that ward since we were married so it was bittersweet for me. Some families who live up north will now be a part of another ward and "Beltsville" will now be a part of the College Park ward. College Park and Beltsville have always been small wards so I think it's smart to combine them. Everyone in the ward was released, except for me since I have a stake calling. Since this weekend has been General Conference our first meeting together will be next week. We saw see how it goes.
5) Enjoyed General Conference and I look forward to reading them all in the Ensign when it comes out next month.

That's it for now!

10 for Tuesday!

I haven't written in awhile so I hope that I will remember everything that happened to us last month.
1) At the end of July I went to Youth Conference as a support person. For Youth Conference we went to Kirtland, Ohio. We had around 50 kids go and everyone had a really good experience.

Me & Beasy Sanders

One of the 6 groups (Silver Spring Stake)

2) Gary and I watched "inception" and both enjoyed the movie.
3) While Gary was gone on his business trip to Guyana I got pulled over twice in one week on the same road. :( I got pulled over twice for the same reason. Our tags were expired, but of course when I was pulled over twice I got 3 other citations. I was actually really flustered that I couldn't find my insurance card so I he told me that I had to appear in court. When Gary came home we went to the MVA to get our tags renewed. It was a bit of a hassle, but we finally were able to get everything straighten out. I have a court date scheduled for September. :(
4) We took one more cabinet out of our kitchen and have yet to buy a new one.

Gary taking out the old cabinets (Sorry, no pictures of the new cabinet)

5) At the last minute Gary, Jen and I took a road trip up to Rhode Island for the weekend. We went up there because Jen (Gary's sister) wanted to do some research for her historical novel she's currently writing.
6) It was nice to get away for awhile and I had never been to Rhode Island before so it was a neat experience. We went to a little town called Westerly. It was very beautiful. Hayward Gatch a historian there showed us around the town and had some very interesting stories to share with us.

Jen & I

Beach

Ocean House which was amazing! (Recently renovated)

Beautiful House (Many of the houses were this amazing!)

Fort Mansfield (Own by the local fire department)







Jen

7) Before we came home we decided to drive up to Boston since it was only a short drive up there. We just spent the morning walking around the town since we needed enough time to drive home. I thought it was a cute little town and very friendly and thought it would be nice to come back and see more. We visited the old and new state house which was interesting.

Jen & I in Boston

Funny picture of us

Duck Pond (I could of stayed there all day, because it was so beautiful and peaceful)

It made me wish we could of stayed longer!

Added this picture just because I'm a nerd. :P

8) I went to court this week and to make a long story short Gary saved the day. He talked to the policeman and showed him that we always had insurance and he was nice enough to drop the charge so we didn't have to pay any fines which was a total of $400!
9) We went to another book signing for Brandon Sanderson on Wednesday for his new book "Way of the Kings" Gary and I were very excited about it. There were tons of people at the book signing so we didn't really have any good seats. I love Brandon because he is so down to earth. He book has really cool maps in it and pictures throughout his book. We were going to be a long wait until he could sign our book so we went out to get something to eat. When we came back we still had a little while to wait so Gary bought a Munchkin game and we got a couple of people to play with us.
10) We are still slowly remodeling our kitchen so we put a couple of more cabinets in our kitchen.
Till' next week!