Maricopa Stake Relief Society Program.....

Today was the culmination of several months of preparation for our Stake Relief Society Women's Program. We had a wonderful, wonderful event!!!! The food was superb not only in taste but also presentation. The committee outdid themselves!!! The decorating committee lined the walls with silhouettes of families and adorned each of the 25 tables with vases filled with white branches that had photos of families and sayings hanging from them. Awesome! The Young Women provided classes for the children and were great at working with them. Thank you! The music was so perfect! The first number was a children's chorus of four boys and four girls ranging in age form about 6 to 10. They were awesome. The second musical number was performed by a soloist accompanied on the piano - it, too, was perfect. The last number was sung by three women who were just plain amazing - they were accompanied on the piano as well. The words to each of these numbers were so inspiring! The speakers were our Stake Relief Society Presidency who spoke about spending time with our families, communication, and family values. Our Stake President then spoke to us about the importance of women in families. We truly have awesome leaders!
Table decorations.Children's classes - ages from toddlers to 11 year olds.




Doyleen & Debbie prepping brunch.Silouettes on the walls.

The brunch menu was a breakfast casserole, fruit cocktail with whipped cream and a cherry on top, a slice of orange, and muffins.



Our Stake President.

About 200 were fed both temporally and spiritually today!

Our Stake Relief Society Presidency - me (Secretary), Barbara (President), Jamilee (1st Counselor), Rhonda (2nd Counselor)

Indexing Goal Reached.........................

It is exciting to have reached this new goal of over 20,000 (see the number at the bottom on the left of the second image) names I've indexed from documents such as this one - a census record.


Below is a copy of my home page for indexing. I have been working mostly on the 1930 US Federal Census. If you click on this it will enlarge and you can see what the points are and what they mean. These points are derived from the difficulty of the document being indexed.

I absolutely love the beauty of this desert home of mine and especially at sunrise and sunset. The first two pictures were taken last night about 5 minutes apart and in two different locations. Too bad my camera doesn't capture the true depth of these colors. I thank Heavenly Father for His artisic work!

Sometimes it's really, really hard to tell where one end of Snickers stops and the other begins! Can you tell? (Her tail is a great hint!)

Doing the Puyallup....

Doing the Puyallup in September is totally different than Doing the Puyallup in November. While I love the September version, I really, really love doing it in November because it meant being with family!!


Ty, Matthew, Karen, Amy.

Taunie, Serina, Tierra, Taleah with Spice in the back.


Aleana, Trent, Curtis, Janel, Rowen

Aleana & Amy.

Rowen cracks me up!

Aleana spending time with Grandpa and Great Uncle Mark.

Matthew, Amy, Ty, Karen

Curtis and Grandpa

Rowen's turn with Great Uncle Mark and Grandpa.

Newest Granddog Duke - he's the same age as Curtis - 3 months.

Aleana having a quiet moment with Grandpa.

Lunchtime for Aleana and Rowen.

This is something I have not seen before - peanut butter and sprinkles! Yummy!

Good times, great memories, wonderful family. Life is great!

California visit part 2......

And this was just in time for Halloween! Brushing doesn't take as long when there aren't so many toothies!

These are English Walnuts! They are HUGE!!!! Callen's grandma grows them in her yard. The meat of the walnuts makes 3-4 of regular walnuts! Fun!

Another self portrait by Melissa! So cute!
Love the freckles!

California visit part 1.......

Melissa and big brother Callen.

Melissa had full control of my camera on this trip and took some amazing photos. Here's a self-portrait.

Todd & Joyce with Melissa.

Hard to believe that this handsome young man will soon be 21 years old. He is our first grandchild - how the time flies!

Fondue Murder........

I don't remember how it started but long, long ago our family started "fonduing" with my parents. We always had a great time and it brings back fond memories when I think about those times. We expanded to include a bunch of Larry's cousins during the 70s & 80s and have lots of those fun memories as well.

We have been wanting to fondue for a while and last night we had three couples (Sandi & Jim, Debbie & Ken, & Don & Kathy) over for a murder-mystery dinner so we chose to fondue! The murder-mystery took place in the Old West - we had some pretty diverse characters & participants playing. Don started us out with some (not enough) guitar playing with a promise to play more next time we get together.Turns out it was Elvira (should have known) that murdered the Judge - what a fun time we had! One of the couples gave us a set of China last week which worked well for this setting as it had a lot of pieces which came in handy for the sauces, bread, meat, chicken, etc. The food was excellent! We had steak, chicken, cheese, & chocolate fondues going. Plus baked potatoes with sour cream. Over the years we have learned to use beef & chicken broth instead of oil and like it a lot better. Sauces we used were sweet & sour, my Dad's & Larry's favorite of mustard & mayo mixed & homemade ranch. We dipped french bread in the cheese and apples, bananas, fresh pineapple & angel food cake into the chocolate. Yummy! We had leftovers so tonight Larry & I will dine by ourselves in front of the fondue pots.