Pinners!

One of my workout friends alerted us to the fact that Pinner's conference was coming up and suggested we could go as a group.  One was already going with another friend, but there were four others of us who were interested.  One ended up getting sick the day before so it ended up being only three of us traveling down together.

We got there in the early afternoon of the first day and went to several classes...sometimes together, sometimes we split up, depending on interests.  One of my friends had a daughter there with a booth so she was off and on helping her with that.

There were too many classes that I wanted to go to that overlapped so if one was a craft I would go get in line and get the kit to make on my own and then go to the other class.  It worked well for the most part :)

Probably my most favorite class was, surprise!, a cookie class :)

I follow The Cookie Bank (Justine Banks) on instagram so it was so fun to go sit and learn from her.  I ended up on the front row!  She was the cutest lady and had the sweetest personality.  She told us she would be appearing on the Food Network's Christmas Cookie Challenge in a few weeks.  It was seriously super fun to be in her class!

One of the kits I picked up was from my favorite barn quilt lady, Tweetle Dee Designs.

She is seriously such a sweetheart.  We enjoyed chatting for a bit and when I asked for a selfie her husband pointed out that we had the same phone case...which isn't a really common one so it was pretty amazing!

We got some really good Thai food that night and stayed in a hotel close by.

The next morning we got to the even center (which is seriously huge and had hundreds of booths to look at) and went around to our classes.  We met up with our other friend who had come separately and got some great seats for the final class...Matt Townsend.  He is a therapist and seriously hilarious!  I had heard him speak before but it had been quite a while.

He had us laughing so hard and it was a great way to end the experience.

It was a fun, quick girls' trip that we hope to repeat next year...hopefully with a few more of us!

Josh Goes to the Temple

Early in November Josh was able to go to the temple and receive his endowment.

It was a really special day!

Mom and Dad, Merill and Nancy, Jo, T and James were all able to come.

It was neat having everyone there.

I'm so proud of Josh and his decisions.

He has grown into such a fine young man and I love him!

A couple of odds and ends...

In our new ward (we were rearranged in October and for the first time, with all of the boundary changes over the years, we are no longer a part of the 5th ward...we are now in the 15th:) there is a great big fluffy service dog.  Her name is Avalondee...there's a story behind that name...but, everyone loves seeing her as part of our worship on Sundays :)  I just had to catch a couple of pictures of her in Relief Society.

Also, this was such a cool bug that Abby painted for Art class.  It is called a Picasso beetle and is a real thing!  She did such a great job with it...I just love the colors!

And then there was one...Carl

I have to admit, for years I have been looking forward to not having to worry about figuring out a costume for anyone for Halloween.  I naively assumed that would be when I no longer had kids in elementary school.  Well, I should have known that even though Ben doesn't know what's going on, I would feel compelled to dress him up since all the other kids in his life skills class would probably be bedecked in costumes.

When this was confirmed with his teacher and I expressed my feelings of inadequacy in the costume department she said that she and her aides thought it would be fun if Ben dressed up as Carl from UP and they could put balloons on his wheelchair.  Apparently this had already been discussed between them so I said "Done!" (because half the battle is coming up with an idea) and they said they would bring the balloons :)

I knew keeping the glasses on would be a struggle and I couldn't find the right jacket for him but the rest of the costume came together okay.

Ben catches the bus so early that it was still dark outside trying to get pictures before he left.

Sorry for the amount of pics...it's just so hard to get a good one and in the mean time so many facial expressions are given :)

Andy was trying to help and get his glasses to stay on...

Ben had the squinty face while he waited :)

I sprayed his hair whitish...

Patiently waiting for the bus...

I asked his teacher to send me any pictures she was able to capture and she got a great one...glasses on and a smile :)!

They ended up tying the balloons to his belt loop which was cute :)

This was two days before halloween since it was on a Sunday this year.

Saturday evening my parents came over per tradition and Jo and T joined us as well.  Josh usually does most of the doorbell duty but Abby had a "social norms" assignment for psychology so she ended up answering the door multiple times and asking the trick or treaters for candy :)

We watched The Muppets Haunted Mansion and had a grand old time.

I don't know why I didn't take pictures but that's the way the ball bounces sometimes.

Abby is 17!

This is my beautiful Abby!

This picture was taken at school in her psychology class after all the students took turns writing kind things about each other on the white board.

So these are all the good things her peers see in her.

She just turned 17 and I can't believe how time is flying!

We had fun celebrating as a family...

That's our Abby girl!  She is super fun, artistic and fun to be around.  Love you Babe!

A few days later, on Sunday evening, extended family came and celebrated with us.  Of course we were also celebrating James since his birthday is one day after Abby's.

Jo and T had us play a fun game that had to do with singing and hearing it backwards and trying to copy it so that it was recognizable.  It was hilarious :)!

Grandma Jannie's pear crisp and pie for the win!!!