November flew by!

Well it is the last day of November and what a whirlwind it has been! It seems like just yesterday it was Halloween and now we're on our way to Christmas.
Roxa's brother Raulon got home earlier in the month from his mission in Independence , Missouri.

In this picture we are all waiting and swapping stories and thinking how hungry we were (we had a buffet planned for after).



Raulon's HOME! Roxa and Mason get in line to give welcome hugs!







Below, we enjoy the moment and re-aquint before heading off to lunch.




We all went to Oakley to his report in our old ward (when we all lived close to each other in the country we were in the same ward), it was nice to see everyone.

In November we also enjoyed visiting family in Utah a couple of time this month. Matt really liked watching the BYU - Utah football game. He went over to some friends in Oakley and was the only Ute fan amongst 30 Y fans. There were a few that asked to put on his Utah coat by the end of the game (the U beat them pretty soundly). It was fun, especially to see old friends and of course to see the Utes win.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We had it with Roxa's family and we had great food and a ton of excellent pies. Matt and those who wanted went and had the semi-annual clay-pigeon shoot. The weather was beautiful for this time of year; not cold and not windy so they had a lot of fun.

We are looking forward to the holidays and the chance to spend more time with family!

GOOOOOOOOAAALLLLL!!!

The boys drive down, swerving and dodging opponents, running and panting, just a little further...taking turns running and kicking...one player to beat...the goalie crouches waiting for their move, Myles shoots, the goalie streaches out for the ball...it's to hot for him, it sails right past and into the corner of the net! Gooooooooooaal!!! The rabid group of parents and toddlers scream with excitment! "What's the score?!" "Uh, dunno...this is pee wee soccer...they don't keep score" says a parent. "Oh", says the now not so interested teenage passer-by as she keeps walking.

Well the soccer season has come to a close for the year. It has been really fun to watch the boys develop, and learn these sports (Myles and Mason had t-ball this year too). They really enjoyed running around kicking, laughing, falling tackling - yes, sometimes they forget its not football and/or they remember it's their brother and they decide to tackle for fun or frustration. Either way they really had fun. Oh and they thought the shin guards and cleats were really cool. We're glad they both got to be on the same team, which was awesome for them to play together and it was nice to be able to just worry about one game and one practice each week.

Fire and Ice, Where's the BBQ sauce?

So what do you do when you get the earliest snow in recorded state history and it's 15 inches! Well if you are at our house you BBQ!
Saturday morning we woke up to 5 inches of snow and it was still coming. The weatherman had said it might snow, but it was a full on dumping at our house. So we finished the projects in the garage and made room for the cars. By the time we got the garage ready to move the autos back into their home, they had 12 inches on them! And yes, it was still snowing. Our wet rigs were happy to be in a dry place and we were ready to have some hot chocolate. An afternoon movie and hot dinner was just the ticket.
Later the power went out a number of times, but we didn't mind. It gave us an excuse to do shadow puppets and and tell stories. By 9 o'clock the lights were back on and we had another couple of inches. All in all it was about a foot and a half that fell...and it isn't even the middle of October!
So to help bring back the warm temps we decided to BBQ for Sunday dinner (ok, we Bar-B-Q whenever we can...all the time) but it might help! And although there was lots of snow everywhere , it was beautiful outside. So throw the burgers on the Bar-B!

Myles is 7!!!

Well it was a great time having friends and neighbors come over and help Myles celebrate his 7th birthday! He wanted to have a music party so we cranked up the tunes in the gym and all the kids got our the exercise balls, stretchy bands, and climbed and danced on all the equipment making all sorts of new games up as they went.

Roxa got the kitchen rockin' with individual pizzas as each of the children (and many of the adults) made their own rendition of their favorite pizzas. Watch out for Matt! He was hand tossing his dough!

As always Roxa pulled out her craftiness and made one of her signature creative cakes and what better than an Ipod cake at a music party!

Myles was sure thankful for all the great gifts his friends and family brought over, but mostly he sure enjoyed everyone there to share his special day!

Thanks for everyone that came and had a sweet time with us. It was a great time!

Racing for Home Improvements

Well it has been a fun and busy couple of weeks. Roxa raced in her first triathlon (she was awesome!) it was the "Tater Tot" we swam a 1/2 mile down the river, jumped out and biked 15 miles, then pulled on our running shoes and ran 3.1 miles to finish. It was a lot of fun. It was a cool day for August, and since it started at 7 in the morning the bike turned out to be quite cold. we got out of the river and jumped right onto our bike and went. It took about half an hour to dry off and start to get warm. We stayed together throughout the entire race and really had fun. Roxa's already looking forward to the next one! But she might have to wait until next season...

Both of us started started big projects this week as well. Matt had to travel to Provo for work to a conference so Roxa stayed over with the boys at Grandma's and Grandpa's. That was the start of the projects. While Roxa was at Grandma's her and her mom started on two new quilts for the boys. Myles picked out some Star Wars fabric with Yoda on it, and Mason found some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fabric.

So while the boys played in the new cement fountains grandma had made, the women folk sat sewing and stitching up a storm... can you ever have too many quilts?

Well on the way back from Provo Matt stopped in at Home depot and got the remaining items that he needed to start on the master bathroom remodel. Some paint here, a new counter top there, he has been collecting the flooring, fixtures and other materials over the last few months waiting for some time that he could start and really be able to dive in and get it done all at once. So this last saturday after the triathlon Matt got busy and Roxa finished up her quilts. We aren't the only ones that have been busy, here is Mason and Myles and their friend Ethan making some summer cash at their cool-aid stand. Not too many days left to do them, Myles starts school on Wednesday (1st grade) and the new back to school bedtimes start and the days start to get so busy. Back to school is a nice time of year, it's not so blazing hot, but it is still wonderful weather, new adventures begin and the craziness of summer starts to wind down a little. I think it is going to be a great new school year!

Summer Funn!!

Well it is almost Spudman weekend! For those who don't know, The Spudman is a local olympic length triathlon that happens the last saturday in July each year. It is one of the most popular in the nation and filled up 2000 spots in the registration in 12 minutes. So we are pretty happy we ended up with the spots we did. We are excited to have some of our family up for the race. Matt has two sisters and a brother-in-law coming, who will be doing their first triathlon. Some of the other family have done it before and are back to beat their time! We are excited to have them. Here is a picture at the spudman swim start last year.




Here is a picture from one of the triathlons earlier. It was in Idaho Falls and it was COLD! The warmest part of the race was the swim!
Here Matt is finishing putting on his bike gear and heading out in the wind to do the bike portion of the swim, bike and run.
Roxa has recently gotten a lot more serious in her swimming and has alluded to doing the Spudman next year.







Talking of swimming, the boys are playing fish for the next few weeks in swimming lessons and have been doing great. Here is Myles doing his best impression of a flounder.

Twin Falls Temple Open House

This week we had a wonderful opportunity to go to the new Twin Falls temple and work as Ushers for the open house. We got there at 7 in the morning and after a little meeting to tell us what to do we went to our little areas.
At first Roxa and I were assigned to guide people to the front doors if they got lost. Mostly we sat and enjoyed the beautiful summer morning since there weren't many folks coming by the back door. Soon we were whisked to the front to help get people to the various video rooms to see a short DVD on temples and the church history in the area. There were a ton of people coming. Usually the weekends are the only times it is supposed to be so crazy, but they had almost 5,000 go through that day. At the end of our shift I was asked to push one of the visitors through in a wheelchair and Roxa was able to come with. So at the end we were able to go on a tour together. Soon we will take the boys through so they can see it.