Facing the Giants!

Paul & I just saw down and watched this movie that we have been trying to watch for weeks and had some time today! If you haven't seen it, you've missed out! I loved this movie, a feel good, family movie of entertainment! We cried and laughed throughout it but most importantly, felt inspired while watching it. You know why if you've seen it and will know once you have! So, if you need a good movie to watch, we reccomend it! Go out and rent it today or buy it and add it to your collection! Enjoy!

SLEEPOVER!!!!

Alright, the phone rang and I pick up to hear Leslie ask me if we can have a sleepover at my place, since her place is messy. I hesitate for a moment and ask Paul who looks at me like Im crazy and say YES! So, within the hour, we had 2 nephews, 3 neices, and my Sis in law camped out in our living room. It was hectic, crazy but mostly fun. The kids played on the wii and later we watched Narnia: Prince Caspian (up late) and then the next morning we made breakfast, played more games and had more fun! Here are some the highlights of our adventure this weekend!

This was a site, Paul playing wii with the kids (I think Mario Kart)

Amanda hanging with Solomon & Paul, waiting for breakfast

Don't they look obsessed? Paul playing rockband with the kids!

Yikes, this was one night worth of bedding and clothes for 6!!!

Picking the Christmas Tree

I love the smell of a fresh real Christmas Tree and this is why it's also a tradition for us to go to Stein's a get a tree for the holidays. Usually it's the Saturday after Thanksgiving but I was visiting family. Now it's 2 weeks before Christmas and we finally get the tree. I think we found a good tree this year. It looks crooked but we'll fix it before we put the lights on and decorate it! With the snow that came down the past week .. a lot of the trees were in bad shape, except the expensive ones but we found a row that was in decent shape for the cheaper prices and here it is! Enjoy.
Tree with Paul

Tree with Esther

How we got it home .. heh heh

In our place, because it was outside for who knows how long, Paul requires that we not touch the tree until 24 hours after its been settled. Yes, it's crooked! I'll post the final picture tomorrow!

More Vegas Trip

Vegas was a good trip for me! I never realize how much I miss being around family until I am around them. Vegas was no exception to that statement! My sister and I always are a bunch of crazies when we are near each other and my husband can attest to that .. prime example .. in the 1 1/2 week we were together we saw Twilight the move 5 times together. Anyway, here are some pics from the trip, starting with the video I took of Brooke! Enjoy!



OK As promised.. So, I'm sure my sister is going to kill me for this but here is a video of her singing and playing the guitar. She has a great voice and is self taught in the guitar department....

One of my beautiful nieces Alyssa .. She is so independent and loves to be a girly girl .. make up, nail polish, pink!!!! She is the greatest when she wants to get along!


Mom, Demetri, and Ethan .. after planet hollywood buffet - yummy!


My other beautiful neice Kayla .. she's wearing her Christmas Present from us .. she loved it!

Happy Birthday Bob! While I visited .. it was Bob's birhtday .. 30 years! WOW .. I feel old! Bob, Alyssa & Ethan!

Baby Ethan! 18 months ... really mature for his age!

Ethan and Brooke getting a nap in before a big day of eating!

Thanksgiving Dinner with family and friends!

The Kids getting some game time during Thanksgiving.

St Nick's

What can I say about this HOliday? Not much except, every year since Paul and I have been married, it has been a tradition, carried from his family to ours to celebrate St Nick's by filling our stockings with gifts. Usually candy and such. This year however, I think we've gone above and beyond the fitting in stocking tradition.

Fist a little history on St Nick's, the tradition of St. Nicholas is not synonomous with the role of Santa Claus in the U.S.. As practiced in many European countries, the celebration of St. Nicholas is separate from the Christmas holidays, and occurs during the 2 weeks prior to December 6th, which is St. Nicholas's day. Sometimes St. Nicholas Day is the main holiday for gift giving, and not Christmas.

In Germany, St. Nicholas is also known as Klaasbuur, Sunnercla, Burklaas, Bullerklaas, and Rauklas, and in eastern Germany, he is also known as Shaggy Goat, Ash Man and Rider and is more reflective of earlier pagan influences (Norse) that were blended in with the figure of St. Nicholas, when Christianity came to Germany. After the reformation, St. Nicholas's attire began to change, maybe as a reflection of the change from the Roman church, and he started to wear a red suit with fur. His dark-skinned helper is most often known as Knecht Ruprecht. Although he still visits many homes on Dec 5th/6th and leaves candy and gifts in the children's shoes, more recently St. Nicholas has begun showing up on Christmas Eve in Germany and is called Father Christmas.

In the Netherlands, families celebrate St Nicholas's birthday the night before his feast day (December 6th). At one point during the evening, a loud knock will herald the arrival of Sinterklaas and at the same time candy may be thrown from upstairs; when the door is opened, a bag of gifts will be on the doorstep.

For families with older children and adults, different twists are added to the gift giving and may include gag gifts or the drawing of gift ideas or names, and most times are accompanied by poems with a "personal touch" that poke fun at the recipient in a gentle way (or not, depending on the families ;) ). Wrapping the presents up in odd packages and planting a trail of clues is also part of the general fun, and can sometimes be pretty tricky to get to, depending on the squeamishness of the recipients.

So .. now that you've had the history lesson. This year for St Nick's I got Paul or St Nick's got Paul a Wii game (Are you smarter than a 5th grader), some golf balls and candy!!! He loved it! The game is actually fun. Paul on the other hand, was awaiting a gift card to get my gift, which originally was to be the wii music game but I talked him into getting "Rockband" (Thanks Bob & Jen)I discovered Rockband while visiting my Sister, Brother, and his family is Las Vegas and it was pretty fun. Paul wasn't sure .. but once the box was open and instruments unwrapped .. away we went and played for 2 hours long. Here are a few pictures of the gift!!!!

Update

Alright, So I haven't had a chance to update my trip while I was away or anything that has been going on lately but it's ok. I can't believe that it's the 8th of December already and I'm so behind on everything ... my shopping list, for cookies and gifts, my christmas cards, which by the way will be late this year and so much more! So, I ask that you be a bit patient with me. Also, I have been having this obsession with Jason Mraz music lately, and I had to get a post of it soon, hence - the widget of his music though my latest song obsession is his song "lucky" which is a duet with Colbie Caillat ... another musician obsession of mine. Until later, enjoy!

Viva Las Vegas

Welcome from 'sunny' vegas!!! It's normal temperature here seems to be in the 70's! I am loving it but missing home. My neices and nephew are awesome and growing quick and the trip was well worth it!! My only regret was not staying longer! Here are a few pics!

Swimming with the kids the 1st day, the weather was perfect and the water was warm!
Me, with Ethan and Kayla

Alyssa loves to dive! She showed me that many times!

Honoring Vet's on Veterans Day

Today is Veteran's Day .. as I remembered this, I popped on my computer and sent a message to Paul to wish him a Happy Veteran's Day. He Thanked me and then I went on my way to think what exactly Veteran's Day is about. Many Americans mistakenly believe that Veterans Day is the day America sets aside to honor American military personnel who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained from combat. That's not quite true. In fact, we already have a Holiday for that it's called, Memorial Day and it is the day set aside to honor America's war dead.

Veterans Day, on the other hand, honors ALL American veterans, both living and dead. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for dedicated and loyal service to their country. November 11 of each year is the day that we ensure veterans know that we deeply appreciate the sacrifices they have made in the lives to keep our country free. As, I think of this day, especially after last weeks election, I am very humbled and grateful to those men and women serving our country near and far, past and present. Thank You for serving our country! Here is a picture of Paul in 1989 as he served in Baumholder,Germany when the Berlin Wall was still up or it might have been down by then!?! Though, he has not served in the Military or National Guard in quite sometime, I am grateful to him and many other family members, my dad, uncle, cousins, & brothers. Anyway, Thanks! Sorry Paul, I know you hate it when I post pictures of you on the blog! Enjoy!

Alright, I put this on the web because I'm crazy and to show how crazy we are ... you can see that our schedule is usually jam pack with stuff and yes, mainly church stuff. We're pretty dedicated and happy to be but as you can see ... it's crazy! Now that the holiday's are around the corner, we'll be even more crazy with our schedule! Ha! Enjoy.

Fall Leaves

Last Night, our Young Women went over to Bro & Sis Becker's house to rake leaves. I was genuinely impressed and happy to see that we had a turn out of 13 Young Women! Yeah! That is over 1/2 of the girls helping us!!! They seem to enjoy themselves and the Beckers yard had enough for us to do! At the end, of course - I made them pose for pictures, it just didn't seem right to not do it and I couldn't pass up my chance at it! So, the girls humored me and Paul took these pictures, he takes bad pictures but these turned out ok! Thanks Paul! A BIG Thank you to Paul, Sherie, & Michele for joining us and helping with rides! Enjoy.

Don't forget to Vote!

Today my crazy husband got me out of bed at 630am to vote, lucky thing too .. because I probably wouldn't have walked over during the day to do it! It's pretty important to us to do this, since we believe and have the right to do this when some countries still don't. Today we are all apart of history making! I'm excited to be a part of it! So, if you haven't already done so .. get your butts up and go vote and if you have, congratuations!!!! enjoy the day!

Youth Video on Church Website

Paul & I were visiting with the Lake Mills ward this morning, he had to give a talk. It's nice to visit other wards, especially when we get to bump into youth that we use to see at stake events. We bumped into Ashley Nathan and David Luifau, who at one point I thought his name was Karl but that must be a brother! They are engaged to get married, which is awesome itself but what impressed me most was when they told me that Dan, David's younger brother did a little bit on the church. The video is posted online at the church website and I was able to go and download it. If the video doesn't work, here's the link from the website. It impressed me so much that I wanted to add it here. Enjoy!

http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/search?&query=Luifau&bucket=AllNewsroomContent&maxResults=10&pageNumber=1&totalHits=1

Fall Season of TV update

Alright, I realize that i have not been keeping up with all my TV stuff. So, here's where I am at. So I have been keeping up with Dancing with the stars (truthfully, Paul likes to watch, I usually do too but this season is such a bust). Anyway after last night's dances Here is where my standing is.

Toni Braxton to get the boot. I'm sorry I just so bored with her routine. Unfortunately my pick would have been Cloris the old lady but she actually impressed me a bit. Toni made me fall asleep.



My pick to go all the way is none other than Derek Huff & Brooke the model. She has impressed me with her picking up the steps. She makes it look so easy! She's my pick to win all the way! We'll see how that works out.



NBC's The Biggest Loser: Families

I wish that these broadcasting networks would get it through their hard heads that helping people is not about ratings but really helping people. I hate having to sit week to week watching someone get booted off just because someone hates them. Well anyway, I do learn alot from watching this show it can be entertaining. My pick to win the whole thing is Vicky from the Brown team. She seems more determined and had her one on one sit down with her hubby about realizing that she will be fine if left alone to work out! So here it is Vicky from Brown team to win it all.



NBC Heroes -

Totally loving the story line that it's taking but they are adding so much more character's this season that it is starting to become hard to follow the story lines but I like where it's going, I just hope it doesn't get out of hand.

Solomon Update

This picture was taken a couple of days ago, before his surgery. Solomon all of sudden malled paul and jumped on the chair with him, he looks so happy! Solomon is doing great and recoverying fine. 6 stiches and sent home with pain killers and antibiotics, he has to wear an e-collar still and seems to be in a grim mood .. no vigorous activities for 14 days (this will drive Paul nuts!) that means no walking, running, horse playing .. which is fine by me! I hate exercise. heh heh Anyway, thanks to all that sent me an email of your concern about him.

More Etiquette Night Video's

Paul & Anna, Paul getting a critique

Note: Please pause or stop my music playlist before playing

Paul & Anna & Brett & Brittney

Note: Please pause or stop my music playlist before playing

Beehive / Deacon Etiquette Night

Paul & Rebecca

*Note: Please stop my playlist music before playing.

I had the pleasure of accompanying Paul to Beehive/Deacon Etiquette Night. It's a tradition we have in our stake to have a special night for our 13 year old before they turn 14 and attend stake act ivies, or dances. We teach them and discuss manners, conduct, cleanliness, and yes - dance. I knew there would be a reason I should take my camera! I shot some video of the dance part and pictures. They are pretty funny. Paul had the pleasure of dancing with a couple of the Beehives from our ward. Also, because we only had 5 YM show up and 14 YW, the ratio was really off - so we asked the men and some of the women leaders to help with the partner dancing. Of course I helped but because my camera was only used for the most part when I was taking the pictures, you don't get to see me except with Paul at the end of the night! :-) heh heh, enjoy!

Latest Project

OK, so my latest project has been trying to finish up these frames I have been working on for awhile. I just got myself a new sander and before I knew it, my project on the 1st frame is done. 1 down and 6 more to go! Hooray! Let me know what you think! The top of the fram is actually on its side starting with the words, "The Love in Our Family"... -Enjoy

Oh NO, not again!!!

My poor pup, yet again to live with the lampshade! What happened this time? He grew a sore on his right side and what started off small grew on us in a week, so we went to the vet to see what it was. Well, he was no help and said that it could be a couple of things including the dreaded word - T U M O R ... so he gave us some options like, we could cut it out or send you home with anti - infamatories and anti biotics .. so of course we chose the latter and we'll see him again on Friday! My poor pup, he's had so many abnormal injuries and situations, but as in suite as our other dog that left us last year, he's a "Duhacek" Dog true and true! I'll update on Friday.

Young Women in Excellence

This was a great evening. I was really proud of the Mia Maid class for putting together such a classy evening. Our evening theme was called a Garden of Values. I was impressed, the parents did their research. Not that I didn't expect them to but some of them went online and found meanings of what each flower meant, etc etc. It was good to hear a lot of the qualities that the girls had and see their parents happy to share with us. I was really proud of our girls and the projects they presented. I've included a slideshow of the pictures to the Right side of the evening for your enjoyment. -Enjoy

Before I post any pictures of Young Women in Excellence last night, I read on Alysha and Nate's blog about - "All aboujt Alysha" and I thought, ok - I'll bite and try to spend 1/2 hr or so on spending time on letting you guys know what I'm about. If anyone else is interested, be my guest! I look forward to hearing about you

All about Esther .. it's about time!

This is one of those Q & A posts where you're supposed to tag people at the end so they do the post too and you get to read crazy stuff about them as well.

1. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Turkey, of course!
2. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Hello? Of course!
3. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Not enough!
4. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Yeah! I wouldn't pay for it though!
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? It's between regular Cheerios and Honey Bunches of Oats.
6. FRUITS OR VEGETABLES? It's a tie but if I had to pick than veggies for sure!
7. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? I have socks on but the last pair I had on were crocks.
8. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Devil's cake Jello pudding cup with whip cream - the best! yummy.
9. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? My favorite color is Navy Blue but if I had to pick a color to be, it would be white!
10. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? American Football of course, though living in Wisconsin has turned me into a packer fan not really a big fan without Brett Farve right now!
11. HAIR COLOR? Black with highlight's of red in it.
12. EYE COLOR? Brown
13. FAVORITE FOOD? too many to list!
14. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Ewww, if you knew me you'd say scary movies but I love happy endings as well!
15. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My stomach, gross!
16. FAVORITE SMELLS? Clean Laundry straight from the dryer with dryer sheet smell and FLowers - nice smelly kind.
17. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Paul but my sister sent me a text last night via cell phone and I replied, does that count?
18. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer of course, but I love winter as well!
19. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Didn't I was at church with youth activities.
20. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
21. FAVORITE DESSERT? heh heh, ok I am technically not suppose to have sugar but I love pies!
22. BURGER KING OR MCDONALDS? McDonald's - their fries are the best but Burger King is "supposingly" healthier!
23. DO YOU FOLLOW A LIST WHEN YOU SHOP OR DO YOU GO UP AND DOWN ALL THE AISLES? Yeah, usually - I'm crazy that way.
24. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Too many but right now - Hunger Games.

Alrighty, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and took me 10 minutes tops .. I'm sure I'll regret some of the answers because I whizzed through this really quick. Good luck everyone and i'll be checking out your blog to see if you did the same!

Scout Day Camp for 11 Year Olds

Paul, who if you haven't realized is superbly involved in the Scouting program at church, was once again involved this weekend and is always at these activities. He headed up the 11 Yr Old Scout Day Camp - with support from the Stake Primary Presidency and Scouts leader throughout the stake. It seemed to be a good day for weather and activity. Paul was really pleased with the participation on the Scout Youth Leaders and Scouts. A slideshow has been provided with the days activities. Paul told me as he handed me the camera that there werew only a few pictures taken before the batteries died but low and behold I look and more like 99 pictures were taken! hah! I'll remember what his definition of a few is next time!

Fall Season of Television

Oh snap! It's that time of year again! Where I don't really glue myself to the television but have a lot of it! I'm so sad, I can't help myself. The problem? I bring my husband along for the ride. Starting line up ... Dancing with the Stars .. no fave's to win yet but my guess for 1st elimination is the comedian name Jeff, his partner was Edyta. I just didn't think there was much umf in their Monday Night performance. Bad eye or not, I just didn't feel it would have made much of an improvement with a 20-20 vision.

NBC Heroes - OK, not at all dissapointed with this show! I hope though that Bad guy sylar finally gets the kick, I just really don't like his character. And Claire living forever? Well, duh! Did she not think of that before? Peter .. well, what can we say about Peter? I love how they are taking this seasons story line so far and can't wait for next week's episode!

I love Biggest Loser! I missed episode 1 but saw episode 2 and was very glad to see that the Grey team was sent home. I really liked the spunk it took the yellow team to think they could leave 2.4 % of their weight this week.

Other shows that I haven't seen yet but have hot on my DVR ... House - of course! Law & Order: SVU, and so much more! Share some of your favorite shows!

Happy Birthday Solomon!

This was Solomon on the 1st day that we had him on 12/1/2007


Happy Birthday Solomon! 9/16/2008

Solomon was born on 9/16/2007 ... what's crazy is that Sampson, our last dog shares the same birthday just 10 years prior (9/16/1997). We actually got him around the same time of the year for our 5th anniversay and Solomon around our 15th anniversary.

We are now 1 day after his year birth date and I have to say that I am very astonished that this dog has survived past a year! He has been such a handful, its unbelievable. Quite the opposite of our last 4 legged creature. He has also been a blessing in disguise, Paul and I truly have come to love him as our last one and his is like another member of our family! Our first camping trip with him involved him sleeping in a tent for the 1st time, being outdoors for long periods of time - which he loves and his 1st trip to the Vet Hospital for stitches. We took him yesterday (on his birthday) to get the stiches our and he is healing great! Well, his first year of existence may have been interesting, we hope the rest of his years come to him better! Love ya Solomon!!!!

Labor Day Weekend

What a weekend, Paul & I, along with our dog, Solomon had a great weekend ... well, for the most part it was great! Kind of wish it was more of a vacation than a weekend away. We spent the weekend at Keetle Moraine State Park camping. We had the pleasure of camping with the Hogg Family and Paul's sister Leslie. Setup was easy and then we headed to our friends house for an afternoon of fun! Leslie met us at Walmart and off we went. The Grams house offered us much amenities of fun along with canoeing, paddle boat, & swimming. Solomon scratched his cornia this past week and we had to watch in horror as he decided to rub his face in the sand roughly. I'm sure along with his other problem that he will be receiving medicine for that eye for another week! Ugh, he struggles and it becomes more and more complicated to give him the ointment. On the down side, Paul thought he would help but cutting out some of the burros from his fur and cut through his skin .. which landed us in the Animal Hospital and Solomon having to wear an ecollar / cone around his head. It was kind of funny to see him struggle with the collar on but very painful to Paul having to constantly see the reminder of his mistake and pain he caused on our puppy. Though we are now home and it has become an extension of his body, Solomon is ready for this cone to come off but is getting use to it every minute it is on. All in all, we had a very enjoyable weekend and great weather! We learned a lot from this trip and know what we can do better next time.

Update

OK, so since the Fair; Paul and I have really not been up to too much. This year we decided to get a zoo pass after we paid a bundle to get in during the Scouting at the Zoo event earlier this year. What was nice is that our cost to get into the zoo that day was credited to the zoo pass that we got and we are able to get minors and 3 additonal adults in for a great price! So, the zoo had an event called Zoo Alacarte .. which was pretty cool. Food and music as well as the zoo open after hours .. it was nice to walk around. Paul and I met Leslie and Lisa there and while we waited took a ride on the zoo train .. which was quite a dissapointment because I saw more humans than animals on that trip. Come on if you're going to take the train, don't you expect to see animals? Anyway we did get to see the sting ray and got to touch them .. ok, not me .. too chicken but also .. someone had to hold the camera! So, seems like the family is doing well and I've been in contact with most of my siblings this week. Jason gave me an update of his cell phone in Hawaii. Jonathan is in Texas, Bob and Brooke doing well in Vegas. I miss them all and hope to see them soon. Working on maybe a trip to Vegas in October??? And finally Paul and I .. well, we're just doing what we are always doing... Paying our humungous medical bills, school, and regular bills and hanging out. Paul has a 1/2 day today and so we decided to go see the movie - The Long Shots - Ice Cube starred in it .. pretty good movie for the family to go see, we enjoyed it - ending could have been better but I think this was based on a true story and they have to stay true to that. Afterwards dinner at applebees .. now we're just chilling in front of the TV watching the packer game! So far packers are loosing .. but what else is new without the great Brett Farve .. yes, I am a Brett fan .. sorry! :-) Hope all is well! Here are some pics from the zoo! Enjoy!

Wisconsin State Fair - Family Fun!

Alright, so this year we went as a family. Paul's side got together early and met at the Wisconsin Pavillion for breakfast and start of our day's adventure. We saw a lot together! And eventually and inevitably seperated .. our group was way big 12 of us .. we're bound to split up! Anyway .. here are some fun pictures taken at the fair! We only went twice this .. Friday for date night and Saturday with the family. We missed being with the Bruner's! They were in Virginia this week vacationing with friends! It's ok .. there's always next year! :-) Enjoy!

Girls Camp - Sweet is the work!

Unit having their picture takenUnit hanging around before openingOne of many colors of shirts we had at camp with the Theme on it Our YCL's - Youth Camp Leaders posing for their picture .. we had around 30 or more this year! Yikes! :-)
OK this should have been a post for earlier this week before the haircut but that's ok. So this years Girls Camp was good! The Theme "Sweet is the Work" and I have to say that it tied in very well with a lot of things that were planned for the week. Here are a few pics of the Girls participating at camp! Enjoy!

Haircut!

Alright, so I went out this morning and had my friend Jessie cut my hair. I looked through a couple of magazines and went for short! Here was the result! Paul's only requirement .. don't cut it short like a boy cut! So here it is! Enjoy!

Sacred Grove

The sacred grove was amazing! I could be lost in there for hours at a time! I was really impressed with the youth. A lot of them sat around and read their scriptures, wrote in their journals, and prayed. Some were like me and got lost; which I didn't mind at all! I think we spend 2 hours total on this tour of the farm and the sacred grove! Enjoy.
Bishop Du Charme, Angela Palick, Lindsay Sykes, & Grant Forgy - at the entrance to the sacred grove The Meachams came with us to help chaperone! :-)
We saw the Palmyra Temple on our walk towards the sacred grove. I wish we could have gotten a closer look but this will do!