Pasta and Present Wrapping

Helena & Roscoe P.

The Cousins

Aunts & Cousins

More wrapping...

Santa's Arrival

Big Bad Bob makes for a great Santa!

Christmas Came Early This Year...for a special family!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Here it is....

LANDSCAPING is 1/2 Complete

I know it's November, but we just had 1/2 of our landscaping installed, and we LOVE it! It's so nice to see a backyard with some grass. There is so much potential, and I can't wait for Spring to come so we can finish planting the rest of our plants.

Day 2 (we forgot to take pictures of Day 1)

Day 3 Sod is in and the planters are almost complete

Day 4 the Final Product with the rocks.

My first REO listing

I just got my first bank owned listing! I'm really not a listing agent, I prefer representing buyers ...however, beggar can't be choosers so I accepted the listing. And then I got out to the property and saw what I had decided to list. After it's cleaned up and the trash is gone, I'm sure it will be better. For now, here it is:

FLORIDA

We just got back from Florida on Sunday night, and it was so much fun! even though Kenyon had to go to Continuing Education.

When we got to Florida we rented a car, but found out that they didn't have any more of the type of car we reserved, so the person at the counter said, well would you be ok with a covertible, it's in the color that all convertibles should be...I reluctantly took the convertible as a trade :)
Our first day in Tampa, we went to Busch Gardens.
At Busch Gardens there are about 6 Roller Coasters and 2 Water rides. One of the Roller Coaster made me fear for my life! It's called the Sheikra. This is how we were harnassed in.

and here's someone else's video of the entire ride.

as you can imagine I began to question how much I loved my husband for making me go on this ride with him. However, it was AWESOME! WE loved it. I admit my knuckles were white and I was grasping on to the handles very tightly, but it was so fun! Among the roller coasters there is also an african safari zoo.

This hippo kept cruising along underwater doing laps.

After we left Busch Gardens in Tampa we stayed in Clearwater. Here is a view from our balcony

And this is how windy it was!

It was great! but as always it's nice to be home.

Oh My HECK!

I have finally been able to sit down and catch up on my friend's blogs. Real Estate has been kicking my trash lately. Yesterday I started work at 7:30AM, doing reports and all the other fun stuff I have to do now, and then I met some clients in my office, showed 8 properties, and wrote 3 Purchase Contracts, bought a rotisserie chicken for dinner and got home at 6:30 last night. Whew! I'm a tired girl.

Anyway, I found a post on my friend Carrie's blog that led to this blog. So, from now on, when I need a break I am definitely going to find out what's going on with my friend TAMN (Tiffany Amber Michelle Nicole) Seriously So Blessed

Check it out, you will laugh too.

                                                                   Just practicing on using the blog since Kenyon and Karen are in town. I have no idea where these pictures were taken! Brian

JEROME!

I am trying harder to have time for day trips, but that also meant that after we got back from Jerome yesterday I was in the office until about 7:30 last night. But it's ok, it was a fun time!




First we walked around and explored the streets and all the little shops. Later, we ate lunch at the Haunted Hamburger. I give it a 2.5 out 5. Food was ok, the manager/owner,he's LAME!


I liked the Liberty Theater, they are renovating it and we got to look at the theater upstairs. This was Kenyon's most favorite part of the movie theater:


We even found an old Dentist office
Later, we even found a Christmas Store and purchased some Egyptian Glass Ornaments. It seems like that is becoming our tradition. However this time we got 3 Christmas Ornaments for less than the price of the 1 we purchased from Germany last year.

Boston & Beyond: Dad & John's Wild New England Excursion

Well folks its been awhile since I've seen most of you and I'm sure you all know what I've been up to recently. I think I keep in touch with everyone in the family quite well. In fact I'll TOOT my own Horn and say I'm the best...lol...thank you very much. Anywho, Dad and I recently returned from a week long adventure to New England. We checked out Plymouth, Cape Cod, Newport RI, Submarine Base in CT, New Haven, Vermont, Maine, Salem, Boston, and even a Red Sox game. To say the least we've been busy and I was Dad's personal chauffeur the entire time. I'm not comlaining bc that means I was in Control the entire time haha. Well it was a blast and we had the chance to meet up with a number of people I taught on the mission and even stop by one of Dads relatives, Charlie Garby. It was great fun so here are some pics to document the trip.

Boston, Mass Temple

Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park

Dad's 2nd cousin Charlie Garby....people say they look alike.

Joseph Smith monument at Sharon Vermont

Dad after hiking Sleeping Giant...what a trooper. For a bit I'd thought I'd lose him.

USS Nautilus...world's 1st nuclear powered submarine

Newport RI

Cape Cod National Seashore

Old Towne Warwick, RI

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!

Ever since we played Saboteur at the Banfield Family Reunion in March we have been dying to get this game. When we first started looking for it though it was sold out, or if we found the game for sale it was so expensive, and even listed as out of print on some sites. However, 5 months later, I found it on the internet, and it's being printed again! (YEA!) So...we have a new fun game to play!

Kenyon was so excited that the game finally arrived, he started reading the rules right away, and unwrapped the packaging. Good thing my brother and his wife are in town, or we'd probably be knocking on your door begging you to play with us. :)

From my friend Sarah Pyrah's blog

...cause i'm WAAAY too non-creative to think of something like this.

Quick How To: Decorating old plastic drawers
So we have been trying to decorate our new house but do it on a shoe string. So we were in the need of some toy storage but our old Walmart plastic drawers were a bit of an "eyesore".

So with $6 in fabric and ribbon from Walmart and $3 of Decopoge, I created new coordinating drawers for Morgan and Emily. (still working on Jacob's, looking for some good cowboy prints).
Total project took about 4 hours for a total of 6 drawers.

I started by selecting the color cordinating fabrics. I only had to buy a half yard of 3 different colors. I choose cotton for ease of the decopoge.
I ironed under a 1/2" crease on the top and one end. Then measured the other side to the drawer. I acutally just made a tiny snip where I was gonna cut on the other end and eyeballed the straight cut allowing for 1/2" edge to crease with the iron. For the bottom edge I did the same snip measure and ironed over a straight edge. I then just cut a 1/2" edge from the ironed crease. I choose to do the ironed under hems so that I didn't have pesky threads or chance of tears from the kids later. I brushed on drawer front a healthy amount of Decopoge and layed down my fabric, taking to care to smooth the bubbles and tucking in my creased hems. I used the ribbon and some extra fabric for the top edge of the drawer where the handle pull was situated.

Once this was dry, I brushed the top with more Decopoge and let dry. Repeated the top coat 4 times. This gives a nice sturdy protection to the fabric to withstand kids, it almost feels like vinyl when you are done. It also seems to bring out the color of the fabric. On a few drawers I cut out the designs and layed them on top of the first top coat. Then I coated the remaining 3 top coats. The drawers were about 2-3 years old and with an extra $9 they are good as new and customized to match the kids rooms - PRICELESS.

YOU CRAZY OLD MAN!

Yesterday Kenyon and I went to lunch at Esoji's with one of the hygienists from Kenyon's office, Nga. We've eaten there before and the food was great.



However, yesterday, was a different story. Kenyon ordered the Tempura Lunch and I ordered the Chicken Katsu Don. When our food came out, Kenyon's Shrimp Tempura was a Tempura Don drenched in Sauce over a mound of rice. Who drenches the Tempura? It's supposed to be crisp! Then my chicken katsu had an egg scrambled then, cooked on top of it...who makes chicken katsu like that? It was kind of fishy (even though it's CHICKEN), I think the cook used a fish sauce, and it was salty. And I know I'm a food snob, but if I'm going to pay for food, it had better be cooked as well, if not better than I can cook it myself. So the server comes by and takes the food back to the kitchen, I told her I didn't want anything, but she insisted I order something else, (I also commented on Kenyon's food, much to his chagrin). While we are talking, the cook comes around the corner aka the crazy old man, and has the server show him exactly who it is that does not like his food, then he stands there and scowls at me. I know I don't look like I'm Japanese, but he does, so he should have known how to cook japanese food better than me. :)

Apparently, his scowling at me and finding out who I was wasn't good enough, he came out with a camera and took a picture of me! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!! And of course this was the one time I didn't have MY camera in my purse. I called the server over again, and was nice (inspite of what Kenyon thinks, he was covering his face, but I didn't yell) and explained how upset I was by the crazy old man's actions. The server said the chef is out of town so he was filling in, usually he only does the sushi rolls in the back. He takes pictures of people to document if they're standing around or smoking outside. I guess he apparently takes pictures of the customers who don't like his cooking.

FYI this is what Chicken Katsu is supposed to look like:


So, pretty much, we aren't going to Esoji's again. Which is too bad, because the food was pretty good the first time we went there.