HOME!

I don't think I can put into words what we were all feeling yesterday as we picked Dallin up at the airport. Just watch the video and look at the pictures....they are worth a thousand words...

Before........

After.... .

WELCOME HOME DALLIN!

Snow, snow, snow, SNOW!

We had a winter storm come up the east coast this weekend and this is what we got.
These are taken from our front door.

No church today....no school tomorrow....no leaving the house all weekend. They actually asked everyone not to drive. Believe it or not, our area really doesn't get snow.....it shuts everything down just like snow in Safford did. The high temp today was 30 so now it is all ice. No driving tomorrow either. It is fun, but I certainly wouldn't want this long term. Bring on the heat.

Jesse and the Grinch

Jess had his concert last night.....he had a significant solo....he is one of just a few baritones in his choir...He did such a good job....I wish everyone could have been there! The whole concert was amazing. These kids really excell. The "majors" (7th and 8th graders that choose music as their focus) were incredible. Jesse's group was all 6th graders. I wish all my kids could have gone to Southern Delaware School of the Arts!

ART

Just wanted to share some of Sarah's art from school this year....all of it is 11x14 so I scanned them in sections....they are ok, but don't do them justice....She is very talented.

I threw this self-portrait Emily did in high school....Seems like all my kids got Grandma Udall's artistic ability except me. Even Darrin has it.

Summer Pictures

Thought I would just share these pics that our neighber brought over. She is a budding photog and he is a sailboat guy. They live on this lake, and we live across and down the street from them. We can see the lake now that the leaves have fallen, but in the summer they are so thick you wouldn't even know there was a lake. We hear the geese all the time though. Not a bad thing. Different for us. There is a resident flock that hatches goslings every year and migrant geese that come and go. We watched the fuzzy little babies grow up as we drove back and forth before the house finally closed. Anyway. Here is Tom and Jesse on their little sailboat.
These pictures are taken at a Labor Day picnic. Someone brought their pet Tarantula and Sarah played with it. Most of the boys wouldn't even touch it. Pansies. Well, Sarah of course, has no fear. Enjoy!

Elder G

The ward mission leader from Dallin's last area sent me these pics. Dallin lost his camera before he even got to Texas so we haven't have very many pictures from his mission. It is so exciting to see him! These remind me of the boy we sent out nearly 2 years ago. He comes home in 46 days. It is hard to believe that he has served most of his mission. We are counting the days till we can be a complete family again. Emily comes on the 17th of December and Dallin on the 28th. He will stay a week and then the three of us will fly to Arizona on the 7th of January (our flight lands at 11 pm) I hope that everyone will come to the airport to welcome him home. I know it is late (our original flight was a lot earlier, but the airline bumped us), but I am sure those of you who knew him will want to be there. We will try to get him all set up at ASU and then I fly back to Delaware on the 14th. We will celebrate his 21st birthday before I leave. Then......WOW! I can't even think of what is next for him. He won't be my boy anymore. The ward mission leader and another family in Mexia say really nice things about Dallin: as a missionary, man of God, and a friend. I think it will be a strange adjustment for him. The world he left doesn't exist anymore....so many things have changed since then. He is resilliant though and will be more than fine. We sure do love this boy....oops, man. (weird to even write the word)!

"House Call"

Darrin and I attended the Health Care "house call" at the Capitol in D.C. yesterday. It was amazing to be a part of something so deeply heartfelt by so many people. You could literally feel the "buzz" in the crowd. There were many speakers, some were democrats who opposed the bill, but most were Republican congressmen who gave moving speeches about our liberty and freedom. Actors Jon Voigt and John Ratsenburger were also there along with Mark Levin. The only media that covered the event was Fox News. I haven't heard any mention of it from other people either. My guesstimate is that about 20,000 to 40,000 people were there. I walked all around and couldnt see the ends of the throng on one side, so my guess may be way off. After the rally, we were invited to go across the street to the three Congressional office buildings and visit our congressmen. The lines were hours long. They handed out 2 copies of the bill (all 2,000 pages). Everyone took half a page and asked there representative to explain that half page to them. We didn't stay to see the very end, but it felt good to be able to support such a good effort. Wish everyone could live close enough to do that once in a while.
Here we are on the METRO!



This is the view coming up out of the Metro onto Capitol Hill.

FALLBACK!

For the first time in my life, I am setting the clocks back throughout my house for the end of Daylight Savings Time. So I woke up at my usual 4:30 this morning and now I realize that it is really 3:30. That is fake time though, just on paper (or just on clock), cuz it is really the same time we are just trying to fake that we have more or less time in every day. SO WEIRD, and stupid, if you ask me. Nobody asks me, of course, so I am setting all my clocks back an hour this morning. One nice thing about it is that now it is only 2 hours different from AZ instead of 3. So when Emily calls at 9:00 her time it will only be 11:00 here. Yeah!

BOSTON

We took a road trip to Boston this weekend. The weather driving up and back was great, but the weather on saturday was wet and cold. Such is the Gordon Luck. Oh well, it didn't slow us down too much. The farther away from home we drove the more brilliant the fall colors were. The reds and oranges were amazing. We went to a cranberry farm and picked our own berries. They had already flooded the bog and gathered the berries the day before, but they let us pick the edges that didn't get dislodged by the machines. It was really pretty there. They had a haunted corn field, but we decided we didn't want to do that. The next morning we went to the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston..... and then took a ferry over to Long Wharf and downtown. We went to the Old State House and Fannuil Hall. There was a street performer who was pretty funny. We wanted to go to the New England Aquarium, but the line to get in was way LONG. So we went back to the Navy Yard in Charlestown and went to a museum instead. We had a few firsts in the food category. Jesse and Darrin and I had some fried clams. They were good as long as you couldn't see the the little slimy clams sticking out of the breading. EW! We also had a Whoopie Pie. I had heard of these, but never actually seen one. They are HUGE!!!! We divided it into 4 and shared it. We found a really pretty rest area in Connecticut on the way home and took some pics and video. The wind was blowing and leaves were swirling everywhere. Very New English.. Wish you all could have been there. At the Cranberry Farm.

Washington D.C. Temple

Last saturday we drove to the D.C. Temple to participate in our Elder's Quorum Temple day. We haven't been to the Washington D.C. Temple yet. It is in a beautiful area. Rolling hills and open green parks. We were really excited to get there. Well....as we drove through the gate we found this sign. It says, Temple closed due to water main break. Bummer! Funny thing was that on the radio at that very moment was a country song and the girl was twanging away singing...."Unworthy, unworthy, I'm so unworthy". We busted up laughing. Hope it wasn't a warning!?!

Jesse's new school

Southern Delaware School of the Arts!!! This is the name of Jesse's school. Can I just say that it has transformed him. He loves it. He still struggles with some of the learning trials he has, but he loves the school. He has made friends, learned to juggle, is learning ballet, is in a play, is in the choir, works on group projects, has been on field trips, etc. The list goes on. Thanks Leah for encouraging us to send him there. I have hope for him for the first time in a long time.

Delaware Fall

Darrin took some pics from our yard to show the changing colors of fall. There isn't a lot of change here yet. The brilliant colors are farther inland. They work their way to the ocean. We are hoping that when we go to Boston on the 23rd that the timing will be just right.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE!

We had a very small gethering on Jesse's birthday. Darrin made one of his famous multi-layer cakes, we sang, ate, and opened presents. His favorite present was in the garage. A new bike. We didn't bring his old one from AZ. The people in the video are: Bro. Bokinsky, Timmy, Jaime Jarmon (Timmy's friend and QB on the HS football team). Darrin cracks their backs on thursday nights before games on friday. Jesse loved it all, loves school and is making a few friends.

Yeah!

12,12,12, TWELVE!

My Jesse is turning 12 next week.....TWELVE!!!!! I can hardly believe it. He was just a baby, right?! He is still mostly a cuddly, happy, sweet, funny, loving kid. I hate for him to grow up and out of most of that. His school is having a Halloween party/dance and I told him he will be old enough to go....he looked at me like I was crazy and said. "Mom, I don't want to go!" I asked him was it because he thought girls had cooties. He said "If you haven't noticed mom, girls haven't had cooties for a while now, duh." WHAT?! I hadn't noticed and what the heck is he talking about? I must have looked startled cuz he said, "Don't worry, I'm not getting married tomorrow or anything, but most of my friends are girls you know." OH!....OK. Am I a typical mother or what. Gotta love that kid.

Bonnie, Pizza, Wedding Dress (?), and Seminary

We sold Bonnie this week. We bought her in June for Emily to drive during the summer. She was affectionately called Bonnie Beach Car. No more. sniff sniff.....Sarah made homemade pizza for dinner the other night. I added the fresh mozzarella and basil. It was pretty good.When I got home from the airport after picking up Darrin, this is what Sarah was wearing. They made wedding dresses out of napkins. Cute! Perfect for our "prom stairs".Here is my seminary class minus Sarah....they are watching the new Apostle Song by the Sons of Ammon. They are a handfull. It is officially Fall now. We are dying to go on a "color-watch" tour. Not much change here yet, but north of us is already spectacular. Sept or Oct. would be a perfect visit time for any of you who haven't planned your trip here yet.