ThankFULL

Thanksgiving was swell. We (and by "we" I mean the women in the family, Riley, Zoey, Mom, and I) spent Wednesday evening making pies. Two pumpkin, a rhubarb/raspberry, and an apple. Thursday morning Mom and I started the cooking. It wasn't too intense. She worked on the stuffing, I worked on the greenbean casserole. We put each in a crock pot (I found a really nice one for 5 bucks at the Salvation Army in Baker on Monday). Then Mom readied the turkey, I couldn't really help, the smell and the sight make me sickly. I went and pounced on Zoey around 10 am. Then went and helped Mom prepare the sweet potatoes/yams.

When Zoey the Zombie finally awoke she was mad because she thought we were eating right then. Silly. She made deviled eggs, celery with cheese/peanut butter, and was supposed to help mom with mashed potatoes....I'm not sure if she did.

We ended up eating around 2:30. We set the table really nice, I'll post a picture when I get back to Provo. After eating I put the leftovers away while Mom put a dent in some of the dishes. We were both surprised because usually we are too lazy to put stuff away for a couple hours.

Then we popped in "The Santa Claus 2." Halfway through the movie the Smiths showed up with a cheesecake and we ate desert while watching the end of the movie. Jeremy and Gareld left, but Morgan and Steph stayed to do a craft. It ended up that everyone but Morgan and I did the craft. We sat on our respective couches, wrapped up in our respective quilts, perusing the store ads for the next day.

It was a super casual Turkey Day, and super delicious.

Some of today's highlights included going to Wal-Mart as a family, where we bought a bunch of cheap movies, and more rolls to eat our leftover turkey on. We also went to the "Parade of Lights" downtown. It rained all the way up until six when the parade was to start. Then by some stoke of luck it stopped just in time for us to hop out of the car and try to enjoy rednecks driving trucks decorated with Christmas lights in between smokers sitting in their cars blocking our view and Max and Eli being totally out of control. I love my brothers. And rednecks. (Look at this face....T-R-O-U-B-L-E).

We were supposed to start decorating for Christmas today, but I think we were still in recovery from Thursday. Saturday will be the day. Trees. Lights. Action.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We have so much to be grateful for, even in days such as these. Love ya!

November's end draws near...

Well here I am in La Grande. Tomorrow is the 24th of November. Who knows where all the time flies to? The eternities I suppose. Well just wanted to throw some pictures up:

This is Kara, Me, and Neisah at a Stake Service Project, cleaning up Provo's Pioneer Park. Don't we look so lighthearted? I promise we worked some.
See? Sweeping pine needles!

This was leaving the Baker Valley area on my drive home. I always love hitting Baker. It's like the prelude to home.

I met up with Mom, Stephanie, and Grandma at the Cove "Something Special Bizarre." As I perused the booths I came upon these unique Christmas decorations. Yes, that would be Christmas lights stuffed in liquor bottles. Only in Eastern Oregon.

After a curry and gyoza dinner shared with the Smiths, Morgan, Riley and I made popcorn balls. I had a hankerin to make them yesterday, so it became our Sunday evening activity. It was funny fun.

Cute cousins.

Look how much I enjoyed myself! Ridiculous amounts apparently!

Powerhousing

The past few days have been busy, but fun.

Thursday was a long day. I finished it off with a dance party. The College Republicans held a "Blacklight Dance Party" to close out the election season and make use of the empty RNC headquarters. We had tacos, took a 30 minute intermission to watch "The Office" and then danced like crazies. I don't go to a lot of dance parties, but it was fun to let go and go crazy.

Friday morning I had a "Newswriting" lab, and a midterm. Powered through both of those like the powerhouse that I am....

Friday night Dave and I got some dinner at "Legends Grill" which is a food place on campus that is next to the BYU athletics memoribilla from all sports through out the years. So we ate, then quickly looked at some of the stuff (including stuff of Steve Young's), then headed to the men's basketball home opener against Long Beach State. The game was close....too close, our guys were a little rusty and couldn't hit a bucket. We pulled out a win though. Then we got ice cream at this place called SubZero. It's crazy stuff, but yummy. Just to clarify, David and I are just friends, even if we look -- as my mom would said -- chummy.

Saturday morning the roomies and I woke up and went to our Stake service project. We spent a couple hours cleaning up Provo's Pioneer Park --- raking, shoveling, sweeping, etc. It was a fun activity. When I get some of those pictures I will post them.

Saturday evening we had Kara's friend Forrest over and Mclain over for dinner. Mmmm, chili! Then we grabbed some more SubZero for desert. Then we came back here and played the original SuperMario Brothers Nintendo game. "Dunna dunna dunna..." the music still gets stuck in my head. We played for an hour and a half. Mclain and Neisah (the youngins) versus Kara and I (the elders). Good times.

Afterwards I went to the gym and ran four miles! Whoop! It took my 44 minutes, but I didn't stop! Now I just have to power through this week so I can go home Saturday for the holiday.

Inked

So Obama won, and I got a tat. I was gonna surprise everyone at Thanksgiving, but couldn't wait. It took awhile because I wanted something awesome and original. Kara, being the creative one, helped me design this. It's on my right foot to the right of my ankle bone. I'm still a little reddish, but I love it! Let me know what you think....

Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Vegas....

Here we are, loading the bus on Friday afternoon. This is outside of the RNC headquarters, which is above this Thai Ruby restaurant, in a place that used to be a pizza parlor... My sick room at the Wingate that I had all to myself! Vaulted ceilings, king size bed.....it was great.

Greg and David on Saturday morning, in the van, heading to headquarters.

Henderson headquarters.

Me! So excited to be by a huge McCain/Palin sign!

Loved this sign!

The phone bank at the headquarters.

Getting ready to walk our first precints. We were in a heavily republican place by a golf course. This is Greg, David, and Emily.

Emily and I walking the precints.

David, Me, Emily and Greg waiting for Rudy Guiliani.

You see how close I was?? It was great. He was in the back of a pickup. Sarah Palin's brother, Chuck Heath, was with him.

This Sarah Palin's mom, Sally, and dad, Chuck. They were around headquarters for a couple days. Such sweet, down to earth people. I loved them! Sally kissed me on the cheek at some point. Chuck handed me a Diet Pepsi. We met Sarah's husband, Todd's, parents. They were nice folks, too.

Vegas Monday/Tuesday

This is David and I, showing off our McCain/Palin tees and busting out the "M" for McCain. Unfortunately, David doesn't know what an M looks like. Me hugging a palm tree, just like any Oregonian would do.

These fools didn't quite get the idea.....

A group of callers. They set us up outside in the beautiful Vegas sun. The guy with the hat's name is Stuart. He's a jew. He was a little creepy (not because he was a Jew) because he kind of what being too nice to the girls. But, we had some good discussions about religion. The lady in the red hat is from Arizona. Her name is Susan, she is LDS and her husband is a judge in Arizona. She is also cousins with Gordon Smith, the U.S. Senator from Oregon who just lost his seat to a Democrat.

After a long day of calling they let us go to the McCain rally. 11,000 people!

This is Doug. He is a developer in Las Vegas. He is a great guy. Not LDS, but really appreciates the LDS people and culture. He hooked Dave and I up with some pretty prime seats at the rally. Pretty much he thinks we are the shiz.

Me at the rally. That's good ol' John on stage. The camera makes it look like I was farther than I was. I could see his old man dimples! Joe Lieberman and a slew of other Capitol Hillists were with him. It was such an awesome experience.

After the rally. David, Me, Emily, and Greg. Greg is president of BYU College Republicans and a great guy. Emily is on the executive board with the rest of us. We were kind of the crew during the five day trip. We have this joke that David and Greg are gonna run against each other for public office and Emily and I are going to be their first ladies.... This is us practicing our presidential poses.

Our sweet ride.

This is where they sent us to knock on doors aka "walk precints" and get people to get out and vote. Lot's of folks out here, as you can see... P.S. this is Mesquite.

After realizing we had lost, we went up to gamble our blues away. Just kidding. But, we were at a results party at the Venetian. It was kind of cool. Aside from the whole losing part and everybody being in a bitter, grumbly mood.

The "In N Out Burger" of Las Vegas, right next to the strip. Pretty tastey. Right after taking this picture they told me I couldn't take pictures.....

My Kids

I was talking to this kid in my ward last night at ward prayer, he hadn't been in church earlier and said he had been back in his home ward. His family is from American Fork, which is like a jump, skip and a hop from here. His six-year-old brother had a primary program that day. I told him that I had a six-year-old brother too, and then, without thinking I said, "Yeah, it's rough." He asked, "It's rough?" And then I had to explain that everytime I leave home and come back everyone's grown another foot or two. And how I miss stuff like that all the time. So today, I miss "my kids" particularly much.

Black Tuesday

As most of you know, I was a John McCain fan. I worked for two months in campaigning, from making phone calls, to recruiting supporters, to organizing trips, and the culminating 5 day trip to Nevada to try and swing the state for McCain. I would've preferred he win on Tuesday last. Obviously, he didn't. While I admit that the country rising above our history and tradition of racism and prejudice to elect a half African American to be our President is historic and praiseworthy, I'm bitter.

Among many reasons why I'm frustrated with Obama's election is that I feel he will continue to foster the growing culture of entitlement that is spreading across America. If and when we get back to conservative values (like electing a Republican President) how will we reverse this frustrating, stunting ideology?

The great Mitt Romney once said, "Dependancy is death to intiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is culture killing. It's a drug. It's time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is."

Spreading the wealth, increased welfare, more and more socialist ideals....It gives me heartburn. Can't take it. But the worst is thinking about how many people today are growing up where they see nothing wrong with these values, these socialist values.

It really comes down to basic difference in morals and beliefs. How do you change someone's moral values? It's all very frustrating....

Kara and I call November 4th "Black Tuesday" because it was a disappointing, almost devastaing day for America. Obviously, people will think we are racist. But, I promise, race has nothing to do with it. The state of my political soul, is a better indicator of the name.

NObama and NOvember

Here it is November....It was November 4th, and I thought, "It can't really be November. It doesn't feel like November. I'm still living in October." I was in Vegas. When I left my real life (because I guess life in Vegas wasn't real) it was still October. The temperature outside -- in the 70s -- told me it was not November. Don't worry, reality slapped me in the face, when the election results rolled in (most dampening to the spirits was the call of Ohio to Obama) and when we walked off the bus in Provo to snow flurries.

We have a President-Elect Obama, not quite my choice. I have lots of pictures, and will post the quality ones for you here soon. As for right now I need to make some grub and catch some Grey's. I just wanted to let you know that pictures are on their way, and give you a little sneak peak....