Seeing Double

Jeff was very tickled to get us all set up on our computers.  It seems that we have had an extra monitor or two sitting around the house for several years.  Jeff finally decided to do something about it.  He set up a double monitor for each of our computers.  After months of trying to fix the kids computer, we not only have two working computers, but two monitors on each of the working computers.  It makes for quite a view from my kitchen counter.  I wonder if I can do a panorama of a a city in Europe, or maybe an ocean wave coming.....

Thanksgiving

This year we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with Jeff's brother and his family.  Despite the fact that we have both lived in Southern California for the past 15 years, we have never had Thanksgiving dinner together.  It seems that one or both of us are always engaged somewhere else every year.  So we were pleased to find that our schedules aligned and we got together for the day.  We had all the traditional foods, turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes and stuffing.  Then it was off to the park for an interim volleyball game.  It was a very interesting game.  My neices and nephews attention spans ranged all over the place.  There were a few times where I was leaping over a somersaulting child, or running around a twirling ballerina to get to the ball.  It was just an extra challenge and made the game very fun and memorable.  My favorite part was Gabe's jump underhand serves.  After the game, we ate pie, then chatted for a good portion of the evening.  It was a nice thanksgiving.

Stout Family Extravaganza

In November, we had the pleasure of celebrating my Jeff's parents 50th wedding anniversary.  They didn't want a big party, but rather a simple family celebration.  Conveniently for us and Jeff's brother, they traveled down to Southern California along with Jeff's other brother and sister to spend the weekend together.  We had a great time.  Our neice was baptized on Saturday morning.  Then we spent the evening at the beach taking pictures and roasting hot dogs and marshmellows.  On Sunday, we took walks, and played games before having a simple family tribute in the evening.  Grandma and Grandpa told us the story of how they met and their first date.  Jason and Lisa sang a lovely song, Jon wrote a great poem, Jill gave a moving speech, and we finished the evening with 50 years in pictures.  It was a great weekend spending time together.  We love them very much and are so grateful for everything that they have done for us over the years.  They are wonderful people. 

Frightful

Last Friday night, we went to Fright Fest at Magic Mountain as a family.  We have season passes there and have really been enjoying going there for small bursts at a time.  Despite the fact that Jeff  was in Monterey, it was the only night that Allie, Gabe and I could go together this season.  Then, Jeff's testing was unexpectedly cancelled and he came home in time to meet us at the park.  It was a fun treat to be there with all my local family.  We enjoyed the scary decorations, went on a few fun rides, and had a good time together.  We went to the hypnotist show.  None of us were interested in being hypnotized, but we sure enjoyed watching the others on stage do lots of silly things.  I may have even let out a quick scream or two when one of the roving ghouls caught me off guard and gave me a scare!

Walking in sunshine or not?

Many years ago when we first moved into this home, the previous owners took all of the window dressing with them.  It was rude, but we decided to just forget about it.  I quickly worked on putting curtains in the bedrooms, and left the kitchen for naught until one very bright day in November.  The kitchen windows are south facing, and on that particular November day, the sun had dropped low enough in the sky that the sun shone directly through the windows and was reflecting off my stainless steel sink so brightly that I was blinded!  I thought this will not work!  So I tromped off to the store to get something that would alleviate my discomfort, but stay within my budget (which was near to nothing at that time.)  I put up some very inexpensive shades as a temporary solution.  I have done a few things to try and dress the cheap shades up over the years, but haven't replaced them because I couldn't really figure out what to do with those windows.  I have finally found a solution, and put up the curtains of my choice!  One of my dilemas was the sun.  I wanted the sun to come in during the winter and warm up the house, but I didn't want it to blind me while in my kitchen.  However, during the summer months I wanted to completely block the sun from those sunny south windows to keep my house cool.  So I devised a two part plan.  I put up some light curtains that allow the light to come through during the winter, but diffuses it enough that if won't reflect quite so badly (I hope, we haven't reached November yet), and some thick roman shades that I can let down during the summer to keep my house nice and cool.  They look great and much more polished than the awful shades that have been adorning my kitchen windows for the past decade!

Missionary Man

It has been a while, but I am determined to get back into the swing of things.  To start with a recap of the past few months, I will start with the most exciting and important event:  Jayd left for his mission!  He was called to the Billings Montata Mission.  We received the call in May, and he entered the MTC in the middle of July.  He went to Montana after only 2 1/2 weeks in the MTC and is currently serving in Kalispell, in Glacier National Park.
It is an Ipad mission.  So all of the missionaries are given an Ipad, and have a facebook missionary account set up.  They will interface with people interested in the gospel through social media as well as traditional methods of missionary work.  That has been an interesting feature of his mission.  We are not sure how that works, and since all communication is done by email only once a week, information can get a little sketchy.  We think that it is exciting and seems to add a new dimension on having a missionary out.  I am having a slightly different experience than some of my friends as a result of the Ipad!
He is doing well on his mission, they have several people that they are working with.  Some are less active members that are in need of a shepherd, others are just learning about the gospel for the first time.  He has been tracting a few times and has been successful!  He is also getting many opportunities for service, from painting members houses, to assisting herding livestock to the county fair, to milking a goat, he is learning a lot about the culture and livelyhood of the people in Montana.
I am grateful for the ward in Montana.  Since he was there for his 19th birthday, someone threw him a "Finding Dory" mini-themed party!  I was glad that someone was thoughtful enough to make his birthday memorable.  They are feeding him really well, he has already gained several pounds!

Goodbye Toby

Our faithful, little, lazy lizard has passed away.  For the past ten years, Toby, has been a companion, a toy,  and a constant source of entertainment in this house.  Whenever someone would enter this house, the first thing the kids would do was get the lizard and show him off to the visitor.  The first thing that the kids would do when they came home from school was get him out of his cage.  He was carried around, plopped down, and even fought over by all of my children.  In short, he was very, very loved.  But over the past year or so, we could see the signs of old age beginning to take effect.  He fell one too many times, and was slightly paralyzed from his midsection down.  We are fairly certain that he couldn't see out of one of his eyes, and he had a hard time picking up his food.  But we continued to hold him, feed him and care for him.  We were a little more delicate and gentle, but not any less loving.  He has finally left us and in his wake, there is a big hole in our hearts.  We will miss our favorite lizard.

In the World of Scouting....

Gabe has been making great strides in the world of scouting.  He has a goal to become an eagle even younger than Jayd.  Jayd was about 2 weeks past 14 when he completed his Eagle award.  Gabe is shooting to be done by the time he is 13.  So, over Spring Break, he completed his Eagle project.  He removed, built new shelves and replaced them in the music "closet" at Allie's high school.  It was a fun project, partly because it involved the whole family.  Allie was often the go between the music teacher and Gabe, Jeff needed to add his engineering skills to help assure that the shelves were strong and sturdy, and I just did a lot of grunt work, driving Gabe around, getting prices, etc.  We did the project in three stages, removing the shelves, building, sanding and painting the new shelves, then installing the shelves back into the room.  It was well run and efficient.  I thought that Gabe did a very good job with his project and the shelves look great!

He was also inducted into the order of the arrow.  A somewhat secretive club of the scouting organization.  He reported that he wasn't allowed to tell me!  But it was excited to be included.  You have to meet some minimum scouting requirements, but then your troop has to vote on who will be the inductee, so
it is an honor to be included.

Easter

We had a fantastic Easter weekend last week.  We invited Jeff's brother and his family up for an easter egg hunt.  They are a little younger than our kids, and were thrilled to run around the yard in search of those colorful plastic eggs that hold so much delicious potential.  Allie had a great time hiding the eggs for her younger cousins, she came up with some quite creative ways to hide them!  We even collected a basket of real eggs, apparently no one had gotten the chicken's eggs from the coop for several days.
On Sunday, Allie donned a new Easter dress.  It was lovely, one of my favorite Easter dresses.  The colors were a little more befitting a teenage girl than the traditional pastel, but Allie wanted to pay homage to the spring season, so she found a pattern that depicted lively butterflies.  They style suited her figure perfectly.  She looked very beautiful.  Gabe was very dashing in his suit with the handkerchief lovingly pressed in a decorative fashion.

Much More than Volleyball

This weekend I went away for to the annual Palm Desert Volleyball Tournament.  Although we didn't play quite as well as I had hoped, this year was the best trip.  We went out to lunch and dinner, went shopping at the outlet malls, went in the jacuzzi, and spent 11 hours at the volleyball tournament.  We laughed and joked and chatted and just had the best time being gals and doing the things we love!  I can't wait to go again next year!

Snow in California

Yes, from time to time and in place to place, you can find snow in California during the winter.  Certainly not where I live, but it is possible.  That is a good thing since one of the scout requirements is to camp in the snow.  So this weekend, despite having a cold, we sent Jeff and Gabe off to camp in the snow.  There was still some snow on the ground at Mt Pinos.  The boys spent a frosty night, yet claimed they were fairly warm in their sleeping bags.  The next day was spent on the "slopes" sledding down the hill and having a great time.

The A Team

Gabe is playing volleyball at the middle school.  He played last year as well, but as a 6th grader that was an alternate on the team, he was on the B team.  This year, he was put on the A team.  He is enjoying the practices and had his first two matches this week.  The matches were both nail biters!  The first match, our team lost the first game, and so were fighting to play another game during the second.  They caught up late in the game to bring it to 24-24.  But after several sideouts by both teams, they lost the game 28-30.  Thursday's match was almost an exact repeat of the previous match.  After losing the first game, they rallied for 5 points catch up at the end of the second game.  Then after each team had a few sideouts, they won the game 29-27.  The third game was no contest, we easily had the momentum and won the match.  It was very fun to watch these boys play.  They had good rallies, and were very quick around the court.  Gabe is a sub on this team and didn't see too much court time, but when in the game, he was a solid player and even served one ace.

Wedding Pictures

Maddie's wedding was so nice.  It was a nice day, everyone looked so wonderful at the wedding, and the bride and groom were so happy.  Here are a few pictures of our special day.