Albuquerque Turkeys

Disclaimer: This excursion was against Arthur's better judgment. But I convinced him that nothing bad could happen. I was sure I wasn't having the baby that night, and I wanted to cut down our tree instead of getting it at Lowe's.

So . . . . On Saturday afternoon we went up to the Jemez mountains in the Southern Rockies to cut down our tree. Unfortunately, we left a little too late and only had about an hour of daylight to find the perfect tree. Well, when you are looking around the forest for the perfect Christmas tree with a two-year-old and a nine-month pregnant lady, you don't walk around the forest as quickly as you might otherwise. Sean was such a trooper, but he kept tripping on hidden twigs and logs. Every time he fell, he would get up and would say, "I did it!" But I spent most of my time helping him up, and brushing off the snow. Dallin and Daphne were great at encouraging him to keep going. Eventually, we stayed by the car while Arthur made a big (faster) sweep of a certain area as we were running out of daylight. Meanwhile, the kids were getting cold and hungry and cranky, and we ended up cutting this tree next to the road that was a far cry from last year's perfect specimen, but passable. We lovingly call it our "Charlie Brown Tree."
I don't have any pictures of the tree we chose because we were racing the setting sun trying to get it up on the car and back home. In fact, we were grateful to actually make it home with any tree at all after we had some trouble getting out of those snow-packed forest service roads. Our first attempt back out, we spun out and decided we'd need some chains to get out. (Keep in mind we're in a mini van. No 4-wheel drive for us. ) Oh, and we forgot our cell phone. So we had no way to contact anybody if we actually got stuck.

Unfortunately, one of our chains broke the first time we tried to make a climb. Not good. We limped along with chains on one front tire and the other front tire spinning out. We prayed and prayed and Heavenly Father was looking out for us, because Arthur was finally able to maneuver us out, and I'm thinking we may have had angels pushing us up the final ascent.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the full moon and the emotional stress of contemplating the worst possible scenario, I had some pretty good contractions start up. But they subsided when we got home and I put my feet up. We felt very, very grateful to be sleeping in our own beds and not in the car out in the wilderness waiting for the next mornings' tree hunters to come find us. And especially that Arthur didn't have to deliver our baby out there in the freezing cold car.










We brought the tree in last night to decorate for Family Home Evening. Once the holes were facing the corner and it was fitted with lights and ornaments, I must say it doesn't look half bad.
















Here is a video of the kids decorating the tree for Christmas.

Hurray! My family finally made it out to visit us! Mom, Dad, Melanie, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan were able to drive out for Thanksgiving and we loved having them come. Everybody helped with the food prep for the Thanksgiving feast, and we played games and watched movies and just enjoyed each other.



They had to leave Saturday, and even though I know I'll see them all soon, I was still so sad to see them go. Thanks for coming out, guys, and putting up with the crowded living space! We love you and can't wait to see you in a few weeks for Christmas and Julianne's wedding!

Dallin turned 6 last week. His birthday was Tuesday, but since his Nona and Grandpa, and five of his aunts and uncles (Melanie, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan) were coming into town late that night, he opted to wait for them and celebrate on Wednesday. We had a lunch-time party, but of course all I heard that morning was, "Can we just have a breakfast party?" It's funny how time crawls by when you're anticipating something big. I am due to have this baby in eight days, and time has officially slowed down for me too.

After looking at all the available party themes at the store, (Star Wars, Spider Man, Cars, Transformers, Shrek, etc.) Dallin chose a very original theme: "Go BYU, and Go USA." That boy definitely thinks for himself. So we had football plates and Red, White and Blue streamers and American flags to decorate with. Nona made his birthday cake red, white and blue and it said, "Happy Birthday Dallin!" on top with "Go BYU!" and "Go USA!" on the sides.

So Natalie blog tagged me which apparently means I get to write six things about myself and tag somebody else. So if you aren't interested in six "Sharee facts" you can skip this post. I won't be offended (because I won't even know.) It's kind of hard to think of six things that aren't super obvious. Let's see . . .

1. I love to sleep. When I'm finally done for the day, and my head hits the pillow, it is like heaven. Arthur calls it "the flop" when I climb into bed and just drop into the downy goodness of my wonderful pillow. I really can't find words to describe it--It's just marvelous.

2. I have been keeping a journal since I was 8 years old. I received my first journal for my 8th birthday and have kept one ever since. I have filled probably 14 journals since then. I am not consistent by any means; I don't write every day or even once a week. Sometimes it's just once a month. But I enjoy keeping a journal because it's kind of therapeutic for me -- besides, "one should always have something sensational to read on the train." (name the play/movie).

3. I grew three gray hairs when we were in New York while Arthur got his Masters at Cornell. I couldn't believe it when I found them, and plucked them out as fast as I could. Thankfully I haven't sprouted any more since then. I guess that's just proof that stress can age you prematurely. Poor Arthur got too many gray hairs to pull out that year, so he is just accepting those gray hairs, however premature they may be. He's still very handsome though, gray hairs and all.

4. I believe in long, hot showers. I think that a long hot shower can fix almost anything. Does your back hurt? take a hot shower. Are you congested? shower. the steamier the better. Are you anxious or stressed out? shower. Can't hear yourself think? you can in the shower. How about a vocal rehearsal room? Can't beat the shower. It even has cool acoustics. I love hot showers so much, sometimes I take two in a day. I know it's a bad habit, especially for somebody who lives in a desert, but what can I say? I just believe in showers.

5. I don't watch TV. I watch movies, but I rarely sit down and watch TV. I don't have any TV shows that I watch regularly, or care if I miss. Even the sound of it continuously on bothers me. I'd much rather curl up with a good book and relax that way.

6. My senior year in college, I wrote a really great paper that my professor thought I plagiarized. I worked in the music office, and he knew me personally, so I was shocked that he could believe me capable of that dishonesty. I was almost in tears when he confronted me about it. But after several minutes of grilling me about the paper, I eventually convinced him that I'd actually written it. I guess that could be considered a compliment in a weird, twisted sort of way, if you can get past the insult on my integrity. Anyway. I got a big fat A on that paper, so Go Me!

And here's a bonus tidbit, since I'm on a roll: My favorite candy bar is Twix. mmm . . . I love those.

Okay, I'm tagging Melanie, and I don't know if this is allowed, but I'm tagging Julianne and Jenny too, even though they don't have blogs, because I wish they did. So maybe you guys should start one and your first post can be "Six Fabulous Facts About Me!"

After practically living at the sewing machine for two weeks, I finally finished everybody's costume. (I sewed the last button on Arthur's just a few hours before the Halloween festivities were to begin.) Hopefully it's obvious what we all are, but in case you aren't familiar with Harry Potter, we are Harry Potter (Dallin), Hermione Granger (Daphne), Ron Weasley (Sean), Professor Trelawney (Sharee), and Professor Snape (Arthur). Technically, I didn't sew my costume. I found most of it at Good Will.

We went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat for Halloween which is great, because our neighborhood isn't a very big trick-or-treat neighborhood. Not a lot of porch lights on, and not a lot of kids to be disappointed by the lack thereof. We've had to outsource our trick-or-treating to other neighborhoods the last few years anyway.

So the trunk-or-treat was fun, but the gusty cold winds that came out just for the evening kind of put a damper on the party. Our dry ice potion blew away too quickly, and wind always makes people a little less keen on hanging around. Oh well. At least our costumes were awesome. Here are a plethora of pictures to satiate your burning desire to see them in all their glory.

This is one of my favorite things about Albuquerque. Every year at the beginning of October they put on the annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, the biggest ballooning event in the world. It is so much fun, and I think I like it more than the kids. We woke up this morning at 5:15 and headed out to Balloon Fiesta Park. It's normally a 15-20 minute drive, but with all the traffic for the fiesta, we arrived there a little after 7 a.m. The cool thing about Balloon Fiesta is that you can walk around the field and actually watch the whole inflation process from rolling it out to take off.


There are a lot of "special shape" balloons, but I think wind forecasts may have scared some off this morning. The one shape in particular that we all wanted to see was the new Darth Vader balloon from Belgium. But he must have left early because we didn't see him there today, much to Dallin's disappointment. (Mine too, I admit.) But we found a picture of it to show you all because it really is an impressive balloon. Hopefully he'll come back next year.


We did get to see a lot of other cool ones; Clarabelle the cow, The two bees who take off holding hands, give each other a kiss, and then fly separate directions, a scarecrow, a haunted house, and of course the traditional tear-drop balloons are fun too.




After the balloons have all taken off (there are hundreds of them on a good wind day--it's really spectacular) we share breakfast burritos (with lots of green chili) and fresh squeezed orange juice. Mmm-Mmm good! After such a fun morning, we will all enjoy a good nap this afternoon.

We were lucky to have Mike and Amber (Arthur's brother and his wife) come visit the last weekend in September. We visited the zoo on Friday while Dallin was in school, and then Saturday, we went to the BYU/UNM Football game. BYU won 31 to 24. GO COUGARS! We just wish Mike and Amber could have stayed longer! We love you guys!