family pictures

what a wonderful celebration!

wedding day

the bride and groom

beautiful brittany

five brothers...

...and their wives
Rusty, Kelly, Doug, Debbie, Paul, Linda, Tim, Lori, Kyle and Jen

over the river and through the woods...

I said to my mom that Melanie wanted me to take some pictures of her pink house. She looked at me quite surprised and then responded with the question, "my pink house?" I wasn't sure why she was surprised, but I answered, "yes". Then she looked around and said, "well, I guess the floors are a very pale pink."

In addition to the floors...

It is worth noting that the front doors are blue!

visit to dr. moxley

Linda quit today. She will stay at school until a replacement is found...probably through November. I am very happy for her political success.

TAVARES -- Linda Stewart, who pulled a political shocker in September when she defeated longtime County Commissioner Catherine Hanson in the GOP primary with a promise to slow development, vanquished Democrat Egor Emery on Tuesday to win the seat.Stewart, who garnered 62 percent of the vote, will be joined on the commission by another newcomer and fellow slow-growth proponent, Republican Elaine Renick, whose certain victory was sealed with Tuesday's vote. Renick's name appeared alone on the ballot for that race, and only because she faced a write-in candidate. Renick had ousted incumbent Bob Pool in a three-way Republican primary.
In Stewart, a schoolteacher, and Renick, a three-term Clermont City Council member, voters chose candidates who could dramatically shift county government's pro-growth course. With their votes in September and in Tuesday's general election, Lake voters signaled they are fed up with overcrowded schools, congested roads and developers who have long influenced county commissioners."I can't believe it," Stewart said. "I'm not a politician. I've never had politics on my mind, but it's been too long since Lake County residents have been heard."I'm going to make a change."At the round courthouse, where votes were being tallied, Emery hugged Stewart and shook her hand.The outcome of Renick's victory, meanwhile, was never in doubt."I'm very happy," she said, adding, "I couldn't relax until it was official."All voters in the county were eligible to cast ballots in races that require candidates to live in a district. In the District 4 race, Stewart held off Emery, who was hoping to become only the second Democrat to win election to a commission seat since 1970. In the District 2 race, Renick's opponent was write-in candidate Hubert Martin III.Stewart, 55, emphasized the need to lure higher-paying jobs to Lake. She proposed to do so by setting aside land exclusively for light industry and commercial development. Like Renick, Stewart has said she would preserve what's left of the county's rural lands.Renick, a 54-year-old former school psychologist, also pledged never to meet with developers or their attorneys outside of public meetings."I think we have already felt the change, and there's going to be more changes with the decisions concerning growth ahead of us," Renick said.

"enough is enough"

COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 4
(With 101 out of 102 Precincts Counted)

Linda Stewart
50813
62.06 %

E. K. Emery
31065
37.94 %

mo's wedding reception

Last night we went to Mo's wedding reception at the Ingall's house. Everything was very beautiful...especially Mo.



We also enjoyed meeting Chris's dad and mom, Elder and Sister Rasband. They didn't have a picture of Sister Rasband on the church website, which I think is a bit unfortunate.

mt. dora plant and garden show

I went.This is the time of year when most of the people in the United States are cleaning up their garden in preparation for winter. In Florida, we are checking the garden to see if anything lasted through the heat. Now we enjoy gardening for the next 7 months or so. I am excited to plant on Monday!

fall festival

Friday was the fall festival for our school. My teaching partner, Linda Stewart, brought her horses and we spent the entire time running the horsey rides. I took tickets, she and two other teachers led the horses. For me, I enjoyed watching the adults who had never ridden on a horse, pay their three tickets and be as thrilled as any child to ride.

locked out

Tonight all the youth came to our house for YM/YW. I had painted the side of the house, so I roped off that part of the porch and locked the back door from the inside so that no one could go walking on my paint job while it is drying.

When everyone showed up it started getting warm, but since it is a cool evening, (that would be 69) we decided just to open the front door and the windows at the back of the house. The screens were in the closet so I had to put them on first. It doesn't take very long, but as I was putting them on, I accidentally put one in backwards. It was annoying to turn around and since I was in a hurry, I just left it.

Later that night when nearly everyone was gone, I walked outside to say goodbye to the last group. As I did, I closed the front door and it locked behind me. Now I was locked out of my house with no keys! Someone asked if I had any windows open. And then I remembered...my back windows were still open and one of them had the screen in backwards so it would only require the slighest push since I hadn't been able to lock it into place. Not only that, I had been painting the back of the house today and the ladder was just a few feet from the window.

In just a few minutes, we had hoisted one of Brianna's friends through the window and she opened the front door to save the day, or rather, the night for us.

My family says I am the luckiest one. Sometimes I am lucky, but this time, I think it was a blessing.

happy halloween

trick or treat

a new driver

Attention grandkids!

Nanamoo has learned how to drive the tractor. Now it will be twice as much fun when you come to the Birdhouse...you can ride with me and you can ride with Papa.

Brianna laughed and laughed to see me on the tractor. In addition to giving grandkids rides, this is a skill that is useful for taking out the trash when Doug is not home...and possibly, even when he is.

exhortations

It is spring in Argentina. Doug left this afternoon. He will be busy helping to support BYU as they promote the launch of the BYU channel. As he was leaving, I was busy giving him some wifely words of advice...remember this and that. He said that this was, in all probability, his last trip to Argentina. For a place that has meant so much to the well-being of our family over the years and as people that he has come to love, it is a bittersweet thought. It seems unlikely that it could be true. When he retired, he most certainly thought that it was his last trip to Argentina, and he has actually been back eight times since then.

After he left this afternoon, I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I have read it more times that I can remember, yet it never fails to move me. The last chapter is especially compelling as Moroni gives seven exhortations. What is an exhortation anyway? Dictionary.com says that it is urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. Yes, he gives seven, one of which is to remember the other six...love that!

So, I guess what I was really doing was giving my husband exhortations. One of which was to remember that it is spring in Argentina--look at the beautiful jacaranda trees that paint the city a lavendar pastel this time of year.
"And I would exhort you, my beloved...that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ." Moroni 10:18

a job well done

before














and after

thinking about melanie

Sometimes a picture captures more than a record of an event.
That's how I feel about this picture...

...this is how I feel about us.

what ever happened to howdy doody?

Howdy Doody was a children's television program (with a decidedly frontier/western theme, although other themes also colored the show) that aired on NBC from 1947 through 1960. It was a pioneer in children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. It was also a pioneer in early color production as NBC used the show in part to sell color television sets in the 1950's.
Howdy Doody himself was a freckle-faced boy marionette.

Bozo the Clown (also known as Bozo), is the name of a clown whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. Partly as a result, the word "bozo" has become synonymous with a foolish person. It also was a common name given to hobo or tramp clowns.

Doug has often refered to Howdy Doody over the years, but for me personally, I don't think that I spent any time watching a freckle-faced cowboy marionette.

However today, I met the guy who played Bozo for eight years and his friend who is the master puppeteer for Howdy Doody. They are living in Winter Park running a marionette theater.
We had a most enjoyable field trip!
Thanks to Wikipedia for the information about Howdy Doody and Bozo posted in this blog.

Lampu Japanese Steakhouse

Brianna has been working to get 5 behavior A's in a row. The reward: A trip to Lampu. Tonight we ate at the restaurant. Good job B!

thank heaven for aloe

My big aloe plant didn't make it through the heat and neglect this summer. But gratefully, one of her offspring did. Tonight we slit open the baby stalk and laid it on a nasty burn that Brianna got taking cookies out of the oven this afternoon. We covered the aloe with gauze and then bandaided the whole concoction to her finger. Gratefully, it gave her relief from pain and hopefully, it will help her finger to heal.

pumpkin jack

Brianna spends alot of time of her own. Thankfully, she is a very creative child and we can usually count on coming home to something that involved paper, scissors and markers. Today Doug and I spent most of our hours at youth conference. Tonight Pumpkin Jack (and Brianna) have new hats, although she didn't want to model hers.

field trip to the kennedy space center

Of course, she had a blast.







Tee hee hee.