Hannah's Birthday Celebration!

Today is Hannah's 3rd birthday! The family celebrated her birthday on Wednesday, November 26th, so that I could be there and because Brian's parents and brother's family were in town from Utah that day as well. They have two children and they are the same ages as the Perry's children. So it was a fun evening!

MaryAnn had fun decorations:

There was a tresure hunt with clues and prizes for the kids. Then we played "Hannah's Birthday Bingo" using cards that were filled with Hannah's favorite things:

Hannah is very intent on the game. She was the caller as well!

After a yummy homemade pizza dinner, we had cake and ice cream. Here's the cake:

And here's the birthday girl as we were singing to her:

She did a great job at blowing out the candles!

And she loved eating the frosting off of her cupcake!

And finally the presents! These seemed to be two favorites, a new baby and a Memory game:

Thanks for all the fun!!

Happy Birthday, Amanda!!

Happy Birthday to our wonderful daughter, Amanda!!

She has brought us a lot of joy through her music

Here she is ice skating at a family reunion!

I've posted some family photos she sent me because I think she looks SO pretty in each one of them!

Give Thanks!

There is always a long list of things to be thankful for at this time of year! But three things come to mind right now.

First, I'm thankful for the bounties of this earth with which we have been blessed! Compared with other times and other places, we have SO much!!

Second, I am thankful for eternal marriage--in particular my eternal marriage and my sweetheart! He has worked long hours many times under considerable stress to provide for our family and then spends many evenings and Sundays serving others through his church calling. A few weeks ago, he passed the 9 year mark of serving in his current church calling. Wow! I've never had a calling anywhere near that long. In fact I'm on my 5th church calling since he started serving in November 1999! We are still best friends and our life together just seems to get better and better over the years!

Third, I'm thankful for the freedom to worship as we please. This is something I have surely taken for granted throughout my life. Just two Sundays ago I drove up to our church building passing police cars and security guards in anticipation of a possible demonstration which could have blocked my ability to get into my place of worship. Fortunately, the demonstration never materialized and as I drove up the hill this past Sunday with the sun shining on a beautiful fall day all I could think about was how thankful I was that each week I can go into our church building and worship God. Not everyone has or has had this privilege and it is truly a wonderful thing!

Give thanks!!!!!!!!!

Multiply and Replenish!

We had a pleasant Family Home Evening this past Monday night with two other couples from our regular group. Each of the other two couples had had a grandchild born within the last few days, and as we were talking about the new babies, the names, and how many granchildren that made for them, we did a little calculation. Between the 3 couples, we had 61 children and grandchildren!!!

That's a LOT of blessings!!!!

The End of the Journey!

Our son, John, took a long journey this summer. He travelled over 5,900 miles through 19 states and used over 166 gallons of gas. I know he enjoyed the journey but was glad to get to his destination at last! And now he has begun his new adventure in graduate school in Washington D.C.!

He has also been on another journey starting when he was a teenager and continuing on through his college years but now that journey has come to an end too! John became engaged last night to his future eternal companion, Sara!!! And now they will begin a new adventure together in the state of matrimony!

Congratulations on your successful journeys!!!!!!

The Right To Vote: Your Most Important Right!

I have always felt very strongly about voting. I have always made the effort to study the issues and candidates and then make the effort to go to the polls and vote or mail my ballot in sufficient time for it to be counted. In recent years I have worked at the polls on election day, and it was an exhausting but rewarding and enlightening experience.

This year I had an interesting experience with my ballot. Dan received his, John received his, but I did not receive mine. I checked online and it said to wait two weeks before calling. At exactly two weeks, I called the Registrar of Voters office. I felt like they were putting me off. They said wait a few more days and it will get there. I felt very frustrated as I checked the mail each day. I felt like I was being denied the right to vote!

Then an article came out on the front page of our newspaper that said thousands of ballots had not been received by voters. The Registrar blamed the post office and the post office blamed the Registrar. I called again after waiting several days. They said they would send me another ballot. I waited and waited. Still no ballot! Now I was getting really frustrated. Having worked on the election board I knew I could still go to the polls, but I would have to vote "provisional" which includes a lot of paper work and then your ballot is not counted until later in the month if it is determined to be counted at all. I knew there would be long lines at the polls for a presidential election. So I decided to try calling again and seeing if I could go pick up a ballot myself. Finally, after spending over 2 hours on hold with no result, I found another telephone number and finally got through. Yes, I could go pick up a ballot but the place to pick it up was over 20 miles away. But I was willing to do that because voting is important! I decided to wait until the mail came that afternoon before driving all that way.

I received my ballot! I quickly filled it out so I could get it to the post office and have it picked up that day. I did it at MaryAnn's house and she took a picture of me!

First I had to fill out an affidavit thingy that I had not received my first ballot and put that in one envelope.

Then I prepared the actual ballot for mailing.

All I can say is that it was a very frustrating feeling to think that I might not be able to have my vote counted for this election! I have never had that feeling before and would not want to have it again. We should be thankful every day that we have this opportunity! I have a feeling I may be disappointed in some of the results of this election, but at least I got to have my say!! On a citizenship test that I saw in a book one of the questions was: What is the most important right granted to citizens of the United States? The answer: The right to vote!