Halloween and the Pumpkin Patch!!

Dressed up for the Halloween party! Jeff and I went as different era's (we raided Shar's Halloween bin!) and West, well, you can see is a dragon! Too cute!!!

Weston and I at the Pumpkin Patch!
We went with some good friends from our old ward. Thanks for inviting us Carley!
This is Weston with the pumpkin he picked!! He tries to say pumpkin, it is so cute!

He was so excited to get a pumpkin, but as soon as he saw the hay he totally forgot about it! He loved picking it up and throwing it in the air, so funny!

All the cute kiddos we went with: Abigail, Tanner, Brayden, & West (who was much more interested in all the kids than the camera!)

He either needed a nap, or just woke up from one! He WOULD NOT crack a smile!

These are the coolest pumpkins!

Happy Happy Birthday!!!!

Happy Birthday Dad and Shawn!!!!!

Happy Birthday. We hope it was fantastic!!!! (despite the craziness)
Since we all know that Shar is a much more eloquent writer than any of us, I am just going to say
DITTO!!!!!
to everything she wrote. And please know that I agree and think the world of both of you. I am so glad I am part of your family. Thanks for everything!!!!

A very late update!!!!

Hello family and friends!!!

For those of you who have been wondering and questioning my being alive-- here I am. Finally!!!!! Life has been busy and crazy since last time I posted. Since I am overwhelmed with the thought of catching you up on the last 2 months, complete with pics and lengthy explanations, I am just going to do a summary and then move on to the here and now!! (It's kind of like when you miss an entire year of writing in your journal...it could take months to catch up and then that only puts you behind even farther, so we're moving straight to the latest!)

Here is a brief synopsis:

September:

• Our new niece was born, pics are below.

• We had a fantastic visit from Mom. She was here for Shar & Kapria but we were able to have a blast with her too! We miss her so much
• We found out we are expecting baby number 2!! Yay!!! We are due May 10, 2008 and we are SO excited. Maybe a girl is in our future?! We'll see! I had about 2-3 really hard weeks of feeling sick, but after that I have just been extremely tired. But, hey, I'll take fatigue over dry-heaving any day!!! sorry if that was too much info!
  

• Dad came to visit the last weekend Mom was here and then they drove home together.

• Weston was horribly sick the entire weekend Dad (aka Grandpa Dan) was here, BUMMER, but he did manage to crack a smile once or twice so that Grandpa saw a tiny bit of his sparkling personality!
• Weston is turning into a little boy more and more everyday. He is signing tons of words and trying to talk all the time. He RUNS, not walk, wherever he goes and LOVES to make people laugh. He is definitely a little ham.
  
• We miss Mom and Dad VERY much since they left!!!!
• We cancelled our internet because the price jumped way too high, hence the no blogging. However...I STILL get email....

October:

• Conference weekend for the LDS church. Need I say more? It was fantastic and inspired me to be so much better and try harder in a lot of personal areas. I love listening to our Prophet and the leaders of our church.
  
• Conference weekend Joe, Amanda, & Cole came for a quick trip. It was so great to see them and get all the siblings together!!! It made us miss them even more!
• Jeff and I were able to use our gift certificate for Johnson's Mill Bed and Breakfast (where we went for our anniversary!) It was so beautiful there in the fall!!! We saw about 7 does, 2 baby deer, and 2 bucks. How cool. Also, there was a pair of swans who followed us around the pond while we canoed. We finally asked the receptionist for some feed and were able to feed not only the swans, but about 10 geese, and a few ducks and some fish. That was so fun. We even saw a snake in the basement common room. How's that for a great get-away?! We were so lucky that Jonathan was able to watch Weston overnight!!! Weston still had a smile on his face when we got home, so way-to-go Jonathan!!! What a great uncle!!!! (Thanks to James and Amy for coming to help put Weston to bed!!!)
  
• West and I took a trip to Missouri to visit Grandma & Grandpa Abreu and Meg and the girls. My mom was awesome and came too!! We had a connecting flight in Vegas where we met her and then the three of us flew to Kansas City. Missouri is such a beautiful state. We had a blast and are so glad we were able to spend some quality time with the family we don't get to see often enough. Some of the highlights from the trip include:
  

1. Weston actually sleeping on the plane!
2. Spending quality time with wonderful family
3. Late nights playing cards (hand and foot is the coolest game)
4. getting to have my mom all to myself. I miss her.
5. Visiting Liberty Jail. The spirit there was amazing. My favorite sections of the Doctrine and Covenants were received there!
6. Visiting Independence and Adam-ondi-ahman. Again, what a spiritual place to be.
   
7. Getting to know my adorable, fun, and amazing cousins and my awesome Aunt better. She also took Weston's pics. I don't have all the pics fromt the trip yet, but I will so those WILL be posted because they are just too dang cool!
   
8. Watching Weston warm up to everyone. He also started doing some very daring stunts. too funny!
9. Weston learned to say cow, moo, and pumpkin. Okay, it might not sound just like it, but he definitely makes the same sound over and over for each of those words. too cute. Cow and moo came from visiting the cows that live, yes, right next door to my grandparents house.
   
10. Visiting historic Weston, MO. YES, it is a town and you can imagine how picture crazy I went. Again, those pics will come soon!
11. Bonding with Melissa. I miss you tons!!! Thanks for all of the texts!
    
12. We learned about the fires that were ravaging So. CA. (more on that below)
    

The trip was a blast and I am so glad we were able to take the time to go. Thank you, Jeff, for putting up with 9 days without us. I know it was lonely!!!

• Okay, back to the rest of October: we had a great weekend back after missing Jeff very much, but now I miss my mom very much.
  
• West and I had a fun trip to Pumpkin Land with some friends from our old ward. It was so good to hang out with friends! Thanks for inviting us Carley!!
• We were able to go to cute little Abigail's first birthday party last night. She is so adorable, I am sorry Jonathan, but you have a heartbreaker on your hands. Good luck when she can start dating!!!
  
• We have the internet again. Jeff found a great deal, way to go babe!
  

And NOW, that is the latest. SO...I realized that I wrote a TON. So much for a brief synopsis. Haha. I really hope you read it all, though, because that has been our life up until now.

And now for the fires:
First of all, a big, huge THANK YOU to everyone who has called and sent emails of concern for my family. I can't tell you enough how much it means.
Here is the update on what happened:

Valley Center was evacuated. The fire did go through the ranch and my dad and brothers stayed to try to save what they could. You might think this is not smart. That's not the case, my dad helped out the firefighters during the fires 4 years ago. He is not a dumb guy, in fact, he's very smart and I would want him with me during any natural disaster!!!! There are also fire hoses at the ranch, NOT household hoses. If people are trying to fight a fire with a typical garden hose, yeah, that is dumb. Also, right in front of our house is a fairly large pond. The plan was to jump in the pond if the fire got out of control, which they didn't have to do.
All but 2 of the home were burned down. For some reason, the fire hoses stopped working, otherwise my dad says they could have saved more. The shop and various other buildings were burned. The shop was a huge bummer for our family because it housed the boat, wave runner, a car, and all of my dad's tools, auto books and a lot of things that he has spent his lifetime aquiring. The books are really sad because many of them are out of print. They were able to save the house, but it is not livable. So my dad says that he saved our stuff (inside the house) but not the house, really.
But they are okay and that is the most important thing. I admire my parents so much because they have such a good outlook on things. They are being really optimistic even though they lost a lot of valuable things and are, essentially, without a home.
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. You are very appreciated!!!!

So there is the update. I hope you enjoyed finding out why we've been missing from blogging for so long!!! Since I have to get on a different computer to send pics, I will do that very soon!!!