My Joy in Preparing a Thanksgiving Feast

Here I am hosting and preparing an American Thanksgiving dinner! If it's not odd that a Canadian is the reason all the O'Neal's (Americans) are getting together, to celebrate this holiday, then you will find it odd that my excitement and complete joy is making the center piece on the table.

 
Aaaawwwww. . . take a deep breath and enjoy! I love it!!! This is so relaxing to me. I used an old glass dish, bought some popori to fill it with. Then I took two small white bowls to hold the candle. (Two to give it height.) I arranged the popori around the candle to my liking. Then placed it on top of these two adorable leaf place mats (I bought) and WA LA! Life is good when you have something beautiful to look at.

Autumn

crisp air-leaves fall-colors change-cool breeze

 

These picture are taken from my kitchen window and bedroom window. It is just perfect to sit here with a hot drink and day dream while I stare at Autumn's beautiful colors just outside my window. 

Took a Turn for the Worst

We had been looking forward to vacation for a long time. Sean-Paul and I decided we would get up early on Saturday morning (4:00am) for a good start on our way to California. Here are the serious of events:

1. 4:30am van overheats. Put antifreeze in the van. Continue on.
2. 5:30am van starts shaking. Stop and check air in tires. Continue on.
3. 5:45am van is still shaking. Getting worse. Pull over to search for a tire shop.
4. 7:00am arrive at Big O Tires in Spanish Fork.
5. Verdict is bubbled tires.
6. 7:30am and $700.00 later, off to California with brand new tires.
7. 9:00am van looses power up a hill, overheats, and we coast off to the nearest exit.
8. 10:00am towed back to Fillmore, UT.
9. Verdict is van has a blown head gasket.
10. Verdict is to leave van and take a rental car back home to get our Elantra.
11. 12:00pm changed our verdict and took the rental car on vacation. 

We left on our vacation with plenty of money and a happy family on the way to California:

We came back from a great vacation! But. . .with $4000.00 towards a new motor in our van and $700.00 for new tires. Our van was towed back to Spanish Fork to be fixed while we were on vacation and wasn't ready yet. When we returned back to Utah the rental car needed to be back in Filmore so this is how we get home?

This is what Big O Tires gave us to drive. Awesome, Yes, but great customer service.

Kiss Me Dirty

A four mile dirty obstacle course run for the ladies!

As you can see we finished good and dirty.


We ran, jumped, and army crawled through muddy water. It was a fun run with dirt throwing fights all the way through.

Ready for mud fights!


We were all ready for a kiss at the end. I am happy to say I received two from Cozy and Sean-Paul.


I hope the mud is good for your skin. That is what they use in facials, right?


YEAH!!!
It was a great girls time.

View more photos at:
http://www.zazoosh.com/events/viewPhotos/430/page10?
and
http://www.zazoosh.com/events/viewPhotos/430/page1?

Game Night

What do married people do on the weekend?


We get together and play games. One of our favorites is Carcassonne. This night we choose to play with four expansions.

(Above picture from left to right: Eric Price, Kasidy Olsen, Me, and Sean-Paul O'Neal) (Lauren Price was the one who capture our memory that night.)



The picture above is our finished board at the end of the game. To the left of the board you can see a massive city that we all helped build. This city made the game competitive and exciting. We all had ownership of the city at one point and were also kicked out of it as well. Kasidy finally closed the city and redeemed 89 points from it. (eeerrr) The game went down hill after that because of that city. All in all it was a fun game night that ended at 3:00 in the morning. (Yes, I know we are crazy.)

In addition to our fun filled evening Kasidy and his girls stayed over. :) Brittany was out of town for the weekend. (We missed you Brittany!) To top off the night poor Lesil woke up sick and was up the rest of the night. Our sleep that night ended up being about an hour. No hard feelings to Kasidy except a little the next day when we were dead tired. It was worth it though we had a blast. Thank goodness Lesil is better now and her virus was nothing serious.

These are the nights you remember!

It's Great to be a kid!


There is one thing about being a Mom that makes me wish I could put a pause button on life, (the above picture.) When your kids are young Daddy and Mommy are their world. In that world a kiss can heal any kind of hurt, a walk, the park, a song a $5.00 toy are the best things in life, and their smile is genuine with true happiness behind it just because your there every day. In this picture I see my babies, so happy and innocent. I wish to hold and cherish this moment forever.


"Nothing can beat being a Mom"

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