Jade's Big Bad # Twenty ... Continued

So here's some of the other Birthday gifts besides the abundance of Delila gifts. The first gift is her card from Snook and PJ with a lovely twenty tucked inside. The rest is an assortment of gifts from Dad and me. Pay particular attention to the bottom row. Jade's first reaction to the card I gave her. Then we decided to show exactly why she reacted that way. Pretty card on the outside...NOTHING on the inside. Yep. Leave it to Mom. I forgot to write inside my dear daughter's card. I was completely oblivious. The whole time she opened it, I didn't even realize...Until she turned it around for me to see. Nice, Mom...

DeDe says "Happy Big #20 Jade!!"

Jade's Birthday Craziness!! These are the gifts from Delila. She knew Jade liked to go to Gold's Gym so got her a bunch of work-out stuff. Dee said, "I'm not saying you're fat, Jade." She even gave her a champagne glass filled with Rolos to prove it. DeDe also made Jade's cake... For Cute...

Becky's Bridal Shower @ Andrea & Brandon's House

Becky, Ali, and Andrea at Becky's Bridal Shower. She is Kevin's new wife and makes a beautiful addition to Renee's daughters. Andrea is Brandon's wife. Brittney, Steven's wife wasn't able to make it, but they are all beautiful girls.

We had a lot of fun making candy bar posters and playing bridal shower bingo. Becky's mom is next to her on the right and Shauni, Kevin's grandma, is on Becky's left.

Youth Conference 2007.... Stop #1...Temple Square

Our whole ward youth conference group is in the center shot with the Salt Lake Temple. Seeing the Joseph Smith movie was a great and moving experience for all of us. Joey had to make fun of me for wobbling around on the ledge when I was snapping a shot of the Temple so then he had the brilliant idea to get a picture of us falling into the fountain...(No...we didn't actually fall in.) Our carload was a lively group...the oldest kids at the conference...so naturally they were completely comfortable cutting up. Laying on the floor was the best way for them to appreciate the ornate ceiling in one of the wedding reception rooms.

Paris Idaho Tabernacle...Youth Conference 2007

The Paris Tabernacle is in the small town of Paris Idaho...Designed by one of Brigham Young's sons and completed 1889. It was a beautiful place to tour at our Youth conference. The last picture is a blow up of the chapel ceiling...built by a ship builder...Though you can't see the beams in the chapel very well, they go from floor to ceiling and are each carved from one entire log. They must be about 30 feet at least.

A little Random....Ok, A Lot of Random

I thought of a metaphor to describe Joey the other night. It was kind of late and so maybe a bit odd.... but I think it really works. Joey wears responsibility like a lycra suit. It fits him like a second skin but is a little too binding to relax in.
Here is Mr. Lycra himself with JB. I'm not even sure why I took the picture but I guess its pretty cute so I had to add it.
....& here I am. I guess one of those times I couldn't sit down to eat....I don't know...but my closet door is opened and that really bugs me.
OK so if you haven't figured it out....That's Crowdin's eye. Don't ask. I have no idea.
So Joey brought home this perfectly nice blow snake. And then let Crowdin torture him right while our home teachers were visiting. Crowdin just barked and barked at it and the snake was all coiled up and hissing and striking at him and blowing. That was the great part....the blowing. Blow snakes expell a huge lot of air out of their bodies when they hiss. It is very intimidating and our hometeacher Bishop, President, Doctor Besendorfer pointed out to us that you could actually see the snakes whole body contract when he blew. Naturally Joey did what all real men would do. He picked Crowdin up and dropped him on the snake. The result was that the poor snake was so traumatized that we had to let it go. This is a picture of him severely mad. He is very tightly wrapped around Joey's wrist and wants to bite his face off. I'm pretty sure he won't ever like humans again....Or little barky dogs either.

Mr. Fix It!!

Joey has been working hard at remodeling our old home. I know he gets very tired of it, but he does such a good job. Here he is putting in our new flooring in the Dining Room. We tore out very ugly, old, sickly dark brown carpet. Underneath that was the old green linoleum squares from before the 1960's I think. This new floor looks so nice.
He finished the dining room and into the kitchen, under the pantry, and then the entire laundry room. We were only able to do a portion of the kitchen because we are remodeling it as well. We'll finish the floor after pulling out cabinets and putting in all the new ones.
Yay! We were able to put our first section of cabinets in!! They are so pretty compared to what we've had for these past 12 years. I will feel so pampered when we get this all done. I actually found these online, a company from KC Missouri. I was impressed with them after all my research and I am still impressed with the product. I put most of these cabinets together by myself...(that means they were very easy.) I couldn't have done the pantry without Joey's help though. Someday I'll have to remove the old border on the walls...but that project won't be for a while yet.
This is a close up of the pantry. I was hoping you'd be able to see the pretty grain of the maple and the chest nut glazed finish. We were able to put in our first section of cabinets where we didn't have any cabinets before. That way when we start pulling out the old ones, we still will have a little bit of storage space. I'm still not sure what we'll do about counter tops. I haven't decided. (If you want to compare these to my old cabinets, there's a little shot of them in a couple of Delila's pics with Crowdin in an earlier blog.)