Thanksgiving

 We went up to Clearfield to spend Thanksgiving with my brother, his family, and my sister.  We also brought our nephew David and our friend Jordan Mower.  It was a lovely day.  We ate great food, played hilarious games, and had our annual gingerbread house competition.  On Friday we were able to join the Grants for dessert and welcome Elder Taylor Grant home!

 My yummy pumpkin roll

 Palm Tree Chipmunk Paradise

Cactus Retreat

 On Friday we were able to join the Grants for dessert and welcome Elder Taylor Grant home!

 We were lucky to have Jordan join us for the holiday weekend.

Official diagnosis

Kelly was given an official diagnosis today.

Viral induced (momo) Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome with Neurocardiogenic Syncope and Hypoglycemia

They are hopeful she will outgrow it as the antibodies wane.  She is now taking salt tablets in additon to the bp medication.  Treatment is just to treat the symptoms and wait.

A day with Aralie

Aralie came by and spent the day with me while Abner was working in South Jordan.  We did some Christmas shopping, had a little massage, ate a yummy lunch, then came home to Carnitas from a new Pinterest recipe I tried.  It was delish!

Snow day

 Our 2nd snow of the season, it snowed for 24 hours straight.  The chickens did not seem impressed.  Chelsie had fun playing with the neighborhood kids.

Just a little update on Kelly

Many of you know that Kelly has been experiencing medical issues since July.  She has gone through so many tests and we have learned that she has orthostatic hypotension, hypoglycemia, mononucleosis, low vitamin D.  While we have been frustrated to not find a diagnosis that ties all of these symptoms together and to know why she is fainting, dizzy, and in pain, we are thankful that some of her symptoms have improved over the last 3 weeks.  She has only had a couple of mild attacks in this time frame.  She is still dizzy every day and has leg pain daily but she is feeling more like herself and able to cope better.  We have limited sugar in her diet which appears to be controlling the hypoglycemia.  We are hopeful that as she recovers from mono, that she will continue to improve.  She had a tilt table test done last week and while it takes most patients about 30 minutes to pass out, she did so in 4 1/2 minutes.  After reviewing her heart and bp monitors during this time, the dr did not think she has POTS.  We are so grateful for the power of prayer and thank all those who have offered prayers in her behalf.  We keep praying that she will continue to improve so that she may return to her normal activities.  

I forgot to post when our chickens laid their first egg!  It was Saturday morning of General Conference weekend and Rue laid the golden egg!  Scott estimated it cost about $600!  

 Chicky began laying very quickly after Rue!  Her eggs are lighter and a bit smaller.

 3 weeks later Ralfeefee laid her first egg---take note of the tiny egg on the bottom row!  She sure made a squawk about that!

Now she's laying normal sized eggs but that first one was sure funny!  We're still waiting on Buffy to start laying--she's the biggest chicken so we were shocked that she is the last to lay!  Oh, by the way, the eggs are tasty!

My Projects

 Halloween costumes I made for Chelsie and 2 of her friends in the neighborhood.  They will be Herriman cheerleaders and 2 of the boys in the neighborhood and trick or treating with them in their football uniforms.  Dad may or may not accompany them in a referee costume!  

 2 wood projects I finished this morning.  

 I painted our bedroom about a month ago, added new curtains, new bedding, and vinyl.  I still want to add crown molding and eventually replace our furniture.  

 We redecorated Chelsie's room zebra style!  

The Gathering 2012

I grew a watermelon

and ate it today!  It was a bit small but tasty!  Next year I will plant them earlier.  This is the last of the Asian Pears also.  The garden will only last a couple more weeks before it gets cold here.  It's been a great year of crops!

Another gardening post...

 

Saturday we went out and cleaned up the garden a bit and picked a little bit of everything!  The weather is starting to cool off here so I suspect we'll be closing out the garden in the next couple of weeks.  It has been a great year, trying to grow new things, and learning what works well for us. 

Here is what I found in the garden today.

Just to show the size of our peaches...and they weigh nearly a pound each!  Yummy!

Peaches are ready

Last week the peached started to ripen, here is the first batch.

Mullinax visit

DeeLynn and Amanda came to visit on the way back to BYUI.  Amanda couldnt resist the slide!

Potatoes

Pickins

Boating

We weren't sure we would be able to go boating this week, because we found a gas leak on Friday and one of the trailer lights wasn't working.  At this point, nothing surprised me with the boat, so we took it into the shop around 4:30pm.  We got a call Saturday around 2pm so we picked it up and headed to the lake around 5pm.  We got a couple of hours in at least.