13th Floor!!!

We've talked about going to one of these haunted houses in Phoenix for years!  We decided that THIS was our year!  Carlie is off enjoying her school History Tour back east and Ethan is having a blast on his Science Tour in northern CA so we decided we deserved a little fun here:)

We bought our tickets at Costco.  I was laughing because Max was actually nervous and taking deep breathes in the check out line!  There's just something about committing and buying the tickets that made him nervous:)  Tatum was totally on-board the entire time!

We read some of the FAQs online and we laughed at this one:
*Don't wear flip-flops or high heels as these tend to fill up our lost and found.

And:
*This attraction is not recommended for children under 12.

So we wore our best running shoes and headed out on a Wednesday night with our 12 and 10 year old!

SOOO MUCH FUN!!!  Even just standing in line!  They had actors in costume walking around messing with people.  And if you had young kids with you...you seemed to be targeted even more!  Here's poor Tatum just trying to mind her own business in line:)

They were also willing to take pictures with your family as well. 

Fun little contraptions set up for fun picture too:

It took us a solid hour to make it through the two houses!  A solid hour of constant terror!  Seriously never knowing if someone was right behind you!!!  Oh my goodness I have never been more freaked out in my life and I have also never laughed so hard in my life.  I passed off Tatum to Chris because she seemed to really attract the actors but having Max at my side only helped when I could use him as my human shield.  Tatum's scream is THE BEST!!!  Holy cow!  We had so much fun and screamed so much that once we got out, we needed some ice cream to cool down our poor throats.  Totally worth the drive, totally worth the money.  I could definitely be talked in to doing this again:)

Foster Babies--Oct. 2017

It had been months since we had any puppies so I was OVERJOYED to go and pick up these cute little chihuahua pups!!!  We got to love on these pups for 3 weeks!  

Gilderoy (Lockhart--the pretty boy:)--male

Ollivander--male

Lavender--female

Pumpkin--female

Gilderoy had the prettiest yet funniest eyes!  I swear he always looked surprised or guilty whenever I tried to get a good pic of him:

Cute little Lavender

We were super sad to take them back but we know they are off to good homes now.  Hopefully we'll get some more pups soon!!!  Puppy withdrawal is a REAL thing for me!

My baby is 10!!!

My baby is now double-digits!!!  Holy moly!  

Her birthday actually fell on the last day of school before break.  She was awarded "Student of the Month" at an award ceremony--great way to start your birthday off:)

She didn't want a party this year.  She wanted the $100 to put towards a laptop that she's been saving for.  So she got her laptop, dinner at Chick-fil-A, and blizzards instead of a cake--all her choices:)

Her big sister then took her to the movies to see the new "Lego Ninjago" movie which they both had been dying to see.  Grandpa Frank and Grandma Sherry even came up for the weekend to celebrate her birthday, watch her play a softball game, and watch conference with us.  

A perfect birthday weekend for my perfect Birthday Girl.  We love you Tatum Jane!!!

Labor Day--Monterey, CA

My older brother, KC, lives in Monterey, CA and is a retired Coast Guard.  His oldest son, Seth, is 15 and he and KC found one of the coolest Eagle Projects I've ever heard of.  There is a forgotten Coast Guard graveyard in Point Reyes, CA--literally right on the coast.  This graveyard had 4 family graves, 4 Coast Guard graves, and 1 unknown grave.  This graveyard has been in disrepair for several years and had become a regular grazing area for cows.  Seth organized a group to take up to this site--which was a 2 hour drive from Monterey--to camp overnight and then repair the graveyard the next day.  Camping overnight IN A GRAVEYARD?!?!  How could we miss that?!  So we made the trip over the Labor Day weekend.

My mom and dad also flew up for the project.  My mom had to stay in Monterey so that she could receive her dialysis session--which was my job to take her to and from this appointment.  But it was fun and we had lots of fun girl-cousin time while the boys went to work.

Girls:  We went shopping at the mall, ate lunch out, and then hit the beach!  It was funny, we couldn't figure out why no one was going in the water.  Upon closer inspection we discovered the water to be infested with JELLYFISH!!! So the girls opted to play in the sand instead--except for brave cousin Cali.  This girl has NO FEAR!  Check her out with her jellyfish catches!

Boys:

The boys got to be together--Ethan, Max, & Seth are the BEST of friends/cousins--so that was AWESOME!  And they got to do hard work and they did AWESOME!  Check out some of the before/after pics of this place:

They actually slept in these old fire station barracks.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

So we had a really great weekend all around.  While we were looking through the photos of all the boys hard work, I had a distinct impression.  I heard, "No one is looking for these people...get their work done!"  I wish I could say that I immediately said "I will go and do..." but my first thought was, "I don't know how and I'm not related..." but then a distinct memory came right to mind when a lady in my ward had told a story in relief society about a time that she was indexing and came across the name of a lady that died a horrific death and was buried in a common grave--no one was looking for her either.  My friend had to wait a year before doing this lady's work because of the 110 year genealogy rule--and she did wait and did complete her work.  So I knew it could be done.  My nephew had a temple trip the next weekend so I had to hurry and figure this out.  After some research, I found that no, no one was looking for any of these people.  I had enough information from their headstones to create ordinance slips for them.  After a couple emails and a phone call to Salt Lake, I had been granted permission!  It was an AMAZING feeling!  I learned something new and I was so glad that I recognized the prompting AND was able to act on it.  I emailed the names immediately to my sister-in-law and now they are currently working on completing the work.  So even though I didn't get to go to the actual project, I did get to play a small part in making it a full-circle Eagle project.