Gratitude is an attitude

This was a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. Nothing like good food, good family togetherness, and good friends. I truly have so much to be thankful for....


Cute girls in cute new aprons.




Delicious food for a Thanksgiving dinner (look at those candy potatoes!!!)




Dancing just because you can and you feel like it.




Dressing up like Pilgrims and Indians to tell the story of Thanksgiving. (that was sooo entertaining!)




And, topping it off with a day trip to beautiful Pinnacles State Park for a little climbing and hiking with Andy. Good times!



And my list could go on and on.... My mind keeps going back to the quote from Pres. Monson in the recent General Conference,
"Both abundance and lack of abundance exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend. When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present....the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth."

I choose to see abundance, and there is so much of it!

Beautiful fall colors

I went to Yosemite last weekend. Not only did I have great company, but I also had great weather and scenery. I love to try and capture all that beauty in just one picture... here are a couple of favorite attempts:

Thievery and Inequality for all

(Or at least that's what I think their signs should say!)

Ok, so I decided to put up a couple Prop 8 signs in my neighborhood to offer the opposing view to the "No" signs popping up everywhere. Got a few at church today, and wasted no time in putting a couple up. And guess what.... within 3 hours, they were gone! Shameless!

Now that it gets dark so early, I felt so sneaky and stealthy going back out there to put another one right back up! You think stealing a sign will change my vote? Hah! I will just keep putting them back out. I have more where that sign came from!!!! Just try it, punk.... :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you Mike!

Okay, I have been dragging my feet for a while about getting our bathroom redone. It definitely needed it, but I was selfish in not wanting to be without a bathroom (since we only have 1 1/2). But I must say, it was so worth it!!!
Okay here is a before picture:





are you ready???

no really...

is the suspense killing you yet?

Okay, here it is....





Our cousin Mike is the greatest! Our bathroom now feels like a spa. :) You can't tell from the photo, but the tile goes all the way around the bathroom like a wainscoating (it that how you spell it?).

Heavenly...delightful...joyous!
(P.S. the shower curtain is not permanent. We are still searching for the one we like!)