Birthday and Thanksgiving weekend

What a great weekend we had with our California family. Dad and I were so excited to have the Philpott's here with us and show the newest grandchildren our home and the park across the street. Next time we will take a walk down the park corridor and show them the play equipment at the other end.

In this first picture, Abby climbed clear to the top of the "web" structure. She was high up and having a great time being there.

John decided to join her which took a little more effort than he probably thought it would. I don't think these structures were made with adults in mind but I must give him credit...he made it to the top. I know his new physical strength and slender frame was a plus in his accomplishment.














All of them had a great time on the swings, and slides and monkey bars as well. Dad and I loved pushing the younger ones on the swings and Noelle had the most fun of all sharing a swing with Jenna. Abby doesn't need pushing anymore; she's learned the art of pumping.

Our Thanksgiving dinner later in the day turned out great thanks to all the family contributions. I enjoyed making a special cake for the October Birthdays and the youngest kids were happy with my efforts as they hadn't seen a cake that Grandma made before. It was fun surprising them with Pocohontas and Jack from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". I was going to have them take the rest of it home with them but they had won a cake in a cake walk on Friday so they didn't need one. I took it to the woman's shelter on Monday cause Dad and I sure don't need a cake to finish eating.

Sunday night was the first rehearsal for the Nativity Choir. I know, hard to believe but it isn't very far away. We are doing some new music and a couple pieces we have done before. They aren't as hard to learn as last year so that is good. Dad and I will be singing in a small ensemble too this year. We are actually the only members of the Mann family to be in the choir this year. That seems very strange after having so many of us in the past. This way we'll have Mann's in the audience too!

Birthday Shout!!!!

HAPPY, HAPPY, BIRTHDAY, NOELLE

We love you!

My Turn!!

Okay, so I had to do it too. It is fun but sad to see that (considering my age) I've only done just a few more things than my very young daughters and some of theirs are really exciting. I guess you can tell that I haven't had the great opportunities in school programs that you girls did. Wait till Dad does it. With his time in the Army, there are quite a few of the travel things he has done. Of course I could add a few things I've done that are not on the list so I guess that would count for something.

49...Things I've done and Been to (Mine are in RED too )

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child (in the process of )
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run (whiffle Baseball:)
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible ( Book of Mormon)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating eewww...
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Some Birthdays, Stake Conference, Teeth, and family

It's Fall and that means time to watch the trees change into beautiful colors AND..

Get out the decorations and the "candy corn"!!!

Dad had a great birthday thanks to all your calls and cards (notice the Abbot and Costello "sound card" from the Halls. Bet you can guess what it says.) and gifts (so far, I know there is more to come at the end of this month) Thursday he went to work and someone had put up a "Happy Birthday" banner in his cubicle. He was surprised and figures it is his co-worker in his dept. Then the company has a banner on it's network inner office page telling everyone who's birthday it is so Dad got 19 emails wishing him a happy birthday. That was nice. That night, Chris and Emily came for dinner. Dad's birthday dinner choices were:
Meat Loaf, Cheesy potatoes, ceasar salad, Chocolate milk (Safeway good stuff) and then triple berry cobbler ("Clobber" as he calls it, and I made from scratch using the "Dunford" cook book, "thank you, Jean Dunford") with french vanilla ice cream.
After dinner and between his wonderful phone calls, we all watched "Iron Man" that Chris and Em brought over and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's much better than we thought it would be and we look forward to the sequel. A very enjoyable evening!!Saturday morning we went to Costco to purchase the food needed for the SA luncheon following Sunday session for Stk. Conf. Very busy on Saturday and why I normally don't go then but it was nice having Dad with me. We snacked off all the vendors giving samples...no need for lunch that day. Saturday night was the Adult session of conference which we all enjoy. The speakers were great including our own Single adult co-chair, Tim Dugan. He has a great sense of humor and a tender heart and gave a great talk about marriage and the church and the place of singles in it including how married families can make singles feel a part of everything. The whole topic of the evening was marriage. It was a delightful evening.

Sunday was Stake conference... sorry, no Prophet at our conference... however it was a great meeting. There was a young women's choir and many really good speakers. Following conference... as is the custom... we have a Single Adult potluck luncheon. The stake committee provided different kinds of soups and then the rest brought salads and desserts. There was plenty of soup and bread but the salads were in short supply. By the time Dad and I got to the food line, the salads were gone. However we had a really large group this time, about 40 people with only a couple of kids. They all seemed to have a good time.

Sunday evening we went to Jason Dearden's homecoming/open house. Hard to believe he has been gone 2 years and he's back. He had a great mission in the Dominican Republic. Some of his pictures looked like ones from John and Jeff's mission. When we got back home we had Chris and Jim Jones come over to give Dad a blessing for his dental surgery in the morning. Then I had one for my little health concern too. I love the Power of the Priesthood!

Dad's surgery lasted 3 hours as the tooth was old and brittle with the root being totally dead and decay under it. Dr. Wilson's intention was to take it out and do the first part of an implant. However the tooth was so brittle it kept breakiing apart so he had to go all the way down to get it all out and then do a bone graft so he could put in the pin for the implant. Now it has to heal before he can do that. Darn, it's tough when your teeth get old!! Dad thought he would have to take two days off work but even after the long surgery, he felt pretty good yesterday and went to work and stayed all day.

I had a Doctor's appt at Kaiser to check on some heart palpitations I'd been having recently. They did two EKG's and asked me all sorts of questions. Everything is normal. It's just something that hearts do and as long as there aren't any other symptoms happening that he asked me about it's nothing to worry about; just a bothersome event on occasion. When it happens I feel like those cartoon characters whose hearts beat so you can see them jump in their chests.

Last night we had Mark, Kathleen, Joshua, and Luccas over for dinner and the evening. What a wonderful visit it was. We enjoyed a good meal (even though Dad couldn't eat the stuff that needed more chewing) and fantastic company. Those little boys are adorable and so well behaved. We always enjoy their company. Hope you enjoy the pictures we took...

Before they went home, we took them upstairs and showed them all our families blogs. They loved seeing all of you and what has been going on in your lives. Kathleen said she needs to learn how to do this. I know we would all be happy to teach her. Maybe sometime soon I'll help her learn. Then they can join in with the rest of us.

To end this long blog we just want to say:
HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RACHELLE MANN AND JENNA PHILPOTT!!!
We love you both and hope you each had a great birthday today.

What a great weekend!!

I haven't taken any pictures of anything lately so I guess there isn't any to post. We had a fantastic weekend with Chris and Emily here to watch General conference with us. What an outstanding conference it was. Powerful talks that are so timely. We "almost" had Mary Dahl, our neighbor, here for the Saturday afternoon session as the Sister Missionaries in our ward asked her over when they picked oranges for her, but she wasn't home when they called or went there to get her. The Sisters did watch it with us anyway. I guess none of that is new for all my former missionary children. I'm sure you've experienced this before. Chris went to Priesthood with Dad; and Emily and I enjoyed our time together just visiting.

Sunday afternoon, Kathy Payne came over to help us register (Dad already had) on the new Family Search program and then instruct us in how to use it. It is an amazing program but will take some time for it to come easily. We did find an ancestor in Gran's line that hasn't had any work done for her yet and so we printed out the temple ready form to take with us the next time we go to the temple. We also discovered that some of the work we did has been done more than once for some of Gran's family. It will be fun to see if they have been done through extraction or if we have other family members doing our line too. Emily's ward youth are going to the temple on the 25th of this month to do baptisms so we are going to try and get some more names before then, for them to do that work for us .

The fall weather here is gorgeous. It is mostly warm in the day but it takes longer to get there and then it cools down rapidly. The trees are changing into their beautiful colors as are the vineyards. Friday we had a really good rain, the first real long lasting rain in many months. The air smelled so fresh. I love the fall. I'll do some pictures in my next blog...

Busy Bees and my tag!

So, I was "tagged" by Brook and I've finally taken the pictures required to fulfill that "tag" so here they are in order as was shown. The only one I don't have is my dream vacation because I haven't been there yet so I don't have a picture on my computer of where I want to go and I tried to copy and paste one from the internet and I couldn't do it here. So I guess I'll just have to tell you in the appropriate spot instead of a picture. It was a cool picture too... ENJOY!

Our refrigerator ... outside &

Inside!

Our Downstairs toilet.

Our closet!

My Kitchen sink

My favorite Room for obvious reasons!

My Laundry room

Okay... so my dream vacation is to NORWAY and seeing the country and fiords as well at the northern lights in the "Land of the Midnight Sun."

Our Kids "plus" (not the best quality in this format but the best I could do.)

My Favorite Shoes


Self Portrait, with a "little" help

I love to read blogs and that takes much less time than writing them. As you can see, I've jumped on the bandwagon with a new layout...thanks again my lovely daughters.

The past week has been a normal busy week with work at my three jobs...Joyous Occasions, SRSNC receptionist, and Zrii. All have been good experiences and tasks completed as well as can be. Dad has been doing his High counsel stuff and spoke in Bennett Valley ward last week. Great talk on "Follow the Prophet." Dad and I walked for "Yes" on Prop 8 again this morning and the responses of the 16 people out of the 72 townhouses we went to was about even. It gives us a small feeling for what missionaries go through every day and makes us love a appreciate their work just that much more. Go Army of the Lord!!!

Nothing really new to report from Santa Rosa. Just keep on blogging family. We love to read your adventures and see those pictures. Carter is plumping up nicely. I teach Primary again tomorrow and it is our ward's primary program so I get to sit with the kids. That will be fun. I'm looking forward to that. I also have a meeting tomorrow night with the Stake Nativity Committee. I'm a counselor in the presidency and it is that time of year to get it planned and implemented. The Theme this year is "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him". Dad and I (and hopefully the other two Manns in our family in Santa Rosa) will be in the Choir lead by Dan Earl again too. That is one of our favorite things to do every year.

It's a beautiful fall already. Weather really cool in the night and morning but quite warm to hot during the day. Love those fall colors and sunsets.

One Day that seemed like 3!

This past week was pretty normal as weeks go. I worked at the Chiorpractic office and enjoyed it as ususal. We have great patients. We had empty nesters on Monday and Dad and I were incharge of the activity. We had an old fashioned "spelling Bee". It was a hoot... everyone seemed to have a good time.

Then came Saturday...We got up early, 6:30 am, for a Saturday without a wedding, and at 8:30 am met a group of about 12 others from our ward to be trained and receive materials to walk the precincts for YES on Proposition 8. It was a scary but rewarding experience in the long run and only the first time of several that we will be doing this. One man rudely made a comment and slammed the door in our face. Others were adamant about their NO vote but were polite. We did get a few possitive responses and even two that would put a sign on their lawn. So those mixed in with the others gave us the courage to keep going. We were done about 11:30 and went on to the next phase of the day.

We had a meeting for our Zrii business here at the house where I did the presentation for the first time in front of a group. I was nervous but excited too becasue I have such a strong belief in the product and the business. It was a good meeting and Richard said I did a really good job. It's a good thing that I have enthusiasm and belief because that hid my nervousness. I look forward to the next meeting.

The final phase was our best because it was our monthly family dinner in Fairfield. We were all there (at least as many of us that are left in California) and we each packed a picnic supper and met at the Allan Witt park on West Texas in Fairfield. We sat in the sun on a grassy hill by the play equipment and had a great time eating, talking, laughing, and watching the Philpott kids play on the equipment. Then the sun sank into the hills and the wind picked up and we knew we had to leave because it got very cold, very, very fast. To think that it was 100 degrees a week ago is amazing. We had a safe trip home with Chris and Emily and we looked at and talked about the stars cause Chris knows a lot about them now. We couldn't see as much as we would have liked because it was a full moon. They went home and we watched "Juno", the movie and ate popcorn. It was pretty good for the most part but not one we would watch again. On to our monthly Singles activities tonight and then a new week to see what it brings.