Thanksgiving at our house!

We just wanted to thank mom and dad, Marne, Erica and Nathan for spending the holiday with us. Charlie says his prayers every night and prays that his family will 4 wheel with him forever. It was fun. D.J. and Becky with Ryan and Jaryn shared a relaxing Saturday with Tami and she loved baking cookies with Grandma. Jay, Charlie and I headed south to "The Little Sahara" national park to do some 4-wheeling in the sand. It was amazing! We loved the smooth ride that sand affords. Watching as the daredevils climbed the sand mountain was quite an experience. We will be asking others to join us soon. Enjoy the pictures and know that we feel blessed to have a great family be such wonderful friends.

Brian's Wedding

This is the lovely dress my sister and I wore to Brian's wedding. They are gorgeous and I added a small touch to the picture so that it looks aged (it looks a bit out of focus, but cooler this way). As for Brian's wedding the bride was radiant as ever, and Brian seemed to have a humble appearance. At the Provo Temple while inbetween taking pictures we were introduced to relatives and friends of the bride, and to this day I couldn't account for their names or how they're related. There were so many step cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings it was so hard to keep track of who's who. After all the pictures needed for the relatives, we all went to the Skyroom on BYU's campus, and waited for the bride and groom to appear so we could eat lunch. In the mean time we broke all havock and got all the family riled up wondering why in the world anyone would invite these teenagers to this special event. JUST KIDDING! We were good, and stayed in a corner and talked most of the time to ourselves and a few relatives who crept their way up to meet us. Apparantly Brian had told them lots about us, and we knew absolutely nothing about them. Don't you just love it when that happens! Well as dumb as I felt I was even more dumb founded after our luncheon when Lisa's family (the bride) had a few speakers all praising and adoring my father as the man I wish he was in my life and perhaps he's striving for( but I'm gonna need a bit more proof to agree to those comments), but it just didn't match. All my siblings and I could think was, "He better not mess this one up..." Well, that's all folks! Je t'aime!

We Have A Mission Call!

Curtis received his letter from the First Presidency on Oct. 10th. He called me at work that day and asked if I would gather the family in the area to be at the house at 6:30 for the opening of the LETTER! The night before, he had said that he would wait until Thursday to read it. By noon on Wednesday, that plan changed.

Friends and family began arriving and my heart started jumping. We were all feeling his excitement. Curt received a call from his Uncle Eldon saying that he had just heard the invite and was on his way. So we waited a little bit more. Then after everyone had arrived, Curtis stood up and walked to the front of the room, thanked everyone for coming and smiled as the company cheered, "Read IT, Read IT".

Curtis answered, "We need to say a prayer first. I'll give it." Then, he began to read and quickly got choked up. Words cannot express how wonderful it is to read a letter fro the prophet sent directly to tell you what you are going to be doing the next two years of your life! Chicago, IL North - Spanish speaking. He was thrilled. HE had wanted to learn Spanish and that wish came true. Jay was the first to jump up and give him a hug. I snapped pictures then hugged him as well.

After the commotion died down and friends began to leave, he walked over to Candace, who was patiently waiting in the back of the crowd watching with a big smile on her face, and excitedly picked her off the ground in a big bear hug and said, "Come here!" She tried to say congratulations but the tears fell too quickly. What a tender moment.

Another Halloween party at the Short's has come and gone. We had a really good time. Pie and homemade ice cream, spooky dead body parts, twister and bingo. We just wanted to let you all know how glad we are that you keep coming, even with the cramped quarters and noise! If ou want any copies of these pictures, just click on the slide show and it will take you to our web album where you can download them. Happy Halloween!