Happy Holidays!!!

The other day I was really industrious and I tackled my shelf in the closet. As I pulled things off the shelf, I started finding tons of push-pins. I remembered that Rhonda got a container of these one year for her birthday, and occasionally the container spilled (Rhonda's shelf is above mine). Therefore, over time, all of her pushpins ended up on my shelf. So as I was cleaning I put every single pushpin on the back of our door (our door is covered in cork-board. They sat there for a few days, then one night Rhonda was gone when I went to bed so I decided to write her a message:

 

In the morning I found this message in reply:

 It's a good thing we can still communicate with each other! When I talked to Rhonda about it she laughed and said that even in pushpin my handwriting is the same.

We had Thanksgiving this year! This was the first year that we didn't go to the Huber Thanksgiving. We had our own family Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice, we just relaxed and did things in our own time frame.

These are the people who came:

 

 The Guthries: Alan, Marie, Grace, Julie, and Kyle (It was Kyle's first Thanksgiving)

The Guthries: Erik, Stacy, Jack, and Lucy

 The Omerzas: James, Rachel, and Jill

The Guthries: Mom, Dad, Linda, Brad, Scott, Rhonda, Anna, and Marcie

We had a grand time. Jill was a good helper carrying in food. Luckily I got this picture right before a bee flew in front of her. I thought we were going to lose the veggie tray! She took off running!

We had our traditional rocket making and launching tradition (I fell asleep for round two so we didn't get any pictures of the other kids or the neighbor kids).

 My mom made a Turkey pinata. It was great fun. Jack helped make it the day before. He was so excited for it on Thanksgiving that he sat in the car for 45 minutes waiting to come to Grandma's.

 (don't worry I think Grace and Jill are telling secrets)

 Marie had a fun turkey craft with toilet paper tubes for everyone to do. Grace turned hers into a pinata, she's rather ingenious!

 Later in the evening our cousins came to visit with us since we didn't make it over there. We had round two of pie, talk about death!

 On Friday, as per tradition, Christmas was set up.

Sometimes I wonder if having Nativity's at the children's level is a good idea. We come up with too many stories for how they end up.

Here's the story for this one:

The wisemen are slightly confused as to where to go and what to do so Joseph is giving them guidance. Mary's decided to go take care of the animals while the men converse, and to find out where the donkey went. The donkey (that you can't see) wandered off because he has been kicked out of his stable, and that's not fair. Afterall, he was there first! Meanwhile, the baby is all by itself, and nobody's watching him.

Merry Christmas! I hope that you're celebrating the seasons with your favorite holiday traditions, and spending time with lots of family!!

To all our college friends, GOOD LUCK WITH FINALS!!!

New Favorite Picture!

As I said in my last post I'm busy scanning a million pictures (I actually just finished). While scanning today I found these pictures.

This is my Grandpa, Uncle Raymond, and some other guy I don't know.

 I absolutely love it. I saw a side of my Uncle Raymond through these pictures that I've never seen before, and I can't wait to get to meet that man someday.

But, my favorite picture of the day is this one:

I've never seen a picture of my grandpa at this age, and I love the personality in it.

Holy Moley!

Tell me please the significant difference between these two pictures:

                                                           

And this one:

 Nope, it's not that:

• I'm wearing contacts
• My hair is fixed
• or I have a slightly better smile

It's that my mole is gone!!

I was super brave and called the dermatologist and he did a thorough inspection of all my moles and decided that this one could come off. It was kinda weird and super fast! It's really odd to have someone put a needle in your neck to numb it, and then just yak away while they cut and burn your neck. I was shocked when he was finished that is was so quick!

I had two other doctors appointments that day (since I had to ask work off I was going to make the most of it!) I found out that I'm no longer anemic, HOORAY!!! So now I can take iron every 3 days instead of every day! It's just hard to keep track of the 3 days!

And just for Lisa Boatman 
Seven Random things about me (hopefully Rhonda does it later):

1. I absolutely hate milk! Yes, I'll put it on my cereal and drink it with brownies, but I will not willingly drink a glass of milk like some other people in my house.
2. I love umbrellas! I actually have an umbrella collection, and every time it rains I take a different one out so that they all have an equal opportunity to get rained on. My favorite one has a Scottie Dog as it's handle.
3. I sleep on top of my blanket every night, and when I get cold I pull the edges up around me to be warm instead of just getting under it.
4. I love family history, and I wish that there was temple work I could do for my family! Since there's not I'm doing family history for living relatives. I'm currently scanning all of my great aunt's pictures so that we (my mother and I) have pictures of my grandma growing up so that we can make a book about her. Then I think I want to make a book about my great aunt when we're done since she has no children to do it for her. It would be awesome!
5. I love my feet! I say my feet are the best feature I have. I love to paint my toenails, but not my fingernails. Touching other people's feet doesn't bother me either. I've painted my sisters toes many times, and even my sister-in-laws.
6. I dread every time my phone rings. I try to have my phone somewhere where I'm not so I can honestly say I didn't hear it and not feel guilty for not answering it.
7. I love, love, love Christmas! I listen to Christmas music almost year-round. Currently, "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas" is playing on my Pandora station. I told Rhonda that I'm so ready to go Christmas shopping. I wanted to go this week, but nobody would go with me, and I can't go shopping by myself!
8. I know this is over 7, but I'm reading the Bible, and it's hard, but it's something I want to accomplish. I'm also trying to convince two of my co-workers to read it, we'll see how that goes. I update them weekly on what I read, hopefully it will rub off.

I think it's time for an update

You know sometimes this thing can be rather frustrating! Anyway, it's time for a post, but we really don't have anything too exciting to post.

Don't I have cute nieces and nephews? We're super excited to have a new nephew at the beginning of next year!

Also, our little Marcie turned 12! She now goes to mutual, and can't go to bed at 8:00 on Wednesday.

She got a real live from scratch German Chocolate cake for her birthday. It only took us almost all day to make. It was really good though! She must be the 9th child to get such treatment!

Told you, not much happening here, not picture wise anyway. I got to speak at a baptism on Saturday. It's been really neat to work with the sisters in my ward to help Christina prepare for baptism. I got to give the talk on the Holy Ghost, and then give the welcome to Relief Society. I'm so excited for Christina as she continues to learn and grow in the church! I'm also sad because the sisters were transferred out of my ward, and now we have Elders. I don't know if I'll get to work with them like I did the sisters.

Okay guys, super exciting news! GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THIS WEEKEND!!!!!! I'm excited! I love conference. I love that I can have the whole weekend off of work and I can be with my family and listen to the leaders of the church! It's great.

One more thing, everyone should create their mormon.org profile! The publicity starts on Monday for it so get it done this weekend! That's your assignment from me! I just finished mine.

Okay that's it, told you nothing too exciting here.

Happy 100th Post!!!

Welcome to our 100th post!! I'm surprised we even got here!

I think Rhonda must be on a blogging sabbatical, but we'll cut her some slack because she started school and she is even sick today. I think she's too stressed!! 

Before school started she had a birthday though, and boy did she party. I think she had a party with someone almost every day the week of her birthday.

She got all Tangled up:

 and then, all straightened out. (We're very happy for plastic that goes into our mouths and helps with teeth grinding/clenching, and makes it so Rhonda can move her jaw! If she couldn't she wouldn't be able to talk to you and that would be tragic!)

 She even got 2 of her most favorite cakes, Pineapple Upside Down cake. One was to share with the family and the second one was just for her, all by herself (except for when she shared with us).

 This past week we had a blast with our "OSP" friends. Lisa was in town so we all went to lunch together. It was so much fun to be with friends, luckily I didn't have to work. Lisa also so happened to get engaged the night before. We are SO EXCITED for her!! Great times!!

I think that pretty much covers everything up to date. Except for that I went to the longest meeting of my life on Sunday night. It was all about the media campaign for the church, get ready to hear all about it in your wards. The church is launching Mormon.org commercials and billboards in Arizona in October. You should be hearing about mormon.org and creating a profile so that you too can help share what you believe with others all over the world! It will be exciting!

You should also know that I'm listening to Christmas music as I type because it is taking too long for Christmas to come around, but we're getting closer. General Conference is in ONE MONTH!!!! I'm excited!

Adventure is out there!!

Why did we all sit on a bus in the middle of the summer?

 And stand around the airport for 20 minutes?

 Because our Scottie Boy came home!!!

HOORAY!!!

A Long Way From Home!

Well, since Rhonda's not cooperating this won't be as exciting as it could be, but here's my take on our Family Vacation. This is Rhonda. Actually Linda dear, I contributed the title and a few additional things. Sheesh! But our dear readers, I do hope you enjoy this post from Linda. It's been a long time huh?

We went to Utah. It was great fun. One morning we went to buy some groceries and we found this in the parking lot:

We liked it a lot. There were no handicap parking spaces only "Expecting Mothers" and "Senior Citizens" and yes they were right by the door.

One day our cousins borrowed our car to move their sister who just got married. We went to see 17 Miracles and took their van. We had to take a picture of us with a small van.
Rhonda here. This was pretty funny because our cousins took a picture with our van too. We must all have a sense of Huber. Te he!

We got to light fireworks because it was Pioneer day. It was great fun!

And, we hope the ozone layer is okay after all of our fires!

On Monday morning we went on this hike. I HATE hiking!!! I always have, and I always will. I was a sport and went anyway. I ended up hiking all by myself. If I couldn't see my parents down the way I would stop until they came into view and then I'd keep going.

I made it to the "creek" which looked like a river to us Arizonans who never see water (although we learned that Utah is the second driest state and Arizona is the third. I don't believe it!).

Rhonda, the avid hiker, made it to "THE BIG ROCK"! I made it to a big rock too, but not this one!
Here's Rhonda again. This hike was SO MUCH FUN!!! I've never been on a hike with actual trees surrounding me before. It was amazing!

Monday night Rhonda and Kara had the semiannual arm wrestling tournament. They are equally strong. Maybe someone will work on their arm muscles before the Christmas tournament comes.
For the record, Kara almost beat me at the left hand. I was definitely surprised!

Party in the Kitchen!
Ha! We're funny.

On Wednesday we took a quick trip to temple square. Nothing too big or major.

Marcie and Anna were exhausted afterward and fell asleep in the car.

Comfortable...yes?

All of my sisters have this thing with socks. I really don't, I used to, but I found out cool socks make your feet stink. Well, I found some really cool socks that are also wicking socks so my feet won't stink. Rhonda's slightly jealous. She says my socks are the coolest. Can you guess which ones they are? Hint: they have 2 dots on each toe. Amendment by Rhonda. I am actually VERY jealous of Linda's new socks. Too cool for school!

On our way home we stopped at Cove Fort. I was a grumpster and really didn't want to go. When I'm coming home I want to come home! Well, I was out voted and we all got to go anyway. My father's argument was that it'd only be an hour and then we'd miss rush hour in Phoenix. Well, we took a rather lengthy tour, what I refer to as "the three hour tour" (it was only 1 1/2 hours) it was longer than anyone else visiting, but we've all had our fill, and everyone in my family has now been there, EVEN MARCIE!!!!

After Cove Fort Rhonda and I played a killer game of "Trabble Scrabble". Hey guys, Trabble Scrabble is the bomb. I absolutely LOVE it and it's name! You should say it out loud. Just for fun. Go ahead...try it. You'll love the way it feels in your mouth. This is one of the best purchases I've ever made. We succeeded for the first time ever in my experience to use every single letter available, and we only kinda cheated a couple times. It took us one and a half hours, and we didn't even think once about going to the bathroom. We were even in such a good mood we told our father he could skip the bathroom break in Kanab (This is a big deal! The Kanab rest stop is our favorite stop, and we didn't stop there going up or coming back. It was rather tragic)! P.S. Look how tired we look. Ughh...it was a looooong drive. And guess who was in charge of keeping dad awake the WHOLE DRIVE HOME. Yup...yours truly.

On the reservation we got to wait for construction. It was great fun, we love sitting in the car and not moving (I believe we were also listening to conference talks at this point in time)! This girl in yellow kept us entertained twirling her orange flag, and hiding her phone so we couldn't see her texting.When it was our turn to go we started going and then all of these cars started coming at us! There was definitely a lack of communication going on somewhere!

Well, we made it home safely, even though our battery light came on sometime after we left Flagstaff, so we had to turn off our music, and the air, and the lights, and the windshield wipers. We drove into town, for the second vacation in a row, in a very hot car, BUT WE GOT HOME!!!! Hallelujah!

We had lots of fun, and it was great to get to be with our cousins and get to know our new cousin-in-laws. We can't wait to see them at Christmas!!!

There are two reasons why I'm glad I don't live in Utah though:

1: Daylight Savings Time-Not a fan, don't like it!

2: It's cool enough that you don't realize you should drink water and then you get dehydrated. Maybe I just forget to drink water sometimes though.
 3: Arizona skies are SO much more beautiful than Utah skies. Just sayin'. Our sunsets are absolutely brilliant and I missed them while I was away.

And this is for Nate. Nate is my aunt's sister (we would call her our Aunt-in-law or adopted aunt), and I love that we get to know my aunt's family and they're like our family. We had a party at her house on the last night we were there (and I didn't take any pictures darn it!) We were talking about books and I admitted that I have organized our bookshelves alphabetically by author's last name (I'm OCD! That's a definite yes.) She said she wanted to see it, so Nate here's one shelf! Sorry it's not better, and don't look too close because after I took the picture I realized that some books have not been put back in the right spot, apparently some of my siblings don't share my OCD tendencies. Ya...nope.

Thank you for joining us in this episode of "Linda versus Rhonda". Join us again next time on our next awesome adventure!  13 hours and 15 minutes....14...13...12...etc...