November 17th I'm thankful for sleep.

November 18th I'm thankful for words. I love to read.

November 19th I'm thankful for electricity. Thomas Edison is the man for inventing the light bulb!

November 20th I'm thankful for my Abi cat.

November 21st I'm thankful for Krystal. She is one of my best friends and we always have fun together. We have so many of the same interests and opinions. I'm glad that she is always there for me and eager to help out whenever she can. I also love her testimony and how excited she is about the gospel.

November 22nd I'm thankful for hospitals and emergency rooms. It's so comforting to know that help is not far away in the event of an emergency.

Turkey Bowl

Today was our 3rd Annual Turkey Bowl. I was cheerleading from the sidelines (and by that I mean I was reading a book). The game was going well, Krystal even made a touchdown. But then she came off the field because she broke her finger! She was trying to play it off like it was no big deal, but then it started to get swollen. Bishop Hadley thought maybe it was just dislocated, but Krystal tried pulling it back in place and it didn't work so we decided to go to the emergency room. Luckily, there is a Kaiser in Manteca so Krystal, Adam and I headed there for help.

The kickoff. On the right is the ball and on the left is Jeff Harvey's shoe! The shoe flew off when he kicked the ball and went almost as far.

Eric is grossed out and kind of scared of Krystal's finger condition.

You can't tell from this picture but her ring finger is really swollen and starting to turn purple.

In the waiting room. Adam and I watched Legally Blonde while
Krystal was being treated.

Krystal's X-Ray. Again, hard to tell, but the little bone on the end of her finger is perpendicular. Krystal will have to have surgery to get the bone back in place and fix the tendon that is attached.

Leaving the Emergency Room. So glad Krystal will survive.

8 Things

8 Shows I Like to Watch

The Office

Project Runway

Amazing Race

Rachel Zoe Project

Big Bang Theory

Friends

Lost
So You Think You Can Dance

8 Favorite Restaurants

Gerard's Deli

Olive Garden

Texas Roadhouse

Thai Ruby

Togo's

TGI Friday's
Marie Callender's
Los Comadres Taqueria

8 Things That Happened Yesterday
Slept in all morning to recover from midnight Twilight
Worked
Shopped at Richard's
Paid $1.85 for gas!
Shopped with Mom (Michael's, Costco, Walmart, Staples)
Ate a Polish at Costco
Bought the Twilight soundtrack
Watched Darjeeling Limited

8 Things to Look Forward To

Disneyland for Thanksgiving
Europe next April
Moving to Portland next May
Ashley and Todd's new baby
Christmas
Donald coming home from Iraq
Not So Silent Night Concert (The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, and more)
Wicked coming to San Francisco

8 Things I Love About Fall

The scent in the air when I go outside at night
Curling up under the covers with my Abi cat
Stuffing
The harvest moon
Dressing up for Halloween
The colors
Turkey day
Hoodies

8 Things on My Wish List

More vacation time
A lovely holiday season for all my friends and family
A designer handbag
Prince Charming
Mashed potatoes
A trip to Prince Edward Island
Bears, Beets, Battlestar Gallactica
Reggie forgetting how to bark (We're dog sitting and Reggie barks incessantly every time he sees a cat. We have two cats.)

Cute but yappie

8 People I Tag

The Magnificent 7 + 1

Mashed Potatoes and other Delightful Things

November 13th I am thankful for Ashley:

1. For being my little sister and one of my very best friends. Of course we didn't always get along perfectly, but I seriously loved growing up with a sister so close in age.

2. For her love and selflessness. She is always thinking of others and what she can do to make them happier. She is an amazing example to me for this and so many other things.

3. For being one of the only people that I can talk to about anything.

Mason took this picture. Pretty cute, even though it's in our hecka cool retro pink bathroom.

November 14th I'm thankful for my brothers-in-law Todd and Dan for being such hard workers and supporting their families. Thanks for taking good care of my sisters and nephews.

November 15th I am thankful for laughter. One of the things that has been making me laugh recently is the CBS sitcom Big Bang Theory. The premise sounds kind of lame, so I'm not going to explain it, just check out the show and see for yourself. Sheldon is

HIL-LARIOUS.

Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper

November 16th I'm thankful for mashed potatoes. Potatoes are seriously so amazing. Just think of all the things you can do with them. Remember in Forrest Gump when Bubba went on for days listing all the ways shrimp can be prepared? Well that's how I feel about potatoes, but mashed potatoes are probably my favorite.

To make up for forgetting our parents' anniversary, Jenn and I made them a special Sunday dinner. Special because we rarely cook and because we had it Jenn's house so there would be absolutely no clean up for the parents. Yay! Oh, and because we had real mashed potatoes. You know, the kind that take forever because you have to peel them and boil them and mash them. There is just no substitute.

Isaac helped serve dessert. Cookies and vanilla mashed potatoes.

Hurray for mashed potatoes!

Happy 31st Anniversary Mom and Dad

Today my parents have been married for 31 years. What an accomplishment.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.

This is one of favorite pictures of my dad. I took it with my phone.

November 11th I'm thankful for Dad:
1. For starting our family right by marrying my mom in the temple.
2. For having such an incredibly amazing knowledge of the gospel.
3. For being a good listener (when he's not watching TV) and giving good advice.

Donald loves to eat at Panda Express because he doesn't have to wait for his food to be served. Impatient.

November 12th I'm thankful for Donald:
1. For letting me beat him at Golden Eye all those times. Even though it made me mad because I knew he was being easy on me.
2. For his great sense of humor. We can always find something to laugh about together.
3. For sticking it out in the Army even though I'm pretty sure it's not what he expected it to be. I'm proud of him for doing his job and doing it well.

Family

November 8th I'm grateful for sunsets. I wish I had a picture of the sunset I saw on Saturday. It was cloudy and a bit rainy during the day, but the rain cleared the air and the clouds broke up in the late afternoon. As the sun set behind the clouds it was throwing gold and silver rays up into the blue sky. Just heavenly.

November 9th For this Family Tag from Jenn I am listing 3 reasons I'm thankful for each member of my family. Since Jenn tagged me I'll start with her and do one person each day until I'm done.
I'm thankful for Jenn:
1.Because she's my big sister and she taught me all kinds of important things when we were growing up. I was lucky to learn a lot of lessons from her that she had to learn the hard way.
2. Because she loves the Savior and has a great testimony that she is willing to share.
3. Because she's a good hostess and always makes me feel welcome in her home.

November 10th I'm thankful for Mom:
1. Because she brought me up in the gospel.
2. Because she tells me she loves me ALL THE TIME.
3. Because she puts up with me even though I'm always such a brat to her.

Just Golden

November 6th I'm grateful for the Temple. Last night was my ward's temple night and it was so nice to be there with my ward family. When I'm inside the Temple I feel like I'm wrapped in a cocoon of peace and tranquility. All the junk that is going outside just can't touch me. Yay for the Oakland Temple!

November 7th I'm grateful for Kelsey. Tonight she invited me, Krystal and Julia over for dinner. She cooked us delicious lettuce wraps for dinner, then her amazingly scrumptious ginger cookies for dessert and if that wasn't enough, she finished it off with air popped popcorn with real butter. She totally spoils me all the time. I love my Kelsaba.

Color

November 5th I'm grateful for colors. On my way home from work today I was noticing how amazing nature's color palette is. Not only do the colors in nature not clash, they complement each other. I was even enjoying the variety of browns in the dried grasses and weeds that cover the hills around Tracy. Just another amazing and obvious evidence of our Heavenly Father's love.

Thanksgiving

I'm totally plagiarizing Ashley's idea to write something I'm thankful for every day this month. Yay for Thanksgiving and yay for giving thanks. When I'm looking for things to be grateful for I'm so much happier because I'm not wasting time complaining.

November 1st I'm thankful for all the ways the internet allows me to keep in touch with friends and family. Facebook, myspace, blogging, email...although they can be very time-absorbing, they are also a great way to stay involved in the lives of people I love who are far away. Or even those I see more often, I get a different perspective on the way they see the world.

November 2nd I'm thankful for my reliable little car. We've been together 5 years and counting. We've seen some sights out there on the road and we're still going strong.

November 3rd I'm thankful for soup. Since the weather has cooled down a bit, I've been eating bucketloads of soup. Mmm, I need to ask my mom to make some of her famous clam chowder.

November 4th It's almost the 4th and I know what I'm going to be thankful for tomorrow. I'm thankful to be a citizen of these United States. I'm so blessed to live in a country where people with all different lifestyles, values, and beliefs are able to make their voices heard. Of course, I wish more people would see things the way I do, but I know that the founders of our country had the right idea when they established this democratic republic. I hope people will educate themselves on the issues and make informed decisions as they vote in this historic election.

Picture Tag

Awkward Karina. We stopped at Ranch that raises Buffalo right outside Zion National Park in Utah. It was the first time I ever saw a buffalo in real life. Karina and I went to Zion National Park for a weekend camping trip. It was quite an adventure.

Now here's what you do:
Go into your pictures and open the 4th folder
Post the 4th picture in your folder

I tag Krystal, Kat, and Jamie