This is Landon as we got out of the truck and started walking toward the building before he gave his presentation. He looked very handsome and professional!!
This is Landon, enjoying the Red Lobster Endless Shrimp special after passing his case study. We really enjoyed that shrimp!
We had a fun day in Pocatello and bought the girls a variety pack of shower gel and bath poufs to share, so they could take part in the celebration. Lauren took a long, relaxing bath last night.
Lauren is on the left side, second row from the top in the first picture, the top in the second picture, and second from the top in the third picture (holding a blue paper with stars).
In that second picture, the kids are doing sign language to the Star-Spangled Banner. As LDS people, why do we feel the need to make kids sing in sign language during any program, church-related or not? Are there that many deaf people in the audience?
It snowed! Big time! Mainly on Monday, but there as been a little more snow each day this week. I don't know if I was quite ready for it, even though we expected snow by Halloween. It was so nice to have such a long, beautiful, warm fall. (Lauren is the kid in the blue-ish coat on her knees in the snow.)
Landon decided it was finally time to buy some new insoles for his shoes. His feet were sore at work, and I guess he figured out why and bought some good gel inserts. Maybe one day we'll be rich enough to buy new shoes when we need them!! (Says the girl wearing the same black church shoes from Payless since 1998!)
Landon is hell-bent on breeding his class gerbils. He picked up this male gerbil (buck? bull?) for free from the BYU-I bulletin board, complete with cage, ball, bedding, and food. He put the little guy in the cage with Marshmallow and Brownie, the girl gerbils (does? cows?) and they got into a fight. Marshmallow attacked the boy and drew blood. Brownie was fine with him, I guess. I have a theory that Marshmallow is a lesbian gerbil and was protecting her girlfriend. I call her "Butch" now. So inappropriate.
I bought a $40 futon on BYU-I bulletin board for Lauren's room. Whenever we have company, Emma gives up her bed and then has to sleep on the couch or on an airbed. It's kind of hard after a few days, because she really loves her space. Well, because we'll be having company for several weeks, we decided to try to fix the problem. Emma will get the twin bed and Lauren will get the futon while Grammy's here, and again later when Nana's here. Landon has some grand plans about building a lofted bed over the top of the futon so there is more space in Lauren's room, but I'm hoping the current situation will be sufficient and no lofting is needed. The futon is a piece of crap, but Landon is very handy and fixed it so it doesn't sag in the middle. Lauren tried it out last night and loved it.
Landon and I spent Saturday cooking! We had invited the Bates family over for homemade pizza on Sunday, so we did all the prep work Saturday. We wanted them to have a good experience, so we made Christina's BBQ chicken pizza that is in our 2nd family cookbook. We made the BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, chicken, and the pizza dough. Landon found a recipe for homemade mozzarella cheese, so we made that too! It turned out great! 
The recipe is basically a gallon of milk (we used 2%), a half tablet of Junket Rennet dessert tablets (found in the pudding section...the same company that makes Danish Dessert) and some citric acid (found in bulk in the health food section of our grocery store). The recipe is in the Junket tablet box, but also online and it's called American Mozzarella cheese. One gallon of milk made 3 1-cup balls of cheese. It melts and tastes just like normal cheese, in my opinion. It was a fun thing to try.
Saturday night we went to Dancing with The Stars, the Rexburg version. Emma's math teacher was one of the stars and he won! There were 6 "stars" and they were paired up with senior students of Emma's ballroom dance company, IBA. The event was a fundraiser for the new high school's grand piano and marquee that they're trying to buy. We drug Landon to it, but he actually really enjoyed himself. We were able to see several ballroom dance performances from the IBA as well as cheer on different community members as they competed as the "stars." It is so much fun to live in a community where we know so many people and where they have wholesome, fun, family recreation activities. It was a really positive experience for us.
Sunday we had the Bates family over for homemade pizza! The pizza was tasty, and Jenny brought over the best dessert! It was Apple/Cranberry pie. She got it from Family Fun magazine, so if you want to make it, look for it online. It was really yummy. The Bates have 3 kids and Emma and Lauren get along with all of them really well, so the kids played Judge Judy/detective/spies together upstairs, while the adults played a fun TV trivia game on DVD. It is so hard to find adults who know as much about TV as we do, and the Bates actually almost beat us! We pulled out the victory on the last question, otherwise we would have been toast.
Such a fun weekend!!!
We paid $20 to a friend just starting in the photography business to take some family pictures of us. We went out to the BYU-Idaho Henry's Fork property, where we like to roast hot dogs. We only ended up with one family picture that we kind of liked (above), and then some random pictures we also liked. For $20, we did OK, I guess. She told us she'd take us back out there and re-do our session if we didn't like what we got. We're thinking about it, just because our purpose was to get a family picture. We only got the one, and Emma isn't wearing her glasses! She looks cute without them, but that isn't what she really looks like at this point in her life. We know her as glasses-wearing Emma. I'd love some of your opinions!
