Apples, Apples and more Apples!

We had a fun fall weekend - with lots of Apples!!

Portland Nursery was holding it's annual Apple Tasting Festival. So between dance class and rehearsal for La Boutique (the holiday ballet) we grabbed Tessa and headed across town. It was a gorgeous, 65 degree, perfect, fall day. The tree colors are magnificant right now and the sun was shining. We had lots of fun taste testing dozens of different types of apples - who knew there were so many varieties. We also tasted fresh pressed apple cider, apple strudel with ice cream, apples with brie cheese and bread, and caramel apples! We each picked a couple of our favorite apples and bought some to bring home - I think there is an apple pie in our future. One of our favorites was Ambrosia. We concluded our fun fall day when dad treated us to dinner at Helvetia Tavern - out in the beautiful fall countryside! The fall decorations are all up at home too so it really feels like fall inside too.

Cali had a fun weekend - Friday night she and a group of friends went ice blocking. Never heard of ice blocking? Well - you purchase big blocks of ice from the grocery store, cover them with a towel (not your mother's good towels please!) and then sit on them and slide down a hill. (Caution: you will get dirty!) Cali is wondering why her back and legs are sore today!? Cali gave a great talk in Sacrament meeting today on missionary work. She thanked the Bishopric because she is turning 18 next month and this was only the 2nd talk she had given in Sacrament meeting - guess they need a better tracking system!

Our Stake is offering a 10 week Geneology series taught by this awesome teacher so my mom, a friend and I are taking it. This last week was all about the internet and what all is available. The teacher asked if anyone had a blog and I was the only one who raised their hand! Yeah! She recommends using a blog as a means to share geneology information with your family.

We all went to Young Women in Excellence on Wednesday- Cali was one of the speakers (two talks in one week for her) and she spoke on the importance of getting your Personal Progress done early. The parents spoke about the projects their daughters had done - Tessa's was participating in an intensive ballet course this summer (dancing 9 hours a day, 6 days a week) and Cali's was her Faceless Doll project for her Honor's Project. They had made posters to display what they had done. We were in charge of the green dessert - there was a dessert for each of the value colors - we did brownies with mint, green frosting. Easy! The Mia Maids were in charge of the evening and the theme was to "Garnish thy thoughts...." so we had a cooking theme and made each of the girls aprons with their name stamped on the front in the value colors. We had taken cute pictures of the girls wearing a tie dyed chef's hat (the value colors of course) and holding a rolling pin. We used those pictures to decorate the walls of the room.

Tonight after church we had 3 other families from the ward over for a birthday celebration for friend Marsha Jensen. I provided the main dish and side dish and everyone except the birthday girl brought something. Jeannena out did herself with 3 desserts and John made us some of his famous bread - it was baked in a huge flower pot! We all had PLENTY to eat and Jane brought two yummy appetizers and a "make your own" salad bar. We are thankful for such good friends. Good food and good friends - it doesn't get much better!

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Somethings Never Change - Somethings Do

Well - as you can see from these two photos - somethings never change! You may recognize one of the photos from when Logan was 18 months old and appeared in a Nike ad. The other photo is from this week's Church News and an article on Homecoming Spectacular at BYU. The Young Ambassadors performed in the show. Maybe someday Logan will learn to close his mouth when he has his picture taken!

Fortunately somethings do change -Cali played in the Powder Puff Football came this week! Never thought I'd be watching my daughter play football! The seniors played the juniors and the seniors won. They will play the seniors of Sunset - their rival high school.

Fortunately she cleans up pretty good and she looked beautiful for her date to Homecoming. It was a pretty crazy afternoon. The gal who usually does Cali's hair for dances wasn't available so Cali figured she could do it herself. Well it wasn't working out too well and Cali was panicking a little so I called our neighbor, and the YW President in our ward to see if she could come over and help. Tina tried her best but it just wasn't working so as Cali's date and his parents were pulling up in front of the house Cali was dunking her head into the tub to start over - we were just a little stressed. Jim kept everyone entertained downstairs while Cali pulled it together upstairs and got her hair done and makeup on in 15 minutes! We got pictures taken and got them out the door to dinner. While upstairs Tessa was having her own hair crisis!!

Let's just say it was a pretty stressful hour or so!! But both girls ended up looking beautiful and they had a great time. Tessa went with a group of her freshman girl friends. They had dinner at her friend Jenny's house and then went to the dance together.

Cali and her date had dinner at Nona Emila's - when they walked in there were our neighbors the Balzers and the Adams. Olivia had fun walking by the table and checking up on Cali and her date. They had a great time at the dance and then went over to someone's house afterwards to hang out.

Having TWO girls getting ready for Homecoming at the same time was a little more than I bargained for!!

It was a fun Homecoming week - Monday was "the Office" day so Cali wore one of Jim's ties to work with a white shirt. Both girls dressed in red and blue for spirit day. We all went to the Homecoming game Friday night. I supervised the Krispy Kreme sales. Westview ended up winning 32 -12 against Aloha.

I spent a lot of time this week getting my new blog up and running - if you haven't checked it out please do so - http://www.ahomebasedmom.com/.

We enjoyed the weekend and watching Conference. Grandma and Grandpa Best joined us on Sunday - we watched and ate - enjoying homemade cinnamon rolls, pot roast, tomato tart, corn on the cob, home made bread (If you like Macaroni Grill - this recipe is for the bread they serve at the restaurant) and yummy Snickers cookies .(these are SO good - I'll have to share the recipe!) While watching we were able to get all of Cali's faceless dolls stuffed and stitched up - all 50 of them. Now we just need to finish up their little hospital gowns. Now I just need to get her costume for the play done - it's due tomorrow and I just got it cut out!

Boy Update: Clark took a date to see Shayla's show this week- Thoroughly Modern Millie. Both boys went up to Salt Lake to the Priesthood session on Saturday night - had a little fender bender on the way home. Fortunately no one was hurt and it wasn't their car!