Happy Birthday to Kristen

Kristen is 33 years old today. boy it seems like yesterday when I was being woke up from general anaesthetic saying "it's a girl" . And what a beautiful delightful girl she has been.
My pregnancy with Kristen started out a bit rough, when I was just 4 months pregnant I learned that I had placenta previa, which met for the remainder of my Pregnancy I would be in bed! For a person as active as me that was NO fun, especially because I had a 2 year old and a 3 1/2 year old. Life was challenging but you learn a lot of lessons I guess. But how blessed I was that I was able to safely deliver her and all was well. ( well I guess not all was well, I was in the hospital for 9 days because of all my bleeding! ) but we arrived safely home and she was a perfect angel. Literally she sleep her first 3 weeks of life, just long enough to get me back to normal to deal with three busy little girls.
Kristen has always been such a blessing in our family. Little Joy and Melissa loved her from the very beginning. Kristen was a bit shy and quiet, and very sensitive little thing.
From the beginning she had red hair , or I guess I should say "orange" hair, we didn't want her to feel different from the other girls but just extra special. I think she enjoyed the attention she got from everyone admiring her beautiful hair.
Kristen has been our peace maker in the family, always trying to help her siblings. We all love her so much. She is so fun to be with. She is a hard worker, and I know people feel comfortable around her.
She is a wonderful mom, loves her kids dearly, and is trying to raise her family living the teachings of the Gospel. Her children are all such sweet kids doing well in all that they are doing.
She married a sweet man who loves his family.
We love you so much Kristen, you have added so much to my life and I'm grateful for your birth and your life. Happy Birthday!
mom

Things to Look forward to

I just read the fun things that Taryn is looking forward to and I thought to myself I can do that too!
First of all it's nice to have a bit of cooler weather, I thought summer was going to last forever!

1. Getting my hair styled again by Candice
2.Getting our turn over with in cleaning the church building!
3. Going to State Farms's Christmas party at the Mission Inn , so beautiful
4. Getting my decorations all up and finished
5. Eating Christmas goodies.. yum
6. Having family and friends together
7. Finding out what Taryn and Ryan are having
8. More grandchildren
9. Seeing Trenton and Brooklyn again, they live way to far away!
10. Going to the podiatrist and getting my feet to stop hurting!

not very exciting list, but good things to look foward too!

Our Early Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. Since Melissa and family and Candice and Troy were in town we thought we'd take advantage of this special time and do our turkey day. We had a wonderful time. We always enjoy Todd and Kristen's home. At the end we had a contest of arm wrestling, and the little girls dancing for us, and the boys doing a rap dance and song. Such talent in the Bill Mccook family!

by the way, the fires have been so bad and we are so sad for all the families it has affected. Some of our stake members have been evacuated but don't know of any homes burned.

We sure missed Carolee ,Jeff, Brooklyn and Trenton, but we know they will be with us again.

Go Dr. Jeff!

Carolee will have to post about her snow laments

Hope you enjoy these pictures!

I've been tagged

Hmmmm, I've been tagged, this is probably an attempt to get me to write something. Being much older I don't seem to have so much to say as all of you young girlies, but I'll try.

Favorite shows.
1. Sell this house
2. Discovery
3. Travel shows
4. Food shows
5. Old movie channels
6. The Office
7. Earl
8.Antiques Roadshows

What I did yesterday
1. Went to the gym
2. Went to Albertsons
3. Went to the bank
4. Did Laundry
5. Worked on the computer
6. Finished my Christmas cards ( I know that is sickening!)
7. Took a nap ( ahhh the pleasures of not having children anymore)
8. Make pumpkin bread

What I look forward to
1. This weekend with my kids coming over
2. Thanksgiving dinner at Kristen's house
3. Watching Kristen's boys play sports
4. Learning how to use my solar oven and trying it out
5. Learning how to use a pressure canner and do my own chicken chunks! ( now that's exciting!)
6. Getting all of the toys for the toy drive out of my garage!
7. Going to Arizona and Pa again to see grandchildren and girls
8. Getting my hair cut and colored by Candice

My favorite restaurant
actually, I don't go out to eat that often
but these are good ones
1. Chili's
2. Tony's Mexican food
3. Cheesecake factory
4. A Good steak house place
5. BJ's
6. Pei Wei
7. Panera Bread
8.Mimi's

Tagged

anyone who would like to do this


By the way aren't we all so annoyed with the "tolerance" of the Prop 8 people... it's down right scary!
Aren't we so annoyed with the direction are country is headed?
Be prepared is the motto here!

Is it Over Yet?

Well, I'm feeling much relieved at the updates so far on PROP 8, but we still need to be patient until the final official word comes. This has been a really emotional time for so many of us Californians, we have all worked so hard , but the results are looking so great.

by the way, I'm so sad my candidate McCain did not win, I really fear for the next four years, but I will try and stay positive. The one thing I can say is that I believe it is good that we can elect someone who is multi racial to the presidency of the US, but just too bad that everything he believes in I don't! Who wants higher taxes! who needs more l iberal attitudes. So SCARY !

But so glad we can start focusing on other things besides the elections! Now on to Thanksgiving, family, friends.

Erie, and Gettsyburg Pennslvania and the Biehns

Well, I'm finally getting around downloading our recent trip to PA.

let me tell you we almost didn't make it! We were supposed to leave our house for Ontario airport at 4:15 am in the morning ( awful time!) so Bill set the alarm for us to get up at 3:45 am to have time to dress, gather our stuff and be on our way. Problem was B ILL set it for PM and not AM..by a mere coinsidence Bill work up at 4:14 am.. he yelled the alarm didn't go off. We both flew out of bed, yes, I wish we would have had it on tape, it was crazy!, he didn't shave, I didn't wear makeup and in 7 minutes were out the door. What a way to start the day.

But we arrived in PA and so excited to be there,

here are some pictures,

The next day we all drove to Gettsyburg, it's beautiful and really I think a sacred spot,

the Railroad station is where Lincoln arrived to give his talk. By the way, he was not the main speaker, another man spoke for two hours, and then Lincoln spoke for 3 minutes, but it was so important. I hadn't realized that the reason for him coming was to dedicate the area as a national cemetery for the Union and Confederate soldiers. The battle had been fought in July and it was now November, and had recently cleaned up the area and buried the many thousands of soldiers.

WE also went to the small town of where Flight 93 crashed, that was really wonderful to, We felt a good spirit there and honor the brave people who were on that flight.

I wish I could figure out how to put pictures in the right order, but oh well, at least I got some of them up.

We just had such a great time being with Jeff and Carolee and kids. The kids were so happy to see us . I'm so impressed with the great friends Jeff and Carolee have made. I know after four years it will probably be sad for them to leave Erie.

We look forward to going again.

I'm in PA

Dad and I are having so much fun in PA.. we are really enjoying the "crisp" cool air, and being with Carolee, Jeff and kids.
we miss them so much, Trenton and Brooklyn are so sweet. we went to Gettsyburg and the site of flight 93, when I get home I'll post pictures, but both places were wonderful.

we'll be sad to say goodbye.