White dresser

Ryan and I got an old, but great condition changing table, from his sister awhile ago. So, no we don't have any needs for it super soon (no, I'm not pregnant), but it's been on my list FOREVER to paint for some future little SuperBaby O'Berry. This weekend, it finally got done. Doesn't it look AWESOME? I wish I had a before picture.
Oh, and PS, we finally have a new camera, no one called us with our old one and all our Cruise the Fourth pictures... oh well :( BOO HOO!

Fiona and Little Red Riding Hood

Sadee decided to be Fiona for Halloween this year. I guess she debated between lots of princesses, but she LOVED being Fiona because she was the only Fiona. And she was NOT in a smiling mood during camera time apparently. Ava on the other hand, is the CUTEST little Red Riding hood I have seen. And she was in a smiling mood :)

Ryan and I also dressed up. Ryan went low key this year as a lumberjack and I decided 5 minutes before leaving for work basically that I wanted to dress up this year...so Ryan threw together a 5 minute "California Raisin" costume for me... which consisted of a black garbage sack and black tights with white tennis shoes. Apparently, no one got that I was a California raisin until I told them. I was "garbage", "someone waiting to get her hair done", etc. Mostly, I was a put-together-in-5-minutes- costume.

We did carve a lot of pumpkins, okay Ryan did, and we ran out of candy giving it to trick-or-treaters, so the holiday was a success!

New front door loveliness

We have a MUCH better new front door now, complete with window and a deadbolt. Since our other door was NOT so good, this is a wonderful excitement for us. I'll have Ryan tell the story of how we got it.

Ryan says, "Yeah, it took a lot of work. I had to go cut down the mightiest tree in all the forest (with a herring!) and fashion it using primitive tools to make it look just right. Than I went through the desert on a horse with no name and found the purest sand to melt into the beautiful glass for the window. I than traveled in my time machine back to the days of Middle Earth and traveled to the mines of Moria where I obtained some mithril which the dwarves helped me to fashion into the door handle. Than, to top it all off, Alisa’s dad and I had to install it. It was rough but nothing is too good for my Alisa."

I'm SO glad I have such a wonderful husband!

Call me Betty Crocker

So, last night was my first attempt at becoming Betty. We have two HUGE apple trees in our backyard, and the one apple tree we missed out on doing anything with because the apples got too old before we realized it. Our other tree, though we have given TONS away and eaten a lot, still had a PLETHORA (I mean, like at least hundreds) of YUMMY apples on it.

Needless to say, when I create my own world, there will be a way to preserve apples just to eat raw, like you do from the tree, but until then, I felt horrible letting all the apples go to waste. And these are DANG GOOD apples! Last week a dear friend (who had taken a plethora of apples from our tree and made lots of yummy things) offered to help me make homemade applesauce... HELLO! YES!

What I thought would be a simple project, which my friend did as well, turned out to be an almost 8 hour project, beginning at 6pm and ending with my dropping into bed at 145 am. But, (I wish I had a camera to take pictures of the whole process, but alas, still no new camera bought yet, this picture is one that I tried to find that looked closest to the applesauce I made), 15 quarts of applesauce later, and a tired body and eyes day after, I have become Betty Crocker.

By the way, the applesauce is chunky and tastes HEAVENLY! Plus, eight hours is a long time to play catch up with a dear friend. The only loss was a small stab wound in my left hand from peeling the apples. You would think we would have made a dent in it, but alas, no. We still have TONS! Apples, anyone?

Dear Colorado friends

Ryan and I last week took a trip to Denver, Colorado to visit some of his family. It was a great trip. One highlight for me was I got to have my old roommate and friend Kristalyn drive up and visit and bring her husband and little boy. We had such a great time visiting and it was just like old times, it brought back so many memories of living in The Colony at BYU (see above picture)... Kristalyn is such a dear friend, I'm SO glad we were able to get together on our short trip for a couple of hours! Man, seeing this picture of The Colony REALLY brings back some good memories.

Ava turns "two"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVA! Ava got to graduate to a "big girl" bed for her birthday. She is on the bottom bed of bunk beds, and my sister has said she gets up all night long to come in her mom and dads room to say "Hi, mom!" and then goes back to her bed. She loves her new freedom. She thinks she is all grown up and stuff, after all she is two now.
Last Friday, Ava turned two years old. Here are some cute pictures from her birthday party, that I was unable to go to sadly, but when I called and wished her a happy birthday she got on the phone to tell me "I two!". I sent her an Elmo shirt for her birthday since Elmo is her thing, not princesses like Sadee. Sadee had a little bit of a hard time not getting presents herself, so she helped Ava open them :)

Random thoughts

For those asking, no we still have no camera :( It is really quite tragic. And yes, we are going to probably have to buy another one, but we had some other bills come up this month, so not yet. Hopefully soon you will see more pictures. I wanted to post pictures of our perfect little orange pumpkins and WONDERFULLY crunchy red apples from our garden, but alas.

Here is one picture my sister sent me of Sadee and Ava doing yoga with her. It made me smile. Ava especially, since she wanted a "mat" like her mom, she had to do it on a towel. They only lasted 5 minutes doing it, but I thought they looked great!

And yesterday, I felt quite successful in the cooking department. For many, many moons my Grandma Tippets made THEE BEST string beanies from her garden. Seriously, I have never eaten any that even compare to hers. So, ever since she passed away, and I have had her pressure cooker, I have wanted to try and make them....but alas, I have never, until yesterday. Actually, yesterday was my first time. I had no real idea what I was doing, since it's been so long since she has made them, and she never had a recipe and she died before I was able to officially write down exactly what she did, so I had to improvise. And, though they took a bit longer than expected, and since we still haven't found our camera, I can't take pictures of them to show you, it MADE MY NIGHT! They tasted 95 percent like Grandma's beans...and I'd like to think my grandma was smiling down on me :)

Cruise lamentations

So, Ryan and I have returned from Cruise the Fourth last week. It was heavenly!! Why, do you ask, do I have lamentations then?

• First of all, we came back and our power was totally out in our bedroom and bathrooms upstairs, pretty much the rooms we use most. So, the breaker kept tripping and yeah, we still don't have power in those rooms, so now Ryan finangled all of the outlets and extension chords to use some lamps in our bedroom, but alas, bathroom, showering in the dark is interesting.

• Also, apparently a big windstorm came about while we were gone and several branches had fallen off the trees, and half our corn fell over in our garden. Sad.

• Finally, the biggest lamentation, is even though the cruise was HEAVENLY, we have managed to misplace our camera. I realized it in the middle of the night when we were finally lay down to go to sleep (at 130am) and I just felt sick. I immediately got up and called Thrifty thinking we had left it in the car rental we had, but they apparently only have voicemails for the lost and found department and it can take several days before they get back to you. So, now, instead of posting and reliving our cruise experiences, we have nothing... but memories. And I know there are a lot worse problems, in the world than my lamentations, but alas, it would have been nice to come home to a powered house, perfect yard, and pictures to share with everyone :)

Like auntie, like niece

I have to tell this story on the blog. So, my 4.5 year old niece Sadee I found out while I was gone on the cruise, fell and hit her head on a table and had her first "doctor visit". Of course, I had to call my sister to get the scoop. Alas, Kari was not allowed to tell the story, Sadee "had to tell me"...thus ensued the funniest explanation of what happened I have ever heard.

"Alisa, blood was GUSHING down my shirt and head."

"Sadee, what happened?"

"I cut my head and blood was gushing Alisa".

After a few more attempts to try and get the real story out of her, I got the story from my sister. Yes, she fell, hit her head on a table, had a hole in her head and my sister said "you should have seen the look when she saw the hole Alisa, not pain, more like wow, there is a hole in my head". So, they took her to the emergency room, where they now don't give shots, just numbing glue on the wound and sewed her up. The doctor thought she was a little spitfire because she told the doctor "to fix the hole in her head" and when he joked with her if she had apologized to the table, she told him, "I don't have to say sorry to a table Doctor!".

But, with her bandaid on, she thinks she is SO cool, and now she is telling EVERYONE her claim to fame, how she had blood gushing and got stitches and how her little sister Ava screamed harder than her when she saw the hole. And she thinks the "purple spot" on her head is just BEAUTIFUL Alisa.

Yeah, made me laugh so hard. Made me think back to when I was three, and chasing my dad around the fireplace, cracked my head open. I also got taken to the emergency room, where they had NO numbing medicine, and all I remember is being strapped to a blue table and screaming for life.... and I did NOT look like a pirate. I had a huge bandage in the middle of my forehead forever. If only I could have the "exotic" trip to the doctor that Sadee did :)