I've already mentioned that I celebrated Michele's birthday with her last week, but because I like her so much and she's so cute, especially here in front of the fabulous pastries at La Madeleine, that's one thing I've been up lately instead of blogging, partying with my sweet friend.
One day, I took a tour of Carol's new house, she's a former mission companion who lives here in Austin. Her new house has some very non-traditional features in it, such as a high school sized gymnasium, an elevator, about three kitchens, a movie theater with reclining leather seats, a massive chandelier, pictured here, and a Sistine Chapel style of painting on the entryway ceiling, and hand-made mosaic in the master bath, to name a few.
Click on the photo if you'd like to get a closer look. It's huge and took a long while for the tour, and I was practically out of breath by the end. I would love to watch a football game in her home theater. They hosted a zone conference activity for the LDS missionaries at their house not too long ago.
Speaking of zone conferences, our ward was assigned to feed the missionaries for a zone conference lunch a couple weeks ago and I was in charge of it. There were about 75 of them, including the mission president and his wife, Chuck Cutler, a former BYU football star. His wife and he were just the cutest couple and they loved the food, and she asked me to email the recipe for the pie to her. We served the Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Pie recipe that I discovered on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens magazine last month, and a hearty beef stew, and Buttery Parmesan Rolls. It went really well and we fed them fast. At the end of the event, they sang a cute little thank you song to us, so here's a picture of them as they are singing.
Here's a shot of our tree this year. I finally got it finished last night and it's too tall to get the full view of to show the details, but here's a glimpse of my tree. I love getting the ornaments out.
One other thing that I'm excited about is that I was just called to be the 1st counselor in the stake Relief Society presidency, with Lorraine D. as the new president. Her husband was the stake president for more than nine years until last month. I'm looking forward to that, and feel a bit overwhelmed that I am not quite ready for the job, but I'll keep preparing myself every day to serve in this new job. Sorry I haven't been updating my blog very much. Another distraction has been Facebook. I like the blog so much better, but Facebook has it's advantages. Happy December, everyone!
We LOVE our new pool! There are a couple of problems that need to be fixed, so we're crossing our fingers that they get it done right, and soon, considering we have given them the final check for the balance of the pool, and we don't have any leverage. Three of the waterfalls work. This is the main one and I like the natural look. Below, here's the deep end waterfall, and it's flows nicely. The water sheer like this one, that flows into the shallow beach area, is the fall that is not working. It's frustrating, but hopefully they'll fix it soon. The fountain in the spa is blocked too. Here's the small rock waterfall, which works just great. It took about 18 hours to fill the pool and we practically watched it gallon by gallon. I stayed up all night long, making sure it didn't overflow. We swim in it every day. Last night we went on a midnight swim and it was beautiful. The water temperature is perfect. I'm extremely thankful that we have our new...
Comments
Love ya! :)
I love your tree, my favorite decorations are the snow white words sayings like Joy. Not only is your tree decorated, but there are presents under it too, you have been hard at work. I am a wrapping paper kind of person and I really think that December 25 one is cute. Thanks for showing some of your holiday decor. I just love it.
BTW, the tree looks fabulous!
Your tree is so pretty.
If we don't cross paths before, Merry Christmas!
I asked my mom to make that same pie recipe for Thanksgiving - it looked so good on that BH&G cover. Delicious!