Sister Smith in Texas

Brianna sent us some pictures recently. These pictures were before the cold and snow came.



Brianna is loving her mission and is having great success.
She has been on her mission 5 months already!

Here she is with her companion Sis. Wallwork in front of the Lubbock Temple.

I love this picture in the field of Sunflowers!

She told me when she saw the field she knew that she had to take a picture for me.
We have family pictures in the Blue Bonnets. Sadly I didn't get one of the whole family in the cornfields in Nebraska.
I have one of Mick and I. I do have a picture of the kids that I photo shopped into a cornfield. So it works!
My family knows I like some of these crazy pictures so they put up with me!

Brianna has said that at times she feels that she is in Africa.
She has learned Swahili and loves the people she is working with.

We have a private blog for Brianna. If you are interested in viewing the blog or sending her a letter please email me at ctr4ever81@gmail.com

Decorations and Football

We went to Mom and Dad Smith's house Friday night and stayed until Saturday morning. We helped them set up their tree and little village of houses, shops, and churches. It was fun helping them get ready for the Christmas Holidays.

This nativity set was in Mom's childhood home.
She figured it was at least 70 years old.

We got home in time for Mick to go and sell at the BYU Football game. It was a great game and BYU won. Go Cougars! Mick was happy and sales were good. He said "Happy fans are buying fans".

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. We are so thankful for our many bounteous blessing. We feel richly blessed with family, friends, Mick's job and most of all the gospel in our lives.

Turkey Bowl and Black Friday Shopping

Picture proof that Mick really did play in the Turkey Bowl.
(Thanks to Jennifer's friend)

Every Thanksgiving Mick plays in the annual Turkey Bowl.
This year was no exception. Jared and Mick went to a park close by and played with about 10 other guys. They had a great time, won and came home with no injuries! A successful Turkey Bowl.

We don't have a picture to prove that we got up early for shopping Friday but we were there. We left Jennifer's house about 4:30 a.m and arrived at Walmart about 4:45 a.m. We located some items we wanted and stood around the black plastic covered pallets. At 5:00 a.m. the pallets were uncovered and we grabbed for our goods. After getting a few other great deals we left and went to Target. Kaylie wanted to buy a camera but we didn't know if we would be to late. We hurried back to the camera bar and asked a clerk. Yes, he had the camera, he had just found 2 more. After a few other great deals and a long wait to pay...almost 45 minutes, we went home. We were home by 8:30 a.m. We are not hard core black Friday shoppers but we had fun and felt that we had a small victory that day!

Thanksgiving In Idaho

We spent a few days in Idaho with Jennifer and Jared and the girls. This was the first time in 8 years that we had celebrated Thanksgiving with Jennifer. The weather was great and we really enjoyed being with all of them. The food was all so good and we ate way to much.

The girls liked their candy filled cornucopias probably more than anything else!

Rachel liked the cheese ball and crackers and Madeline was excited to try some pumpkin and blueberry pie. Grandpa told the girls the traditional family story about the turkey with the terrible temper.

Amaya was happy to be held by anyone. Carly and Aliza showing off their fancy glasses. We made our apple turkeys with marshmallows. The girls had fun doing this but liked eating the marshmallows the most. Grandpa and Jared enjoyed a few football games. Go Huskers!!

Idaho Temples

We stopped to take pictures of the Twin Falls Temple
on our way to Jennifer and Jared's house.
It is a beautiful temple.


Twin Falls Idaho Temple

We went to the Boise Temple with Jared and Jennifer on Wednesday. It was so nice to be in the temple with them. We did some family names and that made it extra special. We had a great lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant. It was really good. We were thankful to Carly and Kaylie for watching the girls so we could spend this time with Jennifer and Jared.

Boise Idaho Temple

The Boise Temple is the same design as the Dallas and Chicago Temples. We had been to each of those many times so the temple layout was familiar to us.

Guys and Dolls

Kaylie was in her school play in November.



She was a missionary in Guys and Dolls.
She had a couple of speaking lines and spoke them perfectly.
She was fun to watch and you
could tell that she was having a great time on stage.

Halloween Happenings

The family stopped by for a little Halloween fun. Cameron and Jackson sang the Spiderman song and spread their webs. Morgan had fun handing out treats and Hallie just wanted to eat them! Carly, with bumble bee Carson, came home for the weekend and had fun seeing her nieces and nephews in costume. Cameron and Rachelle brought up the pumpkin they had carved. Notice the 'N' ears for Nebraska? Kaylie had a few friends over and watched some old scary movies. Wait until Dark, and Watcher in the Woods. They all screamed when Mick scared them at the most intense parts of the movies. We talked to Jennifer and Jared and girls on Skipe. We were able to see the girls in their cute costumes.




Last week for Family Home Evening one of Mick's student's invited us to her family's Halloween Party. It was a walk through a "Haunted Lane" This family has been doing this for the past 8 years. We parked in a field close to their house. We than walked down a lane that had a grave yard, various monsters walking around, a horse drawn hearse from around 1860 time period and a 1924 hand carved Hearse. The main theme of the haunted lane was funeral home and graveyard. They also had an antique organ and little train village. They also had an antique carousel ride with 1941 Chrysler peddle cars. This had little monsters riding in it. It is hard to really describe all that we saw. The desire for this family is to create an old fashion Halloween feeling. We really felt that and enjoyed our 30 minute walk around the property. They told us that they had given out 800 invitations. Mick's student had only invited 2 teachers. We felt very lucky to have been invited. It was a lot of fun. One of the monsters did a good job making Kaylie Scream!