Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween from Cruella and Horace!

"I am not only here to be a representative of Jesus Christ, but also a representative of my family"

From My Boy's letter this week: "One of my favorite lessons this week was on Sunday with Marcos and his family. We had another one of those experiences where the Lord really helped us out. As you know, power goes on and off all the time here. We had been planning to watch Together Forever with Marco's family. We sang a hymn like we always do and as we were about to pray , the lights came on! We were able to watch the movie and talk about the importance of the family. Marcos does not want to get married but I could tell the movie hit him pretty hard and all the people that were there loved it. I began to explain the importance of the family. I asked them if they thought it was easy for me to be far away from my own family for so long and why they thought that such a thing is necessary. They were all like, "Yeah that's not right. Wow you should be with your family because family is important." That's when I told them that I am not only here to be a representative of Jesus Christ, but also a representative of my family and I want everyone to have the same blessings and joy that my family has. That's when I took out a photo (this photo on the post) of our family and showed it to them. I talked more about how the gospel blesses the family and the spirit was very strong. Five minutes after the lesson, as we were walking out the door, the power left for the rest of the day."

Time for the World Series? Better put your Chili on!

My grandmother had a fun tradition. She always made her first pot of chili during the World Series. I have continued her tradition through the years. I like my chili. In fact, I can't eat other people's or restaurants' chili. I got my recipe from my mother:

Brown 1 lb of ground beef with 1 whole onion. Add 2 28 oz cans of stewed tomatoes and a palm full of chili powder or however much you like. Simmer for 2 hours. Add 2 cans of kidney beans and simmer 1 more hour. And by the way, Go Phillies!

Fun Family Home Evening!

Last night for Family Home Evening, we went to the movie house. We saw The Secret Life of Bees. I saw it last Friday with my friends JF and SC. I had already read the book and the movie was the best adaptation from a book I have ever seen. I loved it so much that I wanted DTA to see it. I think he really liked it too. The funniest part of our experience tonight was this: today was the first really cold day in Chicago. We even had a little snow, which did not stick. In our particular theatre, they could not get the air conditioner to turn off. People had hats, coats and gloves on while they watched! Unfortunately, DTA and I just ran in with our sweatshirts and I wasn't even wearing socks! It was so cold. But I just imagined that I was in that hot South Carolina sun in the movie and I did all right! We were glad to get in our heated car. In spite of the cold we had a great time at the movie house!

This is a peach of a book!

I absolutely loved this book, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. Kage and fam gave it to me for my birthday. The heroine, Flora Poste, having been orphaned is looking for relatives with which to live. After rejecting a number of others, she chooses the Starkadders, relatives on her mother's side, who live in the isolated Cold Comfort Farm, near the fictional Sussex village of Howling. Greeting her as "Robert Poste's child", they take her in to repay some unexplained wrong done to her father.
Each of the extended family has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred or fear; and the farm is badly run, supposedly cursed, and presided over by the unseen presence of Aunt Ada Doom, who is said to be mad through having seen "something nasty in the woodshed".
Flora, a level-headed urban woman, applies modern common sense to their problems and helps them all adapt to the twentieth century. The characters in this book are fabulous! I highly recommend it.

Halloween Decor

Even though the nest is empty, I decided to continue my tradition of decorating for Halloween. I love Halloween decorations. I have a friend who decorates for Halloween like people decorate for Christmas. I was in her house this past week and it is unbelievable. On her dining room buffet, she has a complete Halloween town. The dining room table is set for spooks and covered in cobwebs. Her living room has a skeleton sitting in a chair and a book shelf complete with books on spells and brews. There are framed photos of scary looking people. She has mice running up her staircase. A pair of witch's boots and a broom rest by the front door. There are big, beautiful glass jars filled with candy corn and candy fingers. The family room and kitchen have Halloween decorations everywhere. There are heads in random places. Even the eyes on the children's class photos have been covered with crazy eyes. I wish you could see this house. Every where you look, you see Halloween. She has thought of every detail. It is spooktacular!

My Boy and some Elders in his mission.

One of my favorite parts of My Boy's letter this week was this: "As a district leader I do exchanges with the Elders in my district, to be an example, help out, and see how the work is going in their area. Some past leaders try and be "the man" on those exchanges and such exchanges could seem stressful because people feel like they are getting graded. Our exchange was the opposite of stressful. I am a stress free missionary. That is one of my goals. Stress just makes things messy. It was an awesome day and how did we end the night...yeah...by making some oreo milk shakes. Elder Anderson doesn't do stressful exchanges....he does uplifting ones."

Say Hello to Frankie!

This is Frankie. He has been sitting on our front porch in the month of October for 15 years! I just love him! Happy Halloween!

Poor eye sight...the "mature" girl's friend...

Two weeks ago I switched from tri-focals to contact lenses! I have one contact lens for seeing things up close and one contact lens for seeing things far away. It is amazing how it works! My doctor bumped up my prescription for each eye and I asked him if I needed to get my glasses changed. His response: "Lisa, you will never wear those glasses again". He may be right. I really do love these contact lenses. HOWEVER... I obviously never had my glasses on when I put on my make up. Now that I wear contact lenses, I have perfect vision when I put on my make up. I was frankly shocked at what I saw. I had no idea I had so many wrinkles. I did not know that the skin around my eye area was so crepe-ish. Yikes! I thought I was doing so much better! These lenses as well as a bumped up prescription reveal EVERYTHING! So although I think going without glasses is more youthful, I have been set back or maybe I should say set ahead a couple of years! Oh, blindness is bliss! (I also notice the bathroom sink is dirtier sooner!)

My Boy the Missionary

Here is My Boy with his new area behind him. From his letter this week he says, "This week was much more relaxing then the last, in spite of the fact that we continue working like crazies. We taught tons of lessons and ended the week with 34 investigators! Our first Sunday we had 0 investigators at church but this last week we had 9!"

Long Grove...it's a tradition!

We have a Long Grove tradition. For six years, SC, TM, and BJM and I have gone to the quaint city of Long Grove every Fall and every Spring. We choose our date months in advance. This year was extra special because TM and BJM don't live here any more. We had such a great day. We love browsing through the cute shops and eating lunch at our favorite restaurant. The Autumn leaves were in total splendor this year. We always take a photo, and this year we could not resist this pumpkin patch.

Our old favorite tree.

I rode my cruiser over to the old neighborhood this week for the purpose of visiting this tree! This tree sits in the front yard of the house we used to live. We lived in this house from 1987 to 1993. This house holds so many memories: we brought two babies home to this house; our family was young; we lived in small, cozy quarters. One of the hardest things to leave at this house was this tree. Our children loved climbing it. It provided wonderful shade. And in the Fall, it looked like this!

M5 meets for breakfast!

This month M5 (Mothers of Mighty Missionaries Meet Monthly) met for breakfast at Creme de la Crumb. We had so much fun sharing photos and experiences of our wonderful sons.

The Girls Are Back In Town!

Two of our dear friends, TM and BJM are in town for the week. They gathered us together for a lunch at our favorite Italian restaurant. It was so fun to be together and catch up on their lives in their new digs.

Ding Dong Ditch! Here we go again!

Oh we had so much fun again tonight! For FHE, we went ding dong ditching again! We increased our family drop offs from eight to ten. Tonight, DTA really got into it and he even turned the headlights of the car off as we approached the houses. I was the runner again. Since it was such a warm and beautiful night, some of the houses had their front doors opened and then I had to really book it! It was another night of having the time of our lives!

My Boy, the Mighty Missionary

My Boy, the mighty missionary, shared some photos with us this week. I particularly love this one of him reading Bible stories to this little boy. My Boy is known for his jumping shots. Being from Chicago, he calls them his "Jordan" jumps. Here he is jumping in front of one the most dominant churches of the DR! He is so busy in his new area. They work from sun up to sun down only to get up and do it all over again. He writes, "Wow, what a week. Haha I think one of the hardest weeks of my mission has finally ended. Have you ever had like a big project or assignment that you had to do, maybe like a huge report or project for school and upon finishing it you just feel so relieved, something that was stressfull and required a ton of work? At the end of every day this week as I am going to bed, I feel like I just ended that long hard project, but in the morning it starts up all over again and its got another due date of 9:30 pm. It's been a crazy week but Heavely Father was blessed me a lot and really shown me that I can't do this without a higher help."

I am a Graduate of the Pankey Institute Financial Course

That's right ! I have been in Key Biscayne, Florida this week with DTA to the highly esteemed Pankey Institute. This is where dentists come to take courses and become better dentists. This week the class was on financial management tools for dentists. I now know about management income statements, revenue planning, retirement planning, college financing, life insurance planning, investments, savings, financial freedom, financial independence, how to estimate fees, net worth, treatment scheduling, service mix, pocket change accumulation, what percentage your hygiene should be, what percentage your clinical costs should be, what percentage your facility should be, etc, etc. We spent four days in classes ( we never saw the beach...) and I learned so much and really enjoyed my time at the Pankey Institute.

I Love Fall!

Reasons why I love Fall: * Orange, gorgeous pumpkins *Crisp, Fall, beautifully colored leaves * Sweaters! *Great running weather! *Feeling cozy again *My Birthday *Seeing High School bands practicing *Comfort foods *Getting closer to Christmas *Pumpkin-centered foods *Incredible sleeping weather *Farmstand Apples *New epsides of Dancing With the Stars and Amazing Race *General Conference *Eating soup again *Halloween

Why do you love Fall?

Old Sawmill FHE!

In our continued effort to spice up our FHE's, we decided to host an Old Sawmill FHE last night. Old Sawmill is the name of our subdivision and we are fortunate enough to have two fabulous LDS families living in the subdivision with us. We had a lasagna dinner with Doug's House Salad, bread and Texas sheet cake for dessert. For our lesson, we went around the table and each person shared what had touched him or her while watching General Conference. It was wonderful to hear the different experiences people had as they heard from our general authorities. We especially loved having the two teenage boys into our home tonight. Both of them were part of DTA's Priest Quorum and one of them was one of my seminary alum. We miss having teenagers in our home so that was a real treat!

Fun Fall Sewing Projects!

I have had fun with some Fall sewing projects. I am not much of a seamstress...not like my niece...she is an awesome seamstress.... (http://www.mollypatch.com/). But I really enjoy sewing my straight lines! I especially love choosing the fabric. This Fall I made the Glass Posse and Kennedy Krew Halloween table cloths. I also made Halloween pillowcases for the Kennedy Krew.(I made them for the Glass Posse last Halloween) I really enjoyed making Halloween pillowcases for Coco and all the girls in her suite. Lastly, it was so fun to make pillowcases for all my MiaMaids and bag them up and leave them on their doorsteps. It brings me joy to sew and think of the people who will receive my offerings.

Ah, that Kage and her Surprise Week!

My daughter, Kage, declared this "Surprise Week"! (http://kristyglass.blogspot.com)Well, boy howdy, was I surprised when a pink Schwinn Cruiser arrived on my porch today...from who else but Kage! I have been talking about these cruisers all summer ever since I saw my nephew's on his blog (http://cellulareric.blogspot.com). They are retro looking bicycles that are used for calm, recreational riding. I am so excited to own one! Linz gave me a Target gift card for my birthday, so this afternoon I am going to go over and buy a basket for it. Then I can start making my little trips to the farm stand, drug store, and bread bakery on my cruiser! What a wonderful Fall I am going to have! Thanks, Kage! You sure surprised me!

Pumpkin Muffins!

I have had a pumpkin muffin every morning for breakfast this week. I freeze them and then microwave one per morning so I eat it nice and warm. The chocolate chips inside melt a little and oh my yummy! Here is the recipe:

1/2 C butter

3/4 C brown sugar

1/3 C molasses

1 egg, beaten

1 c. canned pumpkin

1 3/4 C flour

pinch of salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 C chocolate chips.

Cream the moist ingredients. Add the dry, bake 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees. Mine were baked in 1 cup baking tins which is larger than the norm. One of the reasons I love Fall, is the delicious pumpkin edibles.

A New Adventure for My Boy!

My Boy wanted to stay in Moca. It had been his most challenging area but most favorite area. He loved the people there and they loved him. But it was not to be. Yesterday, he was transferred to Rafey. He is opening an area; becoming a district leader, and is training a missionary companion fresh out of the MTC! His reaction: "I am so excited...you guys have no clue!" His companion is from a small town in Idaho, is scared to death, and speaks very little Spanish. My Boy has been so kind to him. His companion, Elder H said, " I am so happy because I have been praying for the past days to get a good trainer like you". This really hit My Boy. He ended his email with "Wow I am so excited. It's gonna be so hard, these first few days but its gonna be great. Pray for us because I am praying for all of you. Love you guys so much, enjoy conference and if they say the Dominican Republic at all during it, ya gotta do a little scream and gimme a shout out!" That we will do!

For Little O and Little V

This weekend, this adorable creature found himself on our front porch. Oh how we wished Little O and Little V had been here! They would have greeted him so warmly and been mesmerized with his amazing green form. We dashed for the camera so we could share our friend with them. Maybe on their next visit, he will reappear.