september celebrations!!!

Here's the picture of the hairy little creature we spotted on our Labor Day evening hike. I thought I had posted it last time, but apparently there were just too many pictures for me to keep track of. I hope that's not the case this time. I also neglected to remember all the Stewart family birthdays in August. My b-day month is also Karl, Dallin, Steph and Lara's. We had a great time celebrating with everyone. I've never seen a 6 year old get more legos than Dallin did. He sure loves to build with them. Benjamin's birthday was the only one in September. He turned 6 too and really wanted a dinosaur cake. My mom and I made one from a dragon cake recipe. Ok, I just baked the cake and my mom did the rest. It turned out pretty good. He's making sure there are enough candles. His favorite gift was an Indiana Jones potato head from "tators of the lost arc".
For our 2nd anniversary we headed up to Sedona for a few days. Thank you to mom and dad Stewart for letting us use your time share! It was still a little warm in the day, but really nice at night. We were able to go to a Civil War battle reenactment in Dead Horse Ranch State Park on the 26th. Where, you ask? I had certianly never heard of it. It's just a mile or so outside of Cottonwood. I found it searching the web for things to do near Sedona. The community was putting on something called Verde River Days that weekend so we got in free. It was really awesome to watch. I loved the history aspect of the reenactment and Ryan, well, he was interested in the period firearms. Go figure.
The cannons were so loud even Ryan had to cover his ears.The rest of our trip was spent just walking around Sedona, attending the friendly ward up there, and playing the Wii. It was really great to just get away together and relax.
On our anniversary Ryan gave me a beautiful large print of a photograph that my grandma Quist took of the snowy Mesa temple, which I love! He knows I had been wanting to have that be the temple picture in our family room. Every time he does something thoughtful like that (he usually does some little, sweet thoughtful thing for me everyday) I'm reminded of how perfectly Ryan is the man for me!


Since I can't figure out how to do a slide show, which I know I should be able to do, here are some pictures of our trip.

September ... all ready?!!

Where did July and August go? I'll do my best to remember and let you know how September suddenly arrived, or at least how we have been passing the time. And I'll even throw in some photos of our house! The pictures are in order, but they don't exactly coordinate with the words right next to them. I can't quite figure it out. Anyway...

We had a great time on July 4th at my Aunt and Uncle's house, the Hunn's. It was great to see so many cousins there with so many little kids! I haven't seen a pool that full at a Quist party since I was a kid. We spent half of the month trying to finalize buying a house and the other half fixing the truck... again. After many hours of research and repair Ryan got it running good just in time for Scout camp. He had a great time at Geronimo again this year.




He was there from the 18th to the 25th and, I'm very glad to say, he took a camera with him this time!



I spent the week packing and cleaning the town home we've been renting form Ryan's parents since we've been married. It's amazing how many things you can accumulate in almost two years!



Matthew turned 24 on the 18th (Yes, my little brother is 24!), so since Ryan was leaving for Scout camp and the Poll family was headed to the Grand Canyon that week as well, we celebrated a few days early. Matthew didn't mind that of course. He loves all the church books he has by Matthew B. Brown. We are still trying to figure out if we're related to him since one of our ancestors is Benjamin Brown. Matthew loves the books on CD and other gifts he received, and has all ready listened to all the new ones!
I enjoy reading the hardback books to him as well. He's doing really good.

August was a little busier month than usual. After Ryan got home from camp the truck was on the fritz again. We got it repaired just in time for moving day. This was only the second house we had put an offer on. We've felt a lot better about everything than we did with the first house, and all the little details of buying have gone very smoothly. We know we have been guided through this whole process by our Father in Heaven. It was bitter sweet to say goodbye to our ward in Tempe. We will miss the wonderful people there a lot, especially the youth, but are looking forward to getting to know our new ward. We don't have any callings yet, which feels a little weird, but I'm sure they are coming. We officially became home owners and, as other people have said, signed our life away on Aug 1st and we couldn't be more excited! We have slowly but surely been unpacking and are loving our house. The sprinkler system needs a little work, but there's a lot of good shade trees and planter areas. I can't wait to start growing things! It's kind of nice to have more room than we know what to do with inside and outside of the house too.



We bought the house from a great LDS family. They have been awesome about helping us figure out all the little quirks, which really aren't too many. Isn't the superhero room great? I had to take a picture!

There were a lot of extended family showers and such in the Quist family, and Ryan's cousin Amy is engaged! We are very happy and excited for her and Seth. One of Ryan's cousins came home from his mission too. My 1st cousin once removed even had a baby on my birthday! Congrats to Joey and Camie! For my birthday on the 3rd Ryan gave me all kinds of great kitchen gadgets, and now I have room to use and store all of them in the kitchen! I really love the cutting board with grooves along the edges so watermelon juice won't get everywhere.
I love the cake too!
He also got me a purple mini-mag lite! I mentioned to him a few times that I had one when I was younger and it would be great if I could find one again. I just love my husband! Bethany and Benjamin were having fun making a dog pile on Jason so I snapped a shot. My family found the sequel to the Man From Snowy River on DVD for me! I'd been looking for it a long time. I also was given some great Stampin' Up stamps and some cute wall stars from the Stewart side. Thanks to everyone for a great birthday! On Aug. 8th the first of our 9 nephews and nieces was baptized! We are so happy we were able to be a part of Parker's special day. I had my camera there, but the battery was dead;( I just finished the quilt for him (that I've been working on since before we moved) a couple weeks ago. In December it will be Bethany's turn to be baptised! Yikes! I better get started on her quilt soon.

We were able to visit with some of our friends in Tempe at the Scout Court of Honor for this summer's Geronimo experience. Ryan was the Assistant Scout Master the whole time we lived there. It was great to see some familiar faces. We are warming up to the Three Fountains Ward in Mesa North Stake and starting to get to know a few people, but we miss the Del Rio Ward.
Ryan got the "Polar Bear" award, which he hasn't received since he was a 12 year old Scout, and the "I did it all at Geronimo" award. He didn't get that one last year and the boys wouldn't let him live it down. Ryan and I have both been making visits to the chiropractor for a few weeks now. We started going because of a sleepless night Ryan had from back pain, probably due to his falling and being crushed in June. So far he's has felt a vast improvement in everything from working to sleeping.

Labor Day was a some what lazy day for us. Ryan helped his dad on their roof in the morning, which isn't really lazy, and on Saturday he worked at organizing the garage all day. I'm really loving being able to park in it now. It makes a huge difference in the temperature! Anyway, on Monday night we went on a hike half way up to the Wind Caves at Usery Park with our friends Jeff and Kelsey and Dallas and Trisha. We would have gone all the way if it hadn't started to get dark. It was pretty cool to watch the bats come out and on the way back down we saw some more wildlife. A tarantula! Ryan and I had never seen one in the wild. I thought it was pretty awesome so it turned out to be the only picture that I took.

This post is really long. I hope to never go that long between them again. Too much to catch up on. I think that's all for now...enjoy the pictures!

quick house update

Sadly the house on Ashbrook near Gilbert and Adobe is not going to be our house. The house was re-appraised at $150,000. Since the bank doesn't like the $20,000 difference between the asking price and the appraisal, and the seller doesn't want to lower the price anymore than they have, we are moving on...

Happily on Wednesday we put an offer on another house near Stapley and McKellips which was accepted! We actually like it better, but we won't get our hopes too high until we are signing the final papers this time. The seller seems to be a little more negotiable though! We'll let you know what happens!

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

the last 5 exciting things we have done outside...

1. TRUCK REPAIRS - okay, not so fun, but has to be done! Ryan has been working like crazy on the truck, especially last week. When he fixes one thing he finds another part that needs something. Everyday after work this last week he's been trying to figure out the next thing. The job he's been doing for work right now requires him to do what's called "zoning" to Horse Mesa Dam (Apache Lake). He drives to a substation near there instead of to the SRP yard where he regularly goes. So he has needed the car and has been dropping me off at my parents house for my work early. I don't mind getting up at 3AM with him, but I hope he gets it running smooth again soon. I feel incredibly blessed that we have a good car that runs and has cold AC, especially since it's summer.

2. VEGGIE HARVESTING!!! - There have been 3 squash and 1 tiny carrot enjoyed from our little garden so far. The carrots aren't quite ripe yet and the cantaloupe and watermelon vines have a lot of flowering going on, and not so much fruit growing. We'll see what happens though. This is a picture of the first summer squash. I was quite excited.

3. BBQ-ing FOR THE YOUTH - This was the first Wednesday of June at the home of some ward members. The youth were busy swimming while Ryan was busy BBQ-ing, as usual.

4. FEEDING the DUCKS!!! - One morning a couple weeks ago Elizabeth, Bethany and Benjamin and I went to Riverview Park with some old chips from my pantry. At first most of the birds that were feasting on the crumbs were pigeons. Yuck! We moved down a little closer to the lake and woke up some sleeping ducks.

They didn't seem to mind once they spotted the food.



The kids also had some fun on the playground before it got too hot.





5. CAMPING!!! - This is what makes living here in the summer bearable. Well, having A.C. and going swimming help too. We went up to a camp ground not too far from Woods Canyon Lake, the day after Ryan's adventure of having a porch collapse under him and getting squished by the roof. It was a much needed get away. Ryan's family has a tradition of going camping there for a few days every summer. All of them came up at some point that weekend. Ryan enjoyed taking a nap in his parents tent trailer. I wish I'd snapped a photo of that. We slept, fished, slept, ate, slept, fished... you get the idea. It was cloudy most of the time and rained really good on Fri. night and some on Sat. morning. When we got home late Sat. night we set up our tent in the living room... after moving almost all of the furniture out of it. We set up some fans and it was dry by morning. Again, I wish I had a picture, but at the time I was tired enough to not care. Here are just a few photos from the weekend! We had tons of fun with the Stewart family!

FALLING OFF OF BUILDINGS

Yeah, it's not really that fun. Just ask Ryan. He knows. I don't have any pictures of it, thank goodness, but Wednesday the 17th is when it happened. My visiting teachers were over, it was about 11am when I got a call from Ryan. He says, "I need your advice on something." I say, "What kind of advice?" Ryan: "Well, my chest and my left shoulder hurt." Me: "What did you do?" Ryan: "I fell off a roof."

Here's the story, but Ryan tells it much better. He was at work by the Horse Mesa Dam replacing the roof on some kind of a big old shed that had a very poorly framed porch. He was out on the porch striping off the old roofing when all of the sudden the porch started sinking while the rest of the building looked like it was rising. It just collapsed, as it seemed to him, in slow motion. He landed on his feet but then immediately fell over, as what was left of the porch's roof fell on top of his upper body. When the roof had first fallen it was vertical, then it flipped over so the bottom was facing up when it landed on him. He tried to push it off, but it was too heavy. His coworkers, who were working on other things nearby but not right next to him at the time, realized his predicament a couple of minutes later and pulled what was left of the roof off.

The damage? He went to a doctor the next day for x-rays and amazingly nothing was broken! The doctor really thought he might have torn something in his left shoulder because it and his ribs were really squished and sore, but nothing was torn or fractured. The doctor was very surprised. His left shoulder and elbow are still bruised, but nothing was broken. It didn't really hit me how seriously he could have been injured until a few days later. He and I both know how blessed he was. We count new blessings everyday each time we think about what happened. He has healed amazingly fast as well. I know the Lord watches over us, and Ryan and I both are truly thankful for that.

in the good ol' summertime...

...you need an umbrella for high school graduation night, a winter jacket if you'll be going up on the Rim, and plenty of sun screen. It must be an Arizona thing... I know it's not official summer yet, but again, this is Arizona.



Here's the run down of what we've been up to in May and so far in June.
First of all congrats to Kevin & Kristi (Ryan's sister) Johnson! Koltyn Jay came into the world on May 18th at a whopping 10lbs 8oz! He is a cutie, and just as big as Sophie who is a whole month older!


Ryan's youngest sibling graduated from Mountain View. She has wonderful artistic talent. Way to go Lara!

As you know, we put an offer on a house in Mesa near Gilbert Road and Adobe which was accepted. Everything looked good, but the house was appraised for $5,000 less than the asking price so the bank we had applied for a loan at wouldn't finance us. Now we've applied at a different bank and everything is going smoothly so far. The deal should close no later then July 15th... we hope!

Elizabeth (my sister) and Jeremy's family went to Disneyland for a week and had a fantastic time there. On May 16th Jeremy graduated with his Master's form ASU's bussiness college, and with all the family activities (2 showers and his graduation) going on it made for a busy day. Jeremy also had a birthday in May. There was also a family baby shower the next weekend. We had a fun Memorial Day too. Ryan helped his dad on thier roof, I went to some cemetaries with my parents, and we had fun at my Aunt's pool party in the evening. There were more of my cousins there than I've seen in ages! It was really good to see them.



I've been working hard getting devotionals and decorations ready for girls camp for the last month. Tempe Stake went to Lo-Mia June 6-10th, and once again I had the privlage of being the 1st Counselor and the Del Rio Ward Camp specialist. The theme was "Be Loyal to the Royal Within" and our ward got to decorate with "Belle" from "Beauty and the Beast" as our "princess". (i think i'm a little quotation mark happy for some reason)
We had 8 girls in the cabin this year and everyone got along much better this year than in previous years I've been to camp. It was kinda chili, but only got into the 40's at night, instead of the 20's like last year. One of the Mia Maids hand drew the poster for our ward this year. It was so beautiful I had to take a picture of it. Camp was a tremendous experience for all of the girls. Especially the Sunday night activity called the "Hold to the Rod Faith Walk". It was amazing! Some stake leaders dressed up as Sariah and led the girls in small groups to several scenes from Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. They saw a cabin as The Great and Spacious Building with people mocking and pointing their fingers at them, they experienced the mists of darkness as they tied bandannas around their eyes. They experienced temptations to let go of the Rod of Iron, and the encouragement to keep going, as they followed some rope tied to pieces of conduit toward the Chapel in the trees of Orchard Camp. They felt the embrace of our stake president and his wife as they took off thier blindfolds and led them into the Chapel where a lit up Christmas tree held bracelets with charms shaped like crowns, which was the fruit of the tree. I almost cry just thinking about it. I know it's something I'll never forget and I pray none of the girls who experienced it will either.

Ryan just got back today form taking the Scouts fishing at Willow Springs Lake. He only caught one fish and one of the boys caught one as well. He will be going to Geronimo in July again this year. We both love any reason to get up on the Rim, not to mention being able to serve with the youth. Some of them are so amazing! We are excited to camping with the Stewart's soon. Hopefully we will have better luck with the fish next weekend!