Meeting my future sister in law!

Wednesday night I was reading my book and about ready to go to sleep when my phone started vibrating and I saw that it was my brother Colby calling me. I knew he was coming this weekend with Cindy so that we can meet her so I figured it was something to do with that. Well, Colby instantly got on and said he wanted to introduce me to his fiance, Cindy.  She then got on the phone with him. I knew they would be getting married eventually but it did catch me by surprise getting the phone call already. However, it was perfect timing for them since they were getting ready to come meet us and all of Colby's family.  The had made it official just that evening. Unfortunately it was getting late so he wasn't able to call everyone that night but they made more calls the next day.

Friday evening we met them and some other family at Thailand Express, a Thai food restaurant that is right down the road from our house and located right next to Del Taco, where Nikki works. We dropped Nikki off at work and then waited in the parking lot for my parents, grandma, Colby and Cindy to show up. Melissa met us there also. Later, Stillman and Nathan showed up as we were waiting. Colby and Cindy seem very happy together and it was great to finally meet her! After dinner Nathan went to the store to get some ice cream and head over to grandma's for dessert. We decided to go get churros for everyone from Del Taco. Nikki wasn't thrilled with how many we ordered since she was working. ha ha Not long after we got to grandma's Nikki called to let us know she was done working. Curtis picked her up and brought her over to grandma's. Then we all visited.

Saturday morning we did some stuff around the house and I made up a big batch of frog eye salad because that's what we signed up to bring to our meet and greet dinner at grandma's house at 4:00 that day. Laverne took some pictures of each family that was there. There was my sister Melissa and her family (minus Blake who's on a mission); Tamara and her family (minus Katie who was at a friend's Halloween party); Stillman and his family; my step brother Scott and most of his family; Dad and Laverne; my great Aunt Joyce; and of course my grandma Norton. We were missing Nikki since she was stuck working until 8pm that day. I also wanted to get a picture with Colby and Cindy.

We visited at grandma's for awhile and then some of us headed over to our house. That included Colby and Cindy and Stillman's family. Colby wanted to come see his cat that we are taking care of, Stardust. It was perfect timing because she had been outside all day (as usual) and a couple minutes after we got home she showed up to eat some dinner, just in time for Colby to see her and Cindy to meet her. They will be taking her back some time after they get married. We hardly see Stardust since she's outside most of the time and so it won't be too hard to give her back but it has been fun to have her for this last year.

Anyway, we visited some more and then the adults played a new card game called Slide 5 that Garrett got for his birthday from Grandma Butterfield. We all had a good time. They all left around 10pm because we had 9 am church the next morning. On Wednesday evening Curtis and I had been called into the stake center to meet with one of the stake presidency counselors. We were both nervous about who was going to get what calling. It ended up being for Curtis. He was called to be the 2nd counselor in our ward's bishopric. The current counselor was moving out of our ward. We were both a bit surprised but I think Curtis had an idea something like this was coming. His previous calling was deacons advisor. He'll still be overseeing the deacons as 2nd counselor in the bishopric.

Since Curtis would be sustained and set apart on Sunday he invited both of our dad's and his oldest brother Casey to come. Casey came with his wife and daughter Ambrey. And since grandma usually goes to church with my dad and Colby and Cindy were staying with grandma, they also came to our ward.  So we filled up two whole long benches at church since they all came for the whole Sacrament meeting. 

I have to admit I was feeling unsure about Curtis getting this calling ever since Wednesday but after the stake president (Keith Stucki) did the sustaining, Bishop Lyman got up and said a few words, thanking me for letting them borrow Curtis. I felt the spirit tell me then that it was right. Immediately following the meeting we all went down to the Relief Society Room where Curtis's dad advanced him to a high priest and then the stake president set him apart for the calling. It was great to have more family there than I would have expected to be a part of it.

I also wanted to share a few fun pictures of Alice from last week. On Thursday while the 4 older kids were at school, Alice and I drove around doing some shopping. We had a few miscellaneous items to get a Walmart. Then we went to Saver's, Goodwill and Idaho Youth Ranch trying to find Alice a pink princess dress because that's what she wanted to wear for Halloween. We didn't see anything at Saver's. Goodwill had a pink dress but I didn't really like it because it looked short and like she would be cold in it. However, we did find her a crown there. Luckily, we found a dress next door at Id Youth Ranch. We paid about $6 for it. I told her that she could be Sleeping Beauty since that's the only princess I could think of that has a pink dress, even though this particular dress wasn't an official Sleeping Beauty dress. After that we went and bought groceries at Winco. When we got home I told her she could watch Sleeping Beauty, she's never seen it before. Well, she was excited to watch it but then she fell into her character.....and fell asleep while watching.

After we bought the crown.

Now she gets to wear the dress with the crown! We might have to get her a shirt to wear under since the front is kind of low cut.

Asleep while watching Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday morning after I had made our frog eye salad we had some down time so I told Alice to get a game to play. She came back with a bunch of puzzles instead. Honestly, I love doing puzzles so it was a win win. She's gotten to where she can do the simple puzzles by herself that only have about 4-6 big pieces. I get her started on the more difficult ones and then she likes to finish them off when there's about 4 or 5 pieces left. She helps with other pieces as well.