In Loving Memory

December 17, 2008 Verna Joy Pouslen was once again reunited with her loved ones in Heaven. Although our hearts are broken with this short separation from our Grandma, we are all very thankful she was able to return home for Christmas. One of my most cherished memories of my grandma was tucking her into bed. No matter the amount of family members at the house, Grandma was always serenaded with a special song. We were able to sing it to her when she was tucked into bed for the last time. The words go like this, “Good night sweet heart well it’s time to go. Good night sweet heart well it’s time to go. I hate to leave you but I really must say good night sweet heart good night.” We will love and miss you until we are again reunited. We love you grandma.

Much to do About Nothing

I have so many great pictures to post; however, I haven’t had a chance to sit down and blog. So I am going to refer you to my sister’s blog. If you go to Somer’s blog you will see the greatest post of all. We went to the NKOTB concert. It was the best night of my life. At one point I was jumping up and down like a crazy person and screaming at the top of my lungs. OK who am I kidding; I was jumping up and down screaming for most of the show. I walked into the E center a 27 year old dignified women, I came out a 9 year old prepubescent girl, with a serious crush. It was the best concert I have ever been to. I can’t wait for them to come to Utah again. OK this is all well and good, but somebody please stop me if I start to write love letters again. Anyway to see some amazing pictures of the New Kids please go to Somer’s blog.

Just a quick update on my life…….I am getting…….so excited for the Holidays. If you know me at all, you know I love this time of year. I am so excited for Thanksgiving. Not for the feast, (I don’t enjoy cooking) but more spending much needed time with my family. I don’t see them enough and I LOVE THEM, so I am looking forward to a few days with them.

I hope and pray that all of you have a great holiday and enjoy time with your loved ones. If you don’t have a place to go, we are always taking in Orphans, so please let me know and you will have a place at our humble feast.

I just want to say that I am watching Elf right now and it is by far my favorite show. I have a really funny story about the movie Elf which I will tell now. One day I was in an elevator with my mom at her work. There was an attractive young man on the elevator with us. My mom, the crazy lady she is, pushed all the buttons on the elevator. Then the man said that reminded him of Elf, my mom proceeded to tell him that was my favorite show. Wouldn’t you know it, his favorite show is Elf too. So he started asking me Elf trivia. Most of which I could not answer. The long of the short of it is, he later got my email address from my mom and started emailing me questions about elf. It was really fun and funny all at the same time. That is what I like about Elf, it brings people together.

One more quick elf story, remember the part when he is going down the escalator and his legs get all stretched out? Well one day I was helping my post stroke grandma get on an escalator when all of a sudden I realized one of my feet was planted at the top of the escalator and the other foot was making a descent down the escalator. Needless to say I found my self in an elf-like predicament, and might I add I am a lot more flexible than I realized. Everyone should watch Elf 72 times before Christmas.

Halloween Extravaganza

I know what you are thinking....Why weren't you born into this amazing family. I am sorry but spacing is limited (unless you are over six foot with an amazing testimony, have a job, you are male and single, if you fit that criteria there is plenty of room...have your people call my people.)

Halloween is always a great time for our family. We usually start talking about our costume selection in June. This year everyone did a great job!!



Ericson was a Scarecrow (unless you asked Kaicee then she said he was a negro...she has been watching Hair Spray a lot lately) Keayra was Dorthy, Kaicee was Glenda the Good Witch of the North.

Somer was a Tainted Fairy

Kierstan was Little Red Riding Hood

Ashleigh was Minnie Mouse

Mom was Raggedy Ann

Darin was the guy off of the discovery channel who swims with sharks

Renata was a witch

Britney and Colby were Harley dudes, they even made their grand entrance on a scooter.

Amanda was a girl from the 80s

Kylie was a hippie

Grandma bear was a joker

I just want to say, I feel sooooo blessed to have these peeps in my life.

We have a fabulous party at Kierstan's. We get together take a few photos and then we proceed to have our own parade. We actually parade up and down state street. We usually get a few honks and a lot of strange looks, it is great:)

Then we go back in the house and have dinner and play some of our favorite games. We usually end the night with a movie usually our favorite Hocus Pocus.

It was great, I am just sad that we have to wait another year for Halloween to come again.....Hmmmmm what should I be next year.

Here are a few other pictures to enjoy:










Believe it or not I even dressed up for school. During second period my Principal interrupted my class and gave my whole class candy bars. He told them it was because I dressed up. Needless to say they were all very excited about that.

My very dear friend Jeri Carter told me that she would come as Goofy. We sure made quite a pair. It was a great day:)

The Ya Ya part three

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The Ya Ya Sisterhood

Today was a great adventure. Britney had us go to Thanksgiving point for a wonderful party. All I knew going into this was that we had to wear a crazy hat. Today we went on the search for a hat and as you can see we found one. We did add our own special touches.
lala

Britney, Kierstan, Renata and I went and had a blast. There was lot of shopping, great food and loud music. It was great. I am having a hard time getting my pictures to post so I might make this two posts. Anyway, it was a blast.

The Ya Ya Sisterhood part two

When we were leaving the party, we had to write down a woe and burn it in a big fire, it was great.



Let's just say anytime you get to wear a hat like that, it is a fantastic day!!

Don't worry I have other pictures that are just as fun, that I will try and post later.

Memphis

This is my first atempt at putting video on my blog. Let me explain what is happening in this video....I was at my brother's house, my niece Kylie started playing some music, and before we knew Memphis formally known as Darin was showing us his pretty sweet moves. I think that I am going to be playing this over and over again especially when I feel down.

I'm with Stupid!!!!!

So this one time I was in the mall, or maybe I saw it in a magazine.....any-hoo I saw a T-shirt that said "I'm with Stupid" Then there was an arrow that pointed to the person next to the wearer of the shirt. I was bamboozled that anyone would invent a shirt or wear a shirt that was soooo rude....and then I went to the car wash.

I only wash my car about twice a year. I mention that so when I tell this story you will understand that the car wash is kind of a new experience for me. Today was a great day, I spent the morning with my 3 year old niece, then I I went to the temple and all was going great.

I had a wild hair and decided to go the car wash. I was in my dress because I was on the way home from the temple, so I decided to go to the kind where you just drive through.

I rolled down my window, put in my code, the light came on that said "Drive Forward" and so I did. The water came on full speed ahead, it was then that I realized that I had forgotten to roll up my window. Immediately a gush of water entered my car drenching me and all the contents on my front seat. I was laughing so hard that it took me even longer to roll up my window. When I finally got my window rolled up, I sat for the next several minutes in the car wash laughing my head off. Unfortunately I was alone at the time. I think that I will purchase the "I'm with stupid" t-shirt so the next time I go to the car wash I will have a souvenir for the lucky person who is with me.

I think everyone who reads this post, should make a comment about a stupid moment, so we can all have a good laugh at each others expense.

Heaven

I had an amazing opportunity this summer to go on the trip of a life time. I went to a place called Havasupi, I am not really sure of the spelling, so we will just call it the hauv. I don't know exactly what Heaven is going to be like, but I can only imagine that it will be similar to this miraculous place. It was truly a piece of heaven on earth.




It was an eleven mile backpacking trip into the camp. We started at four in the morning. My sister Somer and I were sharing a flashlight (because I couldn't find mine) so it took us forever to get down the switch backs. The stitch backs were really rocky so you had to be sure of your footing. We had a great time hiking and talking. Somer had a little incident on the trail which I shall not describe in detail here, but let's just say there will always be a part of her on the trail to the Hauv.....



I am not a big camper by any means, but I am so glad I didn't miss out on this opportunity. We had to take all of our belongings on our back, we hiked 11 miles in camped for three nights and hiked 11 miles out. While we were there we saw three different water falls. The first one was Havasupi Falls (I think that what what it was called.) Here are a few pictures of that.....







The second day we went to a different waterfall. This waterfall was located about a half a mile away from our camp. What we didn't know was, we had to practically rock climb to get there. It was really scary, but totally worth it. This next picture is me getting ready to go to the unknown....



When we finally got to the waterfall we were speechless. Not more beautiful than the other one, but different and just as breath taking.



This was a great place to sit and soak up the sun. We stayed there the entire day and just enjoyed the beauty of the earth.



While we were at this waterfall we encountered some interesting people. There was this group of people that stood at the bottom of the waterfall and did some sort of weird yoga or something. They were doing a whole bunch of strange positions, kind of reminded me of some kind of salutation to the sun. This is us trying to imitate those fine friendly folks. Good times....Good times.



All in all it was a fantastic trip. I am so glad that I was able to go and have this wonderful experience. If anyone is interested in going to this place, please let me know and I will give you more information. Also there is one other waterfall that we visited. I don't know where the pictures are, they aren't on my computer. That waterfall was by far my favorite. Anyway hope you all enjoy the post.

A Family United

This is a little lesson on why it is important to be united as a family. On the 24th of July my family floated down the Provo River. We had a great time. We laughed until our sides hurt. Parts of the river were very calm, while other parts were very crazy. At times the current would pull us into a bank of trees and other debris, and we would have to fight our way back to the middle of the river.



We decided that it was important to keep our tubes connected in a circle. This made the trip down the river even more exciting. When the current would sweep us into the trees our tubes would just bounce off and we would continue our journey down the river.



We were having the time of our lives until.....



Kierstan was separated from the family.....somehow the connection was broken and we all floated away leaving her behind. We were going a lot faster than she was, so there came a time when we couldn't see her. During that time she was dumped off her tube and a raft and tube fell on her, pushing her underwater. Finally she was able to get free and come up for air. By the time she caught up to the family she was shoeless and bloody. She had bruises on the bottom of her feet that were the size of Texas. The lesson we learned was....



No matter what happens in your river of life it will all be much easier if you are are closely tied with your family. So the moral of the story is.... Be nice to your families because....Families are Forever!!! Pinkies High

Just the girls

This summer the girls went to a concert. It was a blast. We sang our guts out. I do think however, that we had more fun taking pictures than listening to the music. What can ya say girls will be girls...
B-Dawg
Kylie Sue and her Favorite Aunt
Amanda and Ashleigh

Smith Super Star Rally

The Smith Super Star Rally was an event like no other. The team captains were Ash and Ren. We picked teams, planned the events, and had a blast. I think the pictures speak for themselves, so I will just let them do the talking. Needless to say everyone had a great time and we all laughed a lot. Due to some point discrepancy a winner was not named this year. The rules have been modified for next year. I am not biased, but I believe the blue team won.

The Blue Team
The Red Team