I'm feeling so digitally crafty...

A few days ago I put together this little VT gift.
Sorry the pictures in this post aren't too great. For some reason I can't get photoshop to open so I couldn't brighten them up at all.

The Ensign for this month didn't have a Visiting Teaching message. It was all about temples. So...I knew what I wanted to give my sisters, but how to connect it to the temple...

The bag is full of tulip bulbs and floral grass. I thought that flower on the front was so cute! It's a magnet, and it's metal. Super, super cute! The bag I love because it has the window, but it's also self closing. It rolls on the top and has a metal strip to fold around the edges. It's kind of like a really cute airsickness bag...with a window. Hopefully I filled it with something a little more attractive. On the front the tag says, "How to grow your temple knowledge" and has three steps that start with Dig, Plant, and Cover. The back of the tag says, "How to grow your Tulips" and has the obvious steps for planting bulbs. These steps also start with Dig, Plant, and Cover. There is a second little card with a quote on temples that I pulled from the Ensign.

Now don't have a brain aneurysm trying to wrap yourself around this concept, but I actually did a November VT gift as well! Maybe I'm starting a trend...or maybe I spent a long day on the couch with a very sick pip-squeak. Either way, I have a November VT gift too.

Voila!

For Nov. there isn't a visiting teaching message either because the Ensign is the conference edition. So I picked a talk by President Monson on Gratitude. The "scrolls" you see are the quotes I pulled from the talk. He told a great story about gratitude so I had to include that and then there were just so many great things to choose from. Really it turned out to be half the talk, but whatever. I took a large can of canned pumpkin and created a new label for it. I wish I would have had legal sized paper so it could fit all the way around. There is like a 1/2" gap in the bag. grr... The new label says, "Gratitude, like appetite, is contagious. So bake up a pumpkin pie and share a little of both." On the back it has a little note that says, "With [heart] from your Visiting Teachers" hmmm...the [heart] is supposed to tell you that there is an actual heart there, did you get it? So it really means with love. Aw, tender.

Is appetite contagious? Probably not for most of you but I can catch it with the right group of people.

So there it is! I'm tootin' my own horn. Woot! Woot! I'm having fun with this and I might just have to keep it up. After all, if my new Visiting Teachees get used to the creativity I'm gonna feel obligated.

ARE YOU READY FOR A BLOG POST?

So, there hasn't been much to talk about over the last month...until now! We just got back from a great family vaca to Disneyland! Hooray for Disneyland! I know I am too old to love it but I do (in a strictly never wear the merchandise 'cause I'm too old kind of way). So for all of you dying to now the play by play here it is!

Waiting to go into the park the first day in their fun

Halloween costumes. It's gonna be a good day! We love coming to Disney when it's not crowded. It looks like there were a lot of people in line but we didn't wait for more than 10 minutes to get on any ride and most of them we walked right on. Someone needs to explain to me why Peter Pan always has a line. Really, it makes no sense to me!













The Little Guy got picked to be a part of the Jedi Training Academy. He was thrilled! If you aren't familiar with the Jedi Training Academy then shame on you. Just kidding, it's just a little show they put on where they teach the kids to fight with light sabers and then let them battle with Darth Vader or Darth Mal. In this case Preston got the spiky-headed, red-faced guy who all of you with little boys know is Darth Mal. He was thrilled! But once he got up there SOOOO serious. I couldn't get him to smile for anything. That little jedi was focused!


After Jedi training my pip-squeak got to meet some princesses. You would think she never wanted to in the first place by the way she acted in front of them. Finally we got her to pose with Cinderella by herself. P.S. my cinderella was totally cuter and even had on the glass (a.k.a. plastic jelly) slippers. This Cinderella had on silver shoes. What??

My pip-squeak LOVED the roller coasters. If she would have been just a half an inch taller then a whole new world of roller coaster fun would have been opened up to her. Oh well, next time. This time we got to ride the gadget go-coaster 12 times. yay...

We got rained on.


But we didn't really care.

This ride made him cry for mercy...
...and her squeal with joy.

We had breakfast...

...with this guy.......... ...and this guy...

... and this one.............................. ...and her.

Lots of fun was had by all and in the 6 days we were gone 231 more picture were taken...

To spare you the agony I've condensed the last two days of our trip into this 50 word blip:

Kids loved Sea World (whales, dolphins, polar bears, otters) parents thought it wasn't worth all the money they charge. San Diego Zoo was awesome as always; saw a hippo smile. Days Inn in San Diego had a bug and sick SICK tub. Complained, left early, got money back. Happy ending.





Want to go back soon.