Boys From The Hood

This is a photo of four boys who grew up together in Antelope, CA. They have since moved to a variety of new locations. They came together over Thanksgiving and all went on a group Date. Starting from the left we have Ryan Scott, Mikayla Woods, ? Winters, Aiden Hoopes, Madison Woods, and Bryce Wilson. Aiden and Bryce used to carpool together home from kindergarten. They would love to stand up in my minivan and pretend they were surfing home. They would hold their arms out to their sides and repeat the words,"Surf boarding! Surf boarding!" All the way home. Which was only about 2 minutes away. Neither of them remember doing that.

This is a photo of the whole group who went on the date. Aiden's first date is seated on the couch below him. He had to pay for her way into the movies, and food aferward, and everything. By "he" I mean Mom and Dad. We kind of forced him to go. We couldn't ask him to use his money to do it. We are hoping this opened the door to future group dating with his friends here in Auburn.

Too Tall

We have decided that Richard is too tall to have lived in the 1800's. He would have experienced some difficulties in everyday living. This is an actual cabin from the 1800's that pioneers built upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.
This is a replica of the sleeping units on ships for families crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to America. A good night's sleep would have been difficult for Richard while crossing the Atlantic.

Church History Museum

While in Utah we HAVE to go to Temple Square with the kids. This time instead of going through the temple visitor's center, we toured the Church History Museum. Here is a family photo in front of an actual pioneer cabin that was built by pioneers who first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. It was very small. I am not sure if our family could have survived such close quarters.
This photo in front of the Christmas tree grossed out our kids. They all had to look away for a moment.


Here is an exact replica of the podium in the Conference Center. Stone and Jeffy are practicing for when they are called to the Apostleship in a few years.This is what the podium looks like from the Prophet's perspective. Notice the white leather arm rests, the analog clock in the upper right hand corner, and the computer screen in the center. The computer screen displays their talk in addition to the two monitors that are in front of the podium.
Here is the Hoopes family getting ready to embark on their journey West with our covered wagon. It looks like a couple of our kids are staying back East, and joining us later.
Claire and Olivia have to travel to Zion via the Atlantic Ocean. They look pretty comfortable in their assigned bunk on the ship.

Richard and Aiden are standing in front of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and Hyrum Smith's death masks. These are fascinating to see. Without any actual photos of the prophet, this is as close to a true likeness as we will get.

Carolyn At Work

Here is Carolyn hard at work at Deseret Books in the Layton mall. This was taken on Black Friday. She had to work from 6 am to 12 noon that day. I'd say that retail suits her, wouldn't you?

Happy Thanksgiving !

For Thanksgiving this year we journeyed to Utah to be with the Woods family. Carolyn and I put together a mighty fine meal if I may say so myself. This in only about half of the amount of food that was on the table when we all sat down to eat.
And here is a picture of us all sitting down to eat. This would be considered the "Adults" table.
This is the "kids" table. Stone and Taylor barely qualify for kids anymore. But we just didn't have room for any more people at the bigger table. You may notice the table decorations? We made those on Thanksgiving morning courtesy of Grandma Wright. She found the crafts, and provided the supplies.
Here is a picture of us engaged in our crafts earlier that morning. Maddi and Mikayla helped even though they were not permitted at the Kids table.

Here is an example of the finished products. The kids made a woven place mat, a turkey nut cup, a turkey name place holder, and an Indian corn pin/magnet/table decor thing.

On Thanksgiving morning we woke the kids up with a wonderful breakfast of hot scones, specialty hot chocolates, and fruit. Yummy!

Despite the wonderful food available, Maddi was just too tired to indulge at the moment. Stone thought it wise to poke at her head, and risk retaliation. But of course, Maddi was above reproach and refused to get upset.
After the feast we all gathered in the family room for a spiritual activity of giving thanks. We each had to choose a slip of paper from a jar. On the paper was something we were to express gratitude for. An example would be "Your Mother", or " The Gospel", or "Your Sister(s)". Then we went around the room listening to each others thoughts of gratitude. Of course there were only a few tears. Mostly by me and Aunt Carolyn.

Elder Hoopes Comes Home!

this was the first shot we had of Elder Hoopes coming off the plane

I didn't wait 2 seconds before running up and hugging him. He was much skinnier than I remember him being. I had trouble getting my arms around him because of his big backpack.


Claire was the second one to hug Richard. She was very excited to have her older brother home. I can't imagine what it would be like to have siblings that much older than me? But Claire seems to love interacting with her 21 year old brother, and almost 19 year old sister.


I let everyone have their turn hugging Richard, and then I took over the job. Big Richard was absolutely beaming with pride over his eldest son.


Here is a great shot of the three Elders Richard Hoopes'. Does that make sense? Let me explain for those of you who don't know. All three of these men are named Richard Terrell Hoopes. So there have been three different Elder Richard Terrell Hoopes' who have served the Lord.

Okay, Okay, I was beaming with pride just a little myself that day. This weekend was Stake Conference, so Richard got to see alot of people, and alot of people got to see him. It was fun.


Here is a random shot from the airport.


Here is Richard waiting for his luggage. He wouldn't let anyone help him carry his suitcases. He knew how to hook them up into a train for transportation. A trick he was taught in the MTC.


Following the airport we all went out to eat at our family's favorite dim sum restaurant called Capitol Tea. It is on T street in the capitol of California...Get it? We ate copious amounts and had enough left over for breakfast the next day.

Mom has some more photos in her camera. They are actually better. Stone and Claire were taking these for us. I will post her pictures later. I just wanted to get this up so family members could see it. Tonight we are having a family meet and greet for Richard. I will take pictures of that and post them as well.

New Friends

I have encouraged Claire to make new friends. This is a young girl from our ward that Claire invited to spend the night. They didn't plan to wear the same clothes, but when her friend got dressed the next morning, Claire realized that they had the exact same clothes. She ran to get her red jacket to complete the outfits.

One of Claire's favorite things to do is to sew at Grandma's house. So she brought her new friend over to her favorite place, Grandma's sewing room. They had a good time playing with all of Grandma's fun and expensive toys. They played with all the fancy stitches her machine could do.

The final product. They made new matching scripture bags, complete with their names embroidered on them. The girls sewed the fabrics together, and made the handles themselves. It was the first time Claire's friend had sat at a sewing machine, and she was a natural. She wants to come back now and make a quilt and use that big quilting machine in the room. They have rolled up placemats in their bags. They were using those as swords.

Are You From Utah?

Stone heard that we were planning to go to Utah for Thanksgiving. So he began growing out his hair into the most lovely mullet he could muster. Not bad for only having one month to grow out his hair!?

Now he will feel like one of the crowd as he cavorts around Kayesville with his cousins. Actually this is a hair piece from Candice's salon. She brought it over for Lindsey to try with her extensions. It doesn't look good on anyone.

Where The Wild Things Are

Lindsey waited for weeks for the movie premier of "Where The wild Things Are". That was one of her favorite books as a child. She planned and scavenged together her "Wild Things" outfit to wear to the opening night.


We had fun taking photos down our street. There was a big oak tree that had just fallen a couple of days prior to this. She thought it would be perfect for the pictures.


This is the dog owned by the man whose tree fell down. Lindsey loves this dog because she says it looks just like the werewolf "Lupin" from Harry Potter.

A Happy Halloween !

For Halloween this year, and every year, we went to Aunt Holly and Uncle Mario's house in Rocklin. Trick or Treating around Meadow Vista is rather lame. We are down to only 3 trick or treaters: Sydney, Claire, and Haley.


There was not a blessed vegetable to be found on our dinner table that night. It must be Halloween.


Aiden and Andrew just hung out watching TV. They were not up for a costume this year. Aiden has Andrew's text book in hand. No wonder he gets straight A's.


Stone and Hannah didn't dress up, but they had fun handing out candy to the trick or treaters.


Now Sage, on the other hand, was full swing into the Halloween spirit. She had her Dad do her make up. She was supposed to scare the children upon arrival at the door, but it is not in Sage's nature to scare anyone. So with her ghoulish face, she would say "Hi", and welcome them to some treats. One child saw Sage, and just refused to come to the door. Poor thing.

Here is Claire with her "take" for the evening. As my friend put it," Our tax base is dwindling." We used to have 5 people contributing candy and 2 "on the dole". Now we have 1 person contributing candy, and 6 "on the dole". Sounds kind of like our Social Security System?