Holidays Here We COME!

We are headed out of our world and into yours! Hopefully the weather here will be good enough for us to reach you as planned on the 17th. We will be spending Christmas with Dan's family in Park City and then the day after Christmas, we will head to Colorado to visit my family. We are so excited to see all our family and friends!
Our adventures continue to be great here and know that, like normal, they will follow us to you! For example, our water pipes froze for the second time this morning. It was the coldest we have experienced so far at a low of 8 degrees! Thankfully we will be gone for about 3 weeks; however, we will have to come back someday... and like I told my mom, we will deal with it when it comes because "Worrying doesn't take away today of its troubles, it take the strength out of today." We love it here in Sidney now that we are busy, busy, busy!
I think that this Christmas will be one of true meaning this year. Due to a lot of circumstances lately, our hearts have been turned toward Heavenly Father and his Son to help us through. We have also had many great and wonderful experiences to share the gospel with others. This past week alone I handed out 4 Mr. Kreugar's Christmas movies to some people that I work with and an artist that I happened to meet in the Library (which his art is beautiful!!! Daniel Tennant at danielktennant.com for some of his artwork). I am really lucky because I have a great way to introduce the movie... Jerry (my incredible father) named me after the little girl in that movie. So now that the movie is widespread, I feel famous as well!
We hope that you will try and reach us in the next couple of weeks to see us! Our numbers are Dan's (801) 403-3937 and mine (801) 403-9463 Love much and wished of a happy holiday!

Thanksgiving Festivities!

Wow! What a great week! We have been so busy getting things ready for the Winter that it was hard to slow down and remember Thanksgiving. See all the wood outside our window? We have to cut all that up, plus about 8-10 times as much as you see to get prepared. Some people may understand the major process this all is to store up for the winter. I have really taken advantage of central heat in my lifetime. There is wood all over our front yard! Thankfully, it hasn't snowed to stay... yet.

It was very easy to be grateful this Thanksgiving though. We had some men from our branch come and help us Thanksgiving morning to cut, split, and stack wood. It was such a great service and we are so thankful for it! The church has blessed our lives yet again.

We spent Thanksgiving at the Harry's home. They are some friends from our branch and have three of the cutest and funnest kids around. We enjoyed a great dinner prepared by Jenn and myself, and then some games with the five adults (Ben had a mission companion there) that were there while the kids ran around... all hyped up on pie. The turkey didn't even phase them!Dan and I contributed to the consumer's weekend by taking a trip down to Binghamton yesterday. We are sad that Christmas comes a couple of weeks too late because when a person needs snow gear, it can't wait till Christmas. So Dan bought me a boarding coat and I bought him some Carhartt gear so he can have something new to get greasy. Luckily, that is what that brand is made for. After ou r wonderful shopping experience, we went out to eat at a Chinese Buffet. We were tired and very hungry. It was good food, but just to add to all the experiences we have had this week, my fortune cookie said, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you may diet, " and we had a good laugh. What made us laugh quite a lot more is that Dan saved his for the car ride home and he opened his to find that he didn't even get a fortune. Good times!

Merlin!

Dan and I went out last weekend and realized that it was as expensive to go to a movie as it was to buy a long lasting fish! So my wonderful hubby bought me a fish! It is nice to have some other living thing in the house even though we have to leave the space heater on when we leave the house because it will freeze. Yep, it's that cold around here. I haven't quite gotten down the getting and keeping a fire going yet. Dan is good to start it up before he leaves for work, but I can never keep it going.


Last night we put in our front door and we also found the cutest toad! I guess that you can find little adventures in everyday life huh?

The Holidays Have Arrived!!!

Our week was exhausting and wonderful! We work ourselves to the bone! The Halloween carnival at the church that my Young Women were in charge of turned out great. All my girls liked having Tyler around (we don't have any young men in our branch). I loved having the Thomas' here because they were very dedicated to keeping the fire going in our furnace. Lon was the best about this... if you notice the photos, he took 10 min trying to shove the log in the fire... but he did it!
Besides working too much, Bev and I spent all day last Friday making Thanksgiving dinner. I learned how to make homemade stuffing, pies, and whipped cream. We had a full blown dinner in our little kitchen. I swear we dirtied and washed each dish at least twice. The meal was wonderful even though we ate it a 9pm because the boys came home 2 hours late from work. The Thomas' left on Saturday... a little too early and a little too late! :) We are excited to fly back to Utah on Dec. 17th. So those that want to see us, start setting your dates!!!

We had yet another surprise on Sunday when Dan was called as the Branch Clerk. So now with both our callings, we are fulling serving! It is really nice and overwhelming at the same time. I have Young Women's in Excellence this coming Sunday! Yikes! I am also FINALLY starting my Ballroom classes tonight. I am really excited and not nervous at all!
(After all my slaving, I am not in the photo with all my yummy work! Bummer)

Family

We have been blessed to have some of Dan's family, Lon, Bev, and Tyler, out for the week. Although it wasn't the greatest time for us and our house, we are glad to have the extra helping hands. You see, this is now our front room. On a whim, we started tearing it out. So that gave us one room to hang out in with 5 people in the little farm house of ours... the kitchen. Sadly enough, we only have 4 chairs and two are camp chairs. I guess it is a good thing that I like to sit on the counter. We are excited for all the help though.
As you can see, through all the 7 layers of wallpaper, slats, and plaster, there isn't insulation; so we have to put that in... then all the sheetrock, mud, paint, and carpet. Wow! Do we have our work cut out for us or what?

I am excited to have another female in the house with me. I love being able to share cooking ideas and insights about males (the nicest way I can put it). We love them and can't live without them. They are our adventure building men! Tyler even found my real prince charming today, but I decided that I didn't want to kiss him because I love the perfection of imperfection. That is what makes life worth living.

I am thankful for that realization...

Sadly for Dan's family... Bev the most, it was the coldest night yet in New York last night since we have moved here. We woke up to frost and have been freezing all day at a high of 47 degrees. We are lucky though that there isn't snow and our wood furnace works well... even with all the dust it kicked up due to our construction.

We have a busy week with a lot planned on the house, work, and church. I sure hope that we can achieve some of it. We love family and are grateful for the visitors!

Welcome to the Tiki Adventures Online!!!

Aloha!
Dan and I decided that it would be a better idea if all of you didn't have to get a huge email every time you want an update. It just didn't seem fair to use up all the space on those mailboxes that aren't built like gmail accounts. :) So we have decided to make everything as accessible to you as you would like it. You can get on, or you can just shun the Thomas' out in New York and forget that we exist. But, we welcome you to our site.
We will still send a little email letting you know when we post updates for you. We love you and are so grateful for all the support that you show and give us.
Claire and Dan