"BUILDING STRONGER NEIGHBORHOODS"

We had a really great Stake Service Project last Saturday November 15th. We were part of a program that the City of Mesa has that is  

"BUILDING STRONGER NEIGHBORHOODS".

Stake Young Men Young Women 

Presidency

Here's some of the Projects that we did:

1. Painted  numbers on the curbs of about 400 homes
   
2. Cleaned a vacant lot (it was over grown, trash, furniture, shopping carts, basically used for a dump).
3. Painted over the graffiti, in the park and around the neighborhood
4. Painted the electrical boxes, light poles and BB Q's in the park
5. Cleared an over grown ally
6. Cleaned the playground equipment
7. Raked and cleaned out the sand lots at the play ground
8. Scrapped the gum of the sidewalks
9. Sorted and disposed of the nuisance signs from around the City
10. Passed out fliers to the neighbors from the City

We had about 260 youth at the project everyone worked really hard for about 2 hours.

Fun with e-mails

I sent an e-mail out to our family members this week so that I could get new family phone books made up. This is my e-mail:

Dear Family,

Would you please send me an update on you families info for the Jones Family Phone Book. 
NAME
HOME PHONE
ADDRESS
CELL PHONE
WORK PHONE
E-MAIL
BLOG
BIRTHDAY
Please include any new little ones

Thanks for your help
Debbie

I recived a response from my funny husband while he was at work in California, that I haven't stopped laughing at.

Debbie,

Are you serious?  Especially about the new little ones?  Do you think I have a love child over here?  If so, does the love child’s mother get included in the list?  And if so, will she have her own section or will she have a subsection under our family?  And if so, what will we call her, love child’s mother or a friend with benefits?  Do I have to start a blog to be included in the directory?  Have you forgotten my birthday?  Did this help?

Garry

If you've sent me your info already, thanks if not I would love to have it soon. 

Got To Love Arizona (after a trip to California)

Roni and I went to California last weekend for the wedding of a friend of ours and also to see Niels. It was quite the adventure! Saturday morning the three of us (Roni, Niels and I) rode down to the beach to see an Aunt and Uncle, after our visit with them we decided to take a spin down PCH. We love to visit the shops and the pier at Huntington Beach. So we parked and took a stroll. We noticed that there where police cars parked on every street corner, sometimes 2 or 3. When we got to the corner of PCH and Huntington Blvd and there was a large group of demonstrators for No on Prop 8 (the signs said "HATE 8"), blocking the street and causing a commotion trying to get everyone cruising PCH to honk for them. We had to cross over the picket line to get down the pier. It was pretty crazy! 

After the wedding reception Saturday night, we still wanted to do something, so we decided to drive over to Hollywood and take a walk down the Blvd. The traffic was unbelievable getting there, if was about 11:30 PM down town LA and you would have thought that it was evening rush hour, bumper to bumper. We exited the freeway on Sunset Blvd and at about 12:30 (we left home at 10:30).  We cruised down Sunset which took about an hour, then decided to try and make our way up to Hollywood Blvd. the traffic was completely grid locked! We started to notice that there where police parked on every corner and then a couple of helicopters stared circling over head. We wondered what was going on, by the time we got to Hollywood Blvd. we could see that the police had closed off the street and that there where hundreds of people in the street marching and picketing (after checking the Internet, we found out that that there was 1000 demonstrators). Roni and Niels wanted to park and get out and go see all the crazies, but there was no way we could have found a spot to park and I was not interested in getting involved in that mess. It took us about 2 more hours of setting in traffic to even get to the freeway. IT really made me appreciate the traffic that we don't have on our freeways in Arizona!  As for the Demonstrators, YOU LOST GET OVER IT!

HALLOWEEN, FUN TIMES!

On Halloween we had a really great Party! This year I took a few invitations around to our neighbors. We opened the gate to our back yard so anyone that came by could come on in, the turnout was fantastic! Between family, friends and neighbors we had about 75 people stop by. We ate homemade soup and fresh homemade donuts, it was all delicious! 

THE PUMPKINS

Ben and Teri did the carving

THE DECORATIONS

THE FOOD

Bloody Dracula Finger Cookies

Pumpkin Bread Bowls

1. Santa Fe Chicken Soup
2. Chicken Noodle Soup
3. Baked Potato Soup

THE PARTY

Great Costumes

Tyler and Ben looked great !

The Roller Derby Girls

Debbie the Cat, Kelsie & Roni part to the tutu Roller Derby Girls

The Roller Derby Girls in full dress

This is the best view of the tutu girls

All of Ben's friends

Ben, Gavin, Princessa

Amy, Hong, Josh, Alba, Niki & Matt