Well last Saturday I went to Winter Formal. It was a girls choice dance so I asked a kid named John Cioara. He has been one of my friends for a very long time. Even though he is not LDS, he has good morals so I asked him to the dance. I did not know who else to ask to the dance. He was also the only person that I felt the most comfortable with going to the dance with. It was so much fun though.

For the day date we went to my friend Kylee's house and had a messy date. We played apple schmear and had lunch. You are probably asking what is Apple Schmear. Well it is very messy. You get really rotten apples and throw them at people. These people you are throwing them at have tennis rackets and they are going to hit the apples. When they hit the apples with the racket, they all disintegrate and spray everywhere. It is so disgusting. If you do not close your mouth, you get rotten apple in it. When I was up to bat, two people threw me an apple. So I tried dodging one while hitting the other and when I saw the apple coming at me really fast, I realized it was going to hit me in the stomach so I turned around and it ended up hitting me in the back. This apple was one of the most rotten apple there was in the box though so it was smeared all over my back. It was really grouse!! The person who hit me felt really bad and kept apologizing over and over again but I thought it was funny and was not mad at all that the apple hit me. So that is apple schmear. It was so much fun.

Then after playing Apple Schmear, we ate lunch. This sounds easy right? Well guess again. I said it was a messy date. So there were twists to eating. We had potato salad, jello with whipped cream, and sandwiches. When we all sat down at the table to eat, we were all tied together. So my right wrist was connected to John's left wrist and my left wrist was connected to another guys wrist. We were allowed to do anything we wanted with out hands. We could push someones hand away if they were going to take a bite of their sandwich or if they were taking a drink of their water, we could push their cup away from their mouth and make them spill the water everywhere. John and the guy next to me decided to make me eat with just my face and held me hands back so that I could not use them at all. Then when I went to eat they shoved my face into my jello. It was not nice but it was really funny. They got pay back later though. We all ended up with really messy faces and clothes because lunch ended up being a food fight. Haha.

Well after our day date, we all went home and got cleaned up. My mom did my hair and it took about 2 hours to do it. But it was worth sitting there for two hours. My hair turned out really cute!! John came and picked me up and tried putting the corsage on me but was too nervous. He though he bought one that is supposed to be on the wrist, but he bought one that pins onto the dress. So he tried but ended up letting my mom pin it on me. It was way funny. I pined his corsage on him and we were off. We went to dinner at my friends house and dinner was really good. Her little sister made the food and all her little siblings served to us. It was really cute. By the time we were done eating our stomach's were sore because we kept laughing so hard about what we did earlier in the day. It was so much fun. Then we went to the dance. Dancing is not my forte in life. I felt really weird and stupid trying to dance. So did John and my friend Ami and her date. So we sat to the side and made up stupid moves and just laughed at each other as we did it. It was great. I loved it. After spending a good two and a half hours at the dance, we all left and hung out at another friends house. We were planing on staying there for a while but everyone was so tired after the long day. We all sat on the couches and were all falling asleep sitting there. I saw John was having a really hard time keeping his eyes open because that morning he had soccer practice and he had to run 15 laps with his team. So he was exhausted after all that happened that day. So I asked him if he wanted to leave and we did. I got home about 11:30 and my dad was surprised I was home so early. But I had an amazing time at the dance with John. It was so much fun. Here are some pictures of me, and my dress, and me and John. Hope you enjoy!

Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy to your blog and change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then tag whomever you choose......'Tis the Season!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Most definitely wrapping paper. Paper bags are easier but it takes the fun out of unwrapping presents on Christmas.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Definitely Real. I absolutely love the real Christmas trees.

3. When do you put up the tree? Right after Thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? The day after Christmas

5. Do you like eggnog? NO. Not at all. It is so sickening.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I remember the year that we all got new bikes after moving here to Arizona. I loved that. But I recently got a full length mirror that my Dad and Mom made for me. That mirror has been my FAVORITE gift of all times.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Jaden or my dad. They both don't tell me what they want. So it is really hard.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Amanda because I always know what she wants.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? I don't. I haven't needed one yet.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I would like to send them by mail but that makes me have to be crafty by making the cards and I am really not crafty at all.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A piece of coal. Haha. I am just kidding. I really don't have a worst Christmas gift. I have liked all my gifts.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I have to agree with Amanda that my favorite is The Nativity. But My other two favorites are Elf and Santa Clause. They are all Totally amazing.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? When December hits.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I do not think I have.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Anything with Cinnamon flavor. I think of Cinnamon as a Christmas taste. I love it.

16. Lights on the tree? DUH. Oh course. It is the best decoration.

17. Favorite Christmas song? I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas because I really do dream of a white Christmas.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Well as soon as I look them all up and read all their names once I will know them all again. I forgot them at the moment though.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star. They are the best.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We always open one on Christmas Eve but it is always pajamas, and then we open the rest on Christmas Day.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? All the snow birds are here.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I really like the silver ornaments. Or glittery ornaments.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Ham, Chips and Dip, Corn, Home Made Rolls, and so fourth. It is all so yummy!! It makes me hungry just thinking about it.

25. Favorite family Christmas tradition? I like going to see the temple lights. But I also like going to see a movie on Christmas Eve with my family. It is fun.

Why Must They Grow?


I am sitting at the computer on a Tuesday night and contemplating life. I am going to state a saying that I find a bit annoying but yet it is true “why is it the older you get, the faster time goes?” I can not believe it is already November, what happened to the 4th of July? How is it that I only had the boat out three times this summer? The dog days of summer are gone…sort of, it is still 87 degrees out there. Thanksgiving is just a few days away and we all know that Christmas is not far behind that, and then WHAM! We have another new year and it was only last week that I finally stopped messing up whenever I put the date on paper. And what I hate the most of all is three out of four of my kids birthdays are around that new year thing as well and it wont be long before time will start to fly fast for them, and for me it will be in warp speed.

There is a saying that I also don’t like and that is “The reason you have kids is because you will get grandkids” This is the biggest pile of crud that I have ever heard. Now I do not have any grandkids to speak of, but I can truly say I wish my kids would stop growing. Is this selfish? I really enjoy my kids, they spoiled me, and they are just too good. Maybe if some of them were more annoying, or misbehaved, or in jail I would be willing to wish them to be older, but that is just not the case. In this world we all try to find faults with things, and then find someone to blame them on. I am truly putting all the blame on my children for spoiling me. Had they gave me a little harder of time I would be willing to have them move on and get married or go off to college. I am hoping that some day I will be able to move on from these feelings, and I will be able to move onto the Grandpa stage of life but I don’t think this is going to be coming soon. I think I will find away to freeze them, and time, in order to keep them from growing old like me. Trace Atkins has a song that has a lyric in it that loosely states “you are going to miss this time”. Most of my friends have kids younger than me, I exhort you to listen to this song and take it to heart. ENJOY your kids everyday because time goes by so very fast and before you know it your oldest is college and your second child is a Senior, and your Son has more girl friends than boy friends and all you have some times at the dinner table is your baby and she is nearly 13. By the way I know I am really not that old, but my kids are making me look old.

I really do not want to go onto another rant about Taco Bell but I feel that I must. I was asked by my lovely wife on Saturday to stop after work and get some Taco Bell. I work 15 miles from home and I have a lot of choices to what establishment to patronize. Well I immediately thought of the last location that gave me material for my last blog and I thought twice about this, so I went to a location that is close to my work.

Life was good, the location is always clean and for the most part they at least have one white person working the counter. Upon ordering my food witch consisted of a potential for nine wrapped items and a total of 15 items all together I was feeling really good about this place. I received my bags of food and was loading the bags with various levels of hot sauce, I was sorting out the packets that said "will you marry me" this is saved for another blog. When the thought came to me "count your many items, name them one by one" Since my last auto accident in January I have decided to listen to the spirit a lot more closely. I could not believe my eyes. I was short food, not just any food, MY FOOD! I really do not know what is going on in my life to warrant such bad service. I really try to tip well when I go to restaraunt even when they food stinks and the service is worse. Is carma trying to tell me that Chalupa's are bad for you. Maybe my waist line is getting larger due to these Chalupa's? I dont think it is my bad carma, I think that people at Taco Bell is making minimum wage and they cant count pass ten whithout taking off some shoes and then possibly pulling down their pants.

So Halloween has come and gone again. It was the last Halloween I will have at home for a while. Sad days. Now I won't have my crazy friends to dress up with even though we are all older. That is my favorite part about Halloween. I LOVE to dress up. This year was a great Halloween. I had a costume thought of since the Halloween before this years. I decided that I would be dressing up as Frankensteins Bride. I was so excited to dress up like this and could not wait. After enduring a whole 12 months of waiting, it was finally here Halloween!! My friend had a costume party for her birthday party on Halloween, so I had an excuse to dress up as Frankensteins Bride. So me and my mom went out and looked for something that I could wear as my dress. We went to the D.I. and looked at the wedding dresses, and thought after looking at them that it would be kind of sac-religious to ruin a wedding dress for a Halloween costume. So we ditched that idea, and ended up using my angel costume from a couple of years ago and making a train that attached to the angel costume. So now I have a two in one costume. It is awesome. My mom and I also bought a wig for it. On Thursday we carved pumpkins and I carved a Frankenstein pumpkin just because that was relating to my costume that I wore. Then Tori carved the Statue of Liberty, and my mom carved the amazing Dracula. That was my favorite pumpkin. She did a great job with it. Here are some pictures of it.

So those are the pumpkins and here are our costumes. Jaden was too cool and did not carve a pumpkin, or dress up for Halloween. So Tori dressed up as an Egyptian, Tysen(my cousin) dressed up as a knight, and I of course dressed up as Frankensteins Bride.

So that is our Halloween. Oh and the cool part is, there was an owl on the roof of our neighbors house. I am not kidding about that. Here is one last picture. It was totally amazing. It was a GREAT Halloween.

I know some of you have heard my rant on Taco Bell this last weekend but I still bitter. After Tori's game on Saturday I went to Taco Bell to get some lunch for the kids. Some of the kids were still at home so we needed to get it to go. I hate going through the drive in, so I made the effort to go into the building and order the food. I have many times not received what I have ordered when going through the drive through. Well you can guess by now what has happened. I was shorted some food...MY FOOD! I do not understand the complexity of making food, wrapping food, and then putting food in a bag, but for some reason this is next to impossible to do 100% of the time. I am not asking the great Taco Bell employs to do a really hard task such as quantum physics, it is simply put the food that I ordered and paid for into a bag, seriously my six year old nephew, Tyson could do this, with much more accuracy. Some of you are saying that I am taking this to far and I need to give it a rest. I would just like to say that while I am not makeing $8.50 an hour, if I left something out of my job someone would die. Luckily I had some food in my house to eat, and I did not perish. I love the quote from the not so great Isaiah Thomas when during a Utah Jazz basketball game Karl Malone elbowed him in the head and he had to take a few stitches "I could of died" let it be know that even though you don't use a drive through, count your items that you think you have ordered because we know how hard it is to count to ten sometimes.

Questions About The Scriptures to Ponder

I want all of you to write down questions if you have any about what you read in the scriptures. Maybe we will be able to help you find the answers to those questions.

1) What happened to Joseph. The scriptures say that when Jesus was on the cross, he looked down at Mary and saw her crying. He then looked over at his diciple, and told him to take care of Mary because he could not anymore. So why did the diciple have to take care of her, and not Joseph. Is Joseph dead? And didn't mary and Joseph have any other kids? Where were all of them when Christ was being Crusified?

2) I already know this answer but, In the story of Moses and the fiery serphants, why was a snake placed on the rod for people to look at if they got bitten. The snake is supposed to resemble Jesus, and we think of the snake as Satan now. Just some food for thought.

3) When Jesus is depicted he is a white, longish hair, bearded, and tall man. But in the scriptures when Jesus is with the Jews, I don't remember who, but this guy comes up and kisses Jesus in recognition that he is there. But when they did this that means that Jesus looked like them right. They would not have kissed someone that was not a jew or the same ethnicity as them. The Jews look like short people, short, curley hair, and mexicanish skin. So why do we depict him the way we do now.

Tori's Amazing Game

Well the other day I had the privilege to go to Tori's soccer game. It was the first one that I have been to since she started the season. So Tori and I travel all the way to her game, and I sit on the side line waiting for the game to start. Let me tell you, it was really hot outside!! The game finally started about 10 minutes late. So the first quarter is in session and her team is trying to score in the goal facing the sun. Then her team kept the ball on that side of the field the whole 1st quarter and 2nd quarter. I was looking into the sun the whole time and I was beginning to get a huge headache. So by the time half time came, there had been no scores made by either team. The girls looked like they were all tired and ready to go sit in a cool air conditioned house. But their coach must have bribed them or something because when they came out within 5 minutes Tori's team had scored a goal. They were so excited!!! They were all jumping up and down, cheering, and they all of a sudden had a HUGE boost of energy. This time they were shooting at the goal that was away from the sun. Thank goodness. So after the first goal, within minutes, Tori's team scored again. Again they were so excited. Then another few more minutes they scored another goal. 3 shots were made in the 3rd quarter and they other team did not even have a chance to get the ball down to the other side of the field. After a short break, the winning strike did not end. The other team did a better job at defence, but Tori's team scored 2 more goals within the last quarter. Their last goal was about 2 minutes from the end of the game. It was a well played game. It was the first game that they have won. They did not just win though. They worked on a lot of passing the ball during their practice and they put it to work on the field during the game. That is what helped them win the game. They had amazing team work and were constantly calling each others names so that they could pass to their team members effectively. They were amazing and I was so proud of how Tori did in the game. She was stopping the other team from getting the ball past her, and was always trying to get the ball into the goal. She did not give up through the whole game. She is amazing!!!! Good Job Tori.

Let me put some perspective on the Six Flags trip and why it was a great adventure for us. I will need to tell you that I am very cheap these days, I wanted to have some fun with the kids and when I was given these tickets for full entrance to the park for free "thanks Justin" I could not pass them up. My idea was, now that we have four licensed drivers in the Ralph family we could leave Saturday morning at say 2:am and drive all night and get to Six Flags before they open. We would then spend all day getting our brains all jumbled up in our heads and then jump back into the car and drive home and be in our beds around 3:am Sunday. This was crazy and we will not do that again but we did do it. This trip taught me a very good message that I am never going to forget. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

I found out that I am not a sixteen year old boy anymore. I can not go on ride after ride and not have a very strong desire to loose my lunch. I am not afraid to ride any ride, but I now know their is consequences for my actions and most of them are undesirable.

I have learned that I can not deal without at least six hours of sleep a night. It is crazy how your mind sees things when you are without sleep, and how it takes twice as much sleep to catch up on the sleep that you missed.

I also learned that no matter how crazy the idea was or even that you spent all day in the very humid air, or that the rental car was not very safe, or that body odor is not very pleasant on the way home from being out in the heat all day, that time spent with your family is AWSOME! and I cant wait to have another adventure with them again.

Tessa did a great job!

This is Tessa. She is a cutie. I love this picture of her. It is like a gaurdian angel she is. I love her soo much.

Tessa did a great job on this blog. I congradulate her on it. I am going to have sooooooooooooooooooooo much fun with it. I could change the text color, font , and even add picttures to it. it will be so much fun. In fact I will send a picture of her right now. It is on the top of the page.

SIX FLAG TRIP

Tessa and Amanda in the car on the way to Six Flags in style!!

Jaden and Tori in the car on the way to six flags. Do you like Jaden's girly sun glasses?

The family waiting anxiousley for the gates to open so we could ride on the thrilling rides. Mom was taking the picture.

U2 is the first ride that we went on at the park. Mom was so scared when she went on it that she closed her eyes the whole way through. It was my favorite ride.

This is a picture of a ride. I can not remember the name of it though. We had to stand up on the ride instead of sit down. It was awesome.

We were all really tired towards the end of the day. Our heads were all spining, our stomachs were sick and we were ready to go and take a nap.

Wow Tessa did a great job setting this blog up. I wish I was as talented as she is. Kenlynne and I are really blessed to have such a great kid. She is AWESOME!

All About Us

Glynn- Glynn is the president of the Elders quorum for church right now. He is very dedicated to the calling. He is also a mechanic at Chapman Chevrolet. Glynn loves to build furniture out in the "shop," also know as the garage. He has built many many things ranging from entertainment centers, and beds, to mirrors, music stands, and cutting boards. He is a GREAT dad and husband and loves his family very much.

Kenlynne- Kenlynne is a hard working person. She has gone through about 6 years of college and graduated with a bachelors of science in excercise and wellness. She now works at the Banner Heart Hospital as an Exercise Physiologist. She takes all the patients that have been in the hospital because they have had surgery on their heart and walks them. Then she teaches them about their heart condition and what they should eat and what they should do when they are outside of the hospital. She also works in the gym helping the patients work out on the machines. After working all day at the hospital she returns home and keeps busy there. She makes sure all of the kids homework is done, dinner is made, and the house is cleaned up. Then if she has extra time she wors outside with my dad building furniture, or right now works inside reupholstering couches. She is a loving dedicated mother and wife and works hard on anything that she has to get done.

Amanda- Amanda is 19 years old and attends Eastern Arizona College in thatcher. She will be graduating there with her associates degree at the end of the year. Then she will be coming back to Gilbert to further her education. She is majoring in speech therapy. While she is in thatcher she is busy with musical classes as well as her core classes. She plays as the accompanist in the men's choir class, takes private lessons for piano, plays flute in marching band, plays the flute in a band class there, and accompanies solo singers for their concerts. As you can tell she is a very busy girl with just the music classes. She also takes anatomy, marriage and family relations, and world of music. All her classes total up to 19 credits for this one semester. Crazy girl.

Tessa- Tessa is 17 and is a senior in high schools. She is an officer in the Best Buddies program. She is also a member of the Symphony Orchestra playing violin. Outside of school she is busy worrying about applying for scholarships, and colleges. Adding to that, she works at Salerno's Pizzeria. She loves it there. The Pizzeria is a family run restaurant and they are very good to her. They are good at giving her the days she needs off for orchestra and best buddies.

Jaden- Jaden is a 15 year old sophomore at Highland High School. He is in honors classes and is busy keeping his grades up. He is also in the marching band as well as symphonic band playing the trumpet. He has recently passed up Tessa in height and still growing. He is working on getting his Eagle award before he turns 16.

Tori- Tori is the youngest. She is 12, turning 13 in December and she is really excited about that. She just entered Jr. High. She enjoys her classes and the new atmosphere of her classes. She is playing the cello and enjoys it so much. She also plays the piano. She is always practicing her cello. She practices her cello more than the piano most days. She also enjoys drawing, and painting in her free time. She is becoming such a good artist. She loves animals. She bought herself a hamster because she wanted one so much, and takes care of her very well.

Buck- Buck is an old man. He is getting fat because all he does all day is sleep on the couch. But he is a great dog and we all love him.