A walk, a tank, and the trees!

Well I have promised a gazillion, or at least an immeasurable amount of people that I would post pictures of the beautiful trees here! All of these pictures have a time line of about a month. So the first pictures are in the beginning of October and the last ones are at the end!

Deric and I took the dogs for a walk on a Sunday afternoon and found some interesting things that Deric was pretty excited about. (Notice some leaves on the ground, but most of the trees are still green.)

Tada! Behold, "Deric's tank." Boy was he excited to find out that there is a tank just up the street from our house at the local "post." (Whatever that is.) If you asked Deric he would say that the tank is probably the best part of Pennsylvania. Boys...

We found a little park just further down past the tank and took a second to take a picture with the dogs. Wow- my hair is getting super long, time for a hair cut?


You probably have to click on this picture and enlarge it to see the pretty trees. But I wanted to put this pic up to show some of the pretty country side that I get to see all the time!

More country side and trees!

I like this picture a lot. It reminds me a little of the Aspens on Cedar Mountain back in Utah.

Wide shot of all the trees. This is pretty typical everywhere here so far. It might be in the same area, the same type of tree, or on the same tree and have all sorts of blazing beautiful colors!

Okay, here is my tree in my backyard at the beginning of October...My neighbor's tree at the beginning of October...

Dang! What a difference a couple of weeks makes! I have loved all the different colors this fall and crunching through the leaves. Almost all the leaves have fallen now and its a little sad, but that only means we are getting close to the HOLIDAYS!

Happy fall everyone! Go jump in some leaves!

Happy Birthday Dad!

This is my dad and today is his birthday! I'm a little lame and haven't done much for him or my mom, so this is a little memory "awwww" moment. I love you dad!

Who is that good looking guy?

Sharp dressed family!

Old school, Christmas Eve at the Daniels house. Probably playing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

I love this picture. I love that I've never been embarassed by my parents. I don't think they would be able to say the same thing about me though...

Smile!

This is the greatest! My dad has no mustache, but we all do! This is when he was called to be the Bishop and needed to shave his mustache and beard. Not even my mom had seen my dad without all of his facial hair. So it was a big surprise to see him! Isn't he super cute? And super young looking? Woot woo!

Dad I hope you had a good day and a fun weekend with mom! I can't wait to see you whenever that next time is. Just remember that I love you so much and am so grateful to have parents like you. Thanks for teaching me to be myself, and to always have fun!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My first coupon expreience!

Holy moly! Talk about time consuming (only because I make it that way I'm sure) and a little frustrating, but totally worth it. What am I talking about you ask? COUPONS. So Erin Papa turned me on to clipping and saving coupons. Obviously one knows that you can save money with coupons, but if you are a smart cookie, one can really save using coupons. So I've been saving and clipping coupons for a month or so and have a pretty good stock. But now I needed to actually use them and prove that I either could or could not do "the coupon thing." So I looked at the ads to see what was on sale already and what I could apply my coupons to, thus saving even more money. I wondered into Giant Eagle at about 3:10p.m. and loaded all my goods into my car around 4:44p.m. I KNOW. I do make it harder on myself than is necessary. But I wanted to make sure I was getting the good deals and wasn't misunderstanding all those stupid little slips of paper and their tiny writing. Here is how it breaks down.

HEIDI'S GIANT EAGLE AWESOME SAVINGS

Total Purchase before coupons and other savings: $103.22 DANG!
Total purchase after all coupons and store savings: $55.44!!!


Drum roll please!


TOTAL SAVINGS: $47.78

I used a ton of coupons and also tried to get items that were already on sale.

I saved $24.58 buying sale items at the store
And I saved on top of that $23.20 with my own coupons (don't forget they double coupons under $1.00.) Pretty neat huh?

So what did I get you ask?

8 boxes of cereal
12 cans of different kinds of soup (Progresso and Thick& Chunky)
9 cans of condensed soup
2 boxes of boxed potatoes
2 jars of mayo
2 tooth brushes
2 boxes of cheez-its
1 box of chicken broth
2 packages of chocolate chips
2 boxes of healthy harvest spaghetti
1 box of Q-tips
1 Dial soap dispenser

The dogs checking out the damages

Tada!

Here is my food storage plus everyday food! Not all of this is from today's winnings.

Yeah for finding deals and taking the time to get them!

And Deric is pleased too. I just talked to him on the phone and told him the news. His response was "$47.78! That's like finding that on the ground! That's like free money!"

Happy Birthday Mom!

Now I know that everyone thinks that they have the best mom in the world, but the thing is, I actually do. I am so grateful to have a mom that taught me and raised me the way she did. She has always been my example and my best friend. Its weird how when you are growing up that you don't think of your mom as your best friend, even though she is. But now that I am older and have moved away and grown up a bit, my mom is without a doubt my very best friend. I'm excited to do different things but nothing is more wonderful or exciting than spending time with my family and my mom. She is the one I always call first when I have a probably or when I want to share exciting news. I love my mom!

So mom, happy birthday! I miss you and I love you! Here are some pictures that I have of you!

Steph's Graduation

My Seminary Graduation!

Steph's wedding

Disneyland! Oh man I want to go back so bad. This is one of my very favorite memories of when we all got to go to Disney as a family!

Nater Pertater and MOM

At a cousin's wedding

In the Bellagio, we love Vegas!

I love this pic! My mom and her new Deric Ence bowl!

Disney awesomeness! "Pretty sure as you're born!"

We are so cool! I love you mom!

Family Visits are the BEST!

Oh my goodness we had our family from Oregon and Georgia visit us! It was so fun to see them and for them to see our new digs! Steph and Brian brought their puppy Portland, and our dogs were elated to have a toy that moved around on its own! They had a blast, look at my last post for pictures!

We mostly just hung out and relaxed with each other. We explored Edinboro campus a bit, and then went up to Erie to check out the lake and some stores. My family got to go to church with us and see what its liked there, and then the Papa's invited us over for some Sunday dinner which was SO fun! It was all very relaxing but so fun!

Here is Step-on-me and myself in the car. I'd only been up to Edinboro a couple of times, and Deric has driven every time. So I couldn't remember how to get up there too well. And for some reason I couldn't remember any of the town names that we needed to go through. All I could remember was Cambridge Springs. So we went the long way, but we got to see some very pretty country side!

Here is my mom and myself. Isn't she pretty? She's going to be a grandma soon! And she is SO excited!
This is on Edinboro campus. We sat down and had a short break while we waited for Deric to finish up some things at school.

This was SUPER fun and I'm so glad we explored a little bit. We wondered up to Erie and found a really nice beach at Lake Erie. We didn't get the chance to swim, but we all waded in the water and threw some rocks. Here is Brian and Deric gearing up to test the waters!
I took this picture and said while taking it, "Everyone wave to Nathan! Hello Nater Pertater in Canada!" He is just over the lake and up a couple of hours in that direction! We were all so close, as close as we will get before we see him again next year!
Classic Deric and Heidi pic, cute and awkward because I'm taking it.

Isn't he cute? He is my little Gilligan!

Throwing rocks, we all got into it a little bit. My mom was rocking it!


Ok Steph, don't kill me. But I seriously think this is the cutest picture ever. My sister is due at the beginning of November. I'm guessing she will deliver at the end of October. But isn't she so cute in the water? I can't wait!

Haha! Ok, I know this is a weird pic. Something you probably could have gone without seeing. But here is a random fact about Deric that he would consider very important. He has his own scale of public bathrooms and how acceptable they are. I usually get a report where ever we go. A bathroom scores better with the more things he doesn't have to touch, aka not getting germs. So when you have to turn on the water by hand and crank out your own paper towls and whatnot, that's gross and scores poorly. My husband is the one who gets his paper towls first so that he doesn't have to "dirty" them again after he washes his hands. Which if you think about it, all bathrooms are pretty gross so I guess its not so weird. But here is the story.

So we went and checked out the casino in Erie and I used the restroom. I immediately ran out, found Deric, and asked him if he had used the facilities yet. He replied no. So I told him that he needed to because they had part of his dream bathroom, automatic seat covers! When you waive your hand in front of a sensor the seat cover adjusts itself to a brand new plastic area to rest your rump, preventing any shared germs with the last user. Seriously, Deric's dream. So he ran into the bathroom and...... the men's restroom didn't have them. haha. Poor Deric. But isn't that funny? I sure thought so!

We went over to the Coburns and Gary gave us a tour of the John Brown museum.





And this picture is of Gary's old barn. My mom wanted me to take a picture for her because she and her friend like old barns. It is pretty cool!

Dinner at the Papa's! It was so good, thanks again!

Hanging out, reading baby books, giving baby blankets that I made, and waiting for the boys to come back with a movie. (Coraline, not a great family movie. Decent, but it is a Tim Burton movie.)



And how could I leave the puppies out? They really did become the best of friends. We hope to visit Brian, Steph, and Portland soon in Georgia sometime in November. Maybe we will bring the pups and they can be best buddies again!

Thanks for coming and visiting us out here in our new home! We love and miss you guys a lot!

New Best Friends

Well my family came to visit Deric and I in the great land of the PA. I will post pictures from their trip later because it was awesome. But I first need to show what none of us expected. Some new best friendships...

My dad and Tucker loved each other!

And then Tucker got more comfortable around my dad.

Too comfortable...

haha. They eventually became the best of wrestling friends!

Look how cute they are. "We was just like peas and carrots."

And then Portland (my sister's dog) came and Tucker and Scout had a brand new toy that moved!

But Scout was much more interested in stealing that new toy's frisbee.

But Tucker was much more interested in chasing the new toy!

And they were tired and all took naps.

What a cutie!

It was so fun to have Portland over and for the dogs to have a new buddy to play with.

"People let me tell you, bout my best friend!"

Our Friends the Papa's!

We are so grateful to have moved to a nice place, have a nice home, but to also be fortunate to know some people out here. But we don't just know them, they are our very good friends from Utah and we are so happy to be here with them! Talk about a blessing! We love the papa's!

This is Erin and her two babies, Noah and Asher! They are all super cute! I promised Erin I wouldn't post "bad" pictures of her. So Erin I think this is a cute picture!

This is Heath being a good daddy and showing Noah how to feed the chicks out of his hand. Noah thought it would be more fun to throw the food at the chickens, but I'm sure they appreciated the food regardless of how it was delivered. Good job Noah!

More chickens! This is across the street from the Papa's at the Coburn's place. They are in our same ward and are very nice people and have the best little farm ever! Free range chickens are so much fun!

Noah in the chicken house. It smelled strongly of chickens (obviously) and I started gagging, so I was out of there right after that picture. Noah braved it though.

Haha, this picture cracks me up. Deric thinks this cow is out to get him. I mean, I can see that the cow is giving him the evil eye and all, but look at Deric! He can't even look at me for a picture he's so afraid of that thing. haha. I guess it was pawing at the ground, challenging him before this, but how funny!

Dinner at the Papa's! Erin was so nice and invited my whole family when they were in town to eat dinner at their place. It was so good! Thanks for dinner!

Again- we love the papa's and are so excited to have them as our friends here. The Lord blesses you in so many ways and I'm so thankful for this blessing!