The reason I am writing tonight is because I feel depressed.  And when I'm depressed it is usually over money matters.  I guess I should be able to overcome this when other people have more depressing problems than I.  It's just that we are behind on our bank payments.  We don't know how to handle money so how could we possibly teach our children.  We do work hard and try but it seems we just can't get ahead.  I know when we have paid our tithing we have done much better in stretching our money.  The Lord does help those who obey his teachings.

Maybelle's sister Yvonne (Lady) Beck passed away and they had her funeral here in Taylor but they burried her in Shumway.  It was a hard thing for her children and Cora Sharp (Lady's Mother) and for Maybelle.

Judy has gone to the valley this week to take Eric so he can be put in traction, as he has a herniated disc in his back.  Eric is really discouraged over this because it just about ruins him for sports.  This last year he was quarterback for Snowflake team and was doing great in basketball when he got to having so much pain in his back he finally went to the Dr.

Loye was reassigned in his High Counselor duties.  He was given the mens sports back, also he has the Y.S.I. and this last weekend they had what was called Winter-Fest.  It was a multi-region get together and we really enjoyed it.

It began Friday evening with a dance in the Show Low Stake Center (since Show Low was in charge.)  At the dance they gave instructions on Square Dancing.  Also they served punch, sandwiches, vegetables and dips, and crackers.  Sat. was the day they had scheduled to ski and play in the snow.  The skiers made it to the ski run all right but the tubers didn't make it up to the tubing area because there was such a bad storm the roads were closed.  So everyone went over to the Stake Center and ate hot dogs and doughnuts we then came home and brought Jason and Cristina home.  Then we left Jason at Loyelin's and went back to Show Low to a Spanish supper and dance.  We were about danced out so we came home about 10:30.

Sun. morning we went up to the seminary building in Show Low and attended a testimony meeting also they invited David Bird (a seminary teacher from Flagstaff) to give a talk, he told some very interesting stories.  The meeting was one of the most spiritual I have ever attended.

Rikki game home from "Cranergarten" and told her mother she had been making "Show Lows" in school.  Liza said "Show Lows?"  Candon said "Rikki we were making Snowflakes."  She knew it was one of those towns.

On January 20th Harmon and Nadine Neff's house burned.

There must have been some bad news for November but since it wasn't written down I can't remember what it was.  So I think a journal should be written in everyday or at least no later then every week.  At least I will try.  This has really been an exciting month and a busy one.  I made caramels for Katie, Maybelle, Mom and myself.  Maybelle made fudge and Katie made penoche.  After school let out I hurriedly with Loyelin and Liza's help tied 2 quilts one for Jared and one for Josh for Christmas.  On Sat. the 24th of December, Richard Edward Loye Aceves was born and he was born c-section at 10:15 am.  He weighed 7# 2oz. and is so cute as can be.  Also Janet Hall had a girl Kimberly Genay who weighed 10# 1 oz.  and was born on the same day.

Christmas Eve we had a Willis get together and supper it was really nice but the nicest of all was the arrival of Jim and Shanna who we hadn't seen for just about 2 years.  Here they came walking in and no one was even expecting them.  It was such a nice surprise.

Christmas morning we had breakfast here at our house.  I hope we never get to many to have this little get together.  All of Sheree, Judy, and Shum's families were there and all of mine except Dahl, Shelley and their family.  Of course Anna Lou's family have hardly ever been here.  She is doing so good in England.  I do hope she had a good Christmas.  I almost forgot, Monte wasn't here.  He is in Boston on his mission.  Judy's family was happy because Scott had just got home (from Birmingham, Alabama where he had been serving a mission).  But they were sad too because Gene, Becky and "Jamie" are moving to Louisiana where Gene has employment.  They are leaving this week.

Karlie had her boyfriend Ron Vias here with her.  Ben went down to Tucson just recently and baptized Ron a member of the church.

Christmas afternoon we ate turkey, dressing ect. at Liza and Mark-oops!  We ate here, Liza made the turkey and dressing.

Loye, Jared and Josh went back to Mesa to work on Monday.

We all went to Show Low, Jim, Shanna, Mark, Liza and I and looked for tile that him wanted to buy for our kitchen (I would really like that.)  but the stores were closed.  We ate at McDonalds and then they rented 3 shows and we went up to Mark and Liza's and watched them.  "Star Wars", Twilight Zone and Night Hawk.  The next day I took down decorations and we went back to Show Low.  We didn't get any tile but seen lots of pretty stuff.  We ate at Asian Gardens then came home and watched 3 more movies eating all the while.  We watched "Blue Thunder", "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Gandhi all were good but I'm tired of movies.

Wed.  Shanna and Jim left I hope it isn't another 2 years before I see them again.

Uncle Ez Shumway died Dec. 26, so on Dec 29 his funeral was held in Gilbert, I and Jason went down with Ben, Sheree and Mom.  Uncle Ez had lived a good life and they said lots of nice things about him.  We seen and visited with lots of relatives.  Mom and them came home after the funeral, but since Loye was working down there, we stayed at Dahl and Shelley's with Loye.  We all went out and ate at the Bonanza.  Dahl, Shelley, Josh, Jared, Jason and Loye and I.  Josh didn't want to go as he had lost his jacket with his bill fold with $235 in it when they had returned to the valley after Christmas.  Loye and Randy had suggested they call the D.P.S. and see if it had been reported so he did and took his phone number in case it was.  After we had ate at the Bonanza and gone back to Dahl's we got this call from Josh saying someone had found his bill-fold he was so elated!  He had to go to Fountain Hills to pick it up.

We came home Fri. evening Sat. I went up and cleaned Loyelin's house and bathed the cute little baby.  Sun. the time changed on our church and we go to 12 noon for our church time.  The boys went back to Mesa.  Loye left Mon. morning.  Jason and I spend the day at Loyelin's.  Ate birthday cake with Mark.  Tuesday in school again seems good to be back.  Maybelle had sad news about her sister she is only expected to live 2 more weeks or less.

(written in pink) This is Cristina's bracelet pen I'm writing with ad it sells like strawberries.  She got it from Avon.  (done with pink)

Here November is over and I haven't made one entry in this book all month.  And some pretty wonderful things have happened and some pretty bad.

First the good.  On top of the list-Shum was made bishop of Taylor 2nd ward.  He chose as his counselors Clyde Sherman and Floyd Fuentes they are all pretty lively people and should make a great bishopric.  Also Wade Butler was made bishop of Show Low 3rd Ward he has Leroy DeWitt and Steve Seymore as his councilors  Wade and Leroy we have known always and Steve is the son of Dean Seymore a boy we went to school with.  Show Low is blessed to have these men as leaders.

We spent Thanksgiving dinner at Judy's and Don's with the rest of my family and it was really good.  Matt Lewis is home from his mission and he said the prayer for our dinner and it was really good.

We went hunting out at Kaibab where the first night out it snowed on us about 4".  Loye, Jared, Jason, Josh and I all went from our family and camped with Charlie and Kate, Keith and his 2 boys Brian and Scott also Randy, Doug and Charlayne were all there.  We really enjoyed them all.  The first morning I didn't go out, but the rest of the time I did.  Josh got a 4 point deer and Loye got a 2 point.  It started snowing again the 3rd day out and it started getting so deep we finally had to move out we went down lower and stayed over night and the next day it kept snowing until there was about 6" and it was still coming down.  So we decided to see if we could make it to Fredonia and in 25 min we were there and there was no snow.  We spent the night in Kanab where we all had a nice luxurious showers and slept in some clean, comfortable beds.  The next day we went home but not without having car trouble this side of Page.  The U-joint went out of Jared's pickup.  Then later before we got to Winslow we had a blow-out on the camp trailer we were pulling.  But we finally made it safely on home.

Heidi had her 3rd birthday on Nov. 29.

Monday-Today was a busy day at work.  Aunt Ida was gone because her daughter Gola was here from Houston Texas to visit for a few hours as she was on her way to Utah to visit with her daughter Jackie.  Anyway Louise Pearce worked for Aunt Ida and it was her first time to help us out, but she is a good worker.  Maybelle was dressed up as a Halloween Spook and she really did a good job of that.

After work I went to the store to get some stuff for a Halloween party our family was giving tonight.  It turned out pretty good.  We had a Treasure Hunt that led from here to the Sewer Pump to the Graveyard to the bell at the Church house to Solomon Hill to Olson's old house where Roger and Cathy and Kent and Carol had fixed up a spook alley.  They (I didn't get to go through it) said it was pretty scary.  When they got in the garage, Roger shut the door then turned the light on, Kent who was dressed up as an old hermit and all around him was fresh bones they had got at Ed's Super Market.  Roger asked him if he was hungry and after Kent looked around at all the people he yelled food! and started a chain saw.  Needless to say this about started a stampede.

Sunday-Got up, washed dishes and took care of camping gear.  Then Jared, Jason and I went to church and other meetings.  Loye didn't feel too good so he stayed home.  But he did get ready and go to the fireside which was world wide and we watched it via the satellite at the stake center.  Jason sang with the other primary boys and girls of our stake, President Shumway also gave a talk, all before the satellite production.

Jim's 37th birthday.

This past week we have been planning a Halloween party for my family.  Cathy is going to have Carol Hall make a spook alley in her Dad's house.  We plan to have a progressive hunt in order to get to the spook alley and back to the food.  Hope it comes off all right.

Shanna flies back to California to live

Pres. Hancock called Loye and I to his office at the stake center.  Loye has been asked to be the High Councilman over the Special Interest and the Young Special Interest.  Since in this calling he needs his wife to be with him, I had to go to.  I hope I can be enthusiastic and do the things I need to do to make this experience a good one.  We didn't have school Tuesday or Friday (Parent teacher conference) so Friday we went camping.  Loye is working out at the Chevelon Ranger Station, so we went out there.  Loye and I, Jason, Cristina, Tara, and Candon all went.  We went to Chevelon out through Winslow.  That's the 1st time I have gone that way.  Jason had to show us the way.  After I passed the turn-off Jason kept telling me I would have to turn around and go back, but I thought I knew where I was going so we must have gone about 30 miles before (and I don't know why) I turned around and went back to the right turn-off.  We finally got out there about 1 pm.  We went down in the pinions and found a camp-site, then started picking up pinions.  Loye and Jared came down and set up camp, then Jared went home.  We picked up pinions until late then went to camp and fixed supper (biscuits, gravy with hamburger and fried potatoes and onions).  Tasted real good.  Then Cristina and Tara slept in the camper on the pick-up and Jason, Candon, Loye and I slept in the tent.  Candon wanted to know if we were sleeping on rocks.  Saturday we got up about 6 am and fixed some hot chocolate.  We then went out and picked-up more pinions (we must have got about 25#).  We came back to camp and scrambled some bacon and eggs, warmed up the left over biscuits and poured some nice cold pineapple juice and ate breakfast.  After eating we picked up more nuts until we were too tired to do more, so we went back to camp packed everything up then went to the Ranger Station where Loye is doing some remodeling on a house that had burned.  After we had been there for a while, Chan, Brent and Willie came up from Mesa to do some wiring on this house Loye is working on.  After about 2 hours they were through and ready to go home so they went back to the valley and we came on to good old Taylor Town where we all showered and went to bed.