Cuteness is not enough. There must be cake!: November 2025

Hola!! Welcome back to November!!

Bat saga update

Well, we are quickly coming to the end of the bat saga. This is where we now get to the fiasco with the fireplace.

Lets' recap shall we!?!? The original fireplace was a GAS fireplace. Somehow, someone made a mistake and ordered an ELECTRIC fireplace, which put the construction on hold. I assumed that they were exchanging the electric fireplace with a gas fireplace since the construction was put on hold because of it. I was wrong. When the guy showed up to do the sheetrock, he also showed up with the electric fireplace. On Halloween, when the lady was were here putting up the shiplap and painting it, Nathan, being the engineer he is, got to looking at box that the fireplace was in, and noticed something. The thing he noticed? This fireplace has a vent. Well, that leads to questions. Questions like where does it vent the air from, and then, where does it vent the air to? The lady putting up the shiplap didn't have a clue. So, Nathan called the manufacturer and asked them. This fireplace takes the air behind it and vents it across the heating elements and then blows the hot air out the front. Does anyone see the problem with this?? That box is all empty space where all of that stinky air is just hanging out. That electric fireplace unit, which takes the air BEHIND it, and HEATS it up, and then BLOWS it out the front is basically going to take that stinky air, heat it up, and blow it right into the house. Nothing possibly could go wrong with that!!! Immediately after getting off the phone with the manufacturer, he told the lady what he had learned. She immediately called the other lady and told her about the problem. We thought that surely they wouldn't install the fireplace...........

They did. A couple of days later, they guy who messed up the paint came over, unannounced and stated that he was there to install the fireplace. When he was done, he showed me how the thing worked, and it immediately started to blow out hot stinky air. He assured me that the smell would eventually go away, and then he left. I immediately called Nathan to tell him what had just happened. That was it, we were officially done. The house and the bats had finally defeated us, and we threw in the towel. We discovered that you didn't even need to turn on the fireplace to get the stinky smell, it just came right out of the vent, and we had to put painters tape over it. We ramped up our looking for houses and miraculously found a nice house in Kaysville, close enough that Meow-meow did not have to move schools. Sadly, it meant that we moved to a new ward and stake. But hey, at least the moving wasn't that hard because we weren't able to unpack 80% of that house!

We aren't done with the story yet.

Saturday, November 8th, just minutes before the start of the BYU game that shall not be talked about, there was a knock on the door. It was a husband and wife couple and they said they were there to install the mantle. I was certainly not made aware of this visit. I told them to do whatever, but if they needed me, I would be unavailable because, football...... and thou shalt not interrupt during a football game!! Nathan was off running errands, so he wasn't home to run interference. I went into my room and shut the door and ignored them (they were warned). And don't get me started on this joke of a mantle. First of all, it is made out of plastic that has a "wood grain" pattern stamped on it. Secondly, it's ugly and doesn't match. Thirdly, it is flimsy!! If you sneeze wrong it will fall down. I attempted to put something on it, and it completely fell off onto the floor.

Over the course of the month, we had a few visitors stop by, and they all said they could smell it. I remember driving down the road and catching a whiff of a freshly killed skunk and thinking that it wasn't too bad. Then it hit me just how bad the smell had been if I didn't mind the smell of a skunk!!

We gave notice to the rental company that we would be breaking the contract early, citing Utah code that gives renters leave to break the contract if the living conditions of the house are not livable. Thankfully the rental company did not put up an argument and let us out of the contract without penalty. Things from that point on got pretty nuts though. We had to get everything packed because the plan was to start moving the day after Thanksgiving because we had to be out of the house by December 1st.

The week of Thanksgiving was nuts. Jimmy came home from his mission on the 25th, the 26th we had Thanksgiving at my parents house, the 27th we had Thanksgiving at Nathan's parents, we started the move on the 28th, the 29th was the last home football game of the season, and oddly enough it was a day game, the 30th Jimmy gave his homecoming talk and Eilee gave her farewell talk and it was also Eilee's birthday. We have a lot to cover in this blog post, so let's get started.

Meow-meow had a cookie making youth activity.

I got the Invisalign braces

I was not a fan.

Had an allergic reaction to the plastic

It was pretty crazy. My tongue got very swollen with little sores on it, which was quite painful, and
then I started to feel the back of my throat tightening up. I immediately took out the Invisalign and called the orthodontist.

And now have braces.

I am NOT a fan!! I already have a sensitive mouth to begin with, and the braces just made it worse, plus I'm wondering if I'm allergic to the little plastic bands they put around the brackets. Let's just say it's not been a good time.

We took Meow-meow and his cousin to Desert Star Playhouse.

Nathan got dragged up on stage at one point. It was hilarious. He always seems to get brought up on stage.

We got word that there would be a possibility to see the Northern Lights. So, we took off to try and find somewhere fairly local that would be dark enough for us to see it. At first we thought to make our way out towards Antelope Island, but EVERYONE had that idea. We did get a few okay photos

Eventually we gave up and started to make our way towards home, but then we realized we would be driving right past the Syracuse temple, so we made a detour.

As we were driving to get on the highway, we saw a lovely dark and secluded spot, so we pulled over and got some pretty cool shots.

Then there was FOOTBALL. We played TCU and soundly beat them 44-13

The last several emails we got from Jimmy he did voice recordings, which were awesome. Now enjoy the last pictures from his mission.

I had some posters made.

The last 10 days before he got home dragged by so SLOWLY!! The worst was the morning of the day he came home. The time went into complete and total standstill. I had the Delta app open and was tracking his flight. The moment I got the notification that they were boarding, I tried jumping for joy (literally I tried jumping for joy, the problem is that my body doesn't jump).

And now, drum roll......

I give you, the return of Elder Davis. Be prepared for a photo dump.

The Jimmy head makes a return!! I do have to explain the giant Eliza head in the corner. Eliza was on the wrestling team at Davis High School and they ordered these giant heads of all the girls on the team. Eliza joined the wrestling team at Chadron State in Nebraska and we knew that she wouldn't be around when Jimmy got home, so we saved her head for the sole purpose of bringing it to the airport. Jimmy had no idea that the giant head existed.

I was literally shaking with excitement and anticipation.

HE'S HOME!!!!

I can't even begin to express the emotions I was feeling in this moment. It was a joy that was very intense and wonderful. As I was experiencing this joy, I got a very strong impression that the joy I was feeling was only a fraction of the joy that is felt when you pass to the other side and are reunited with family there.

Hugging his little brother. I just love the joy on his face.

It was such a glorious, wonderful, happy, joyful, and exciting day.

After leaving the airport, we went out to eat.

I even made a sign for the garage door.

The three missionaries. One coming, one going, and one teaching institute through BYU pathways

After Jimmy was released from his mission, he and I decided to go do a session at the Layton Temple.

Thanksgiving at my parents house.

We were doing some packing

And the last football game of the season. It was Jimmy's first ever football game. He always liked to stay home and hang out with grandpa, but I finally managed to talk him into going to a football game, and he had a great time. We played UCF and soundly beat them 41-21

Now that Jimmy is home, he decided to grow a beard. I was shocked at how red his beard is. He's definitely a redhead.

Kitten time

With Whitley being gone, poor Cocoa Bean was very lonely and I think she was a little depressed. So, Nathan and I had been talking about getting a new kitten. I've ALWAYS wanted a Maine Coon. And so, on the evening of November 30th, we took a little trip up to Ogden to meet up with a Maine Coon breeder and we brought home....