Smithkirk Autumn in NorCal

The year is just flying by at a rapid pace and we can't believe it is almost Thanksgiving! We have been keeping busy with traveling, seminary, work, and family. Some of the highlights have included...

- FALL LEAVES- there are actually a few streets in Santa Clara where the leaves turn red, orange, and yellow...so they somewhat resemble an East Coast Fall

- October trip to NJ/NY to go through the Manhattan Temple with Elise and enjoy some family time with mom and dad. We especially enjoyed our trips to the little eatery next door to the temple- they have chocolate mouse AND chocolate mouse in cigar shapes. We felt like we were in chocolate heaven!

- Weekly FHE and activities at the Buskirks- especially late night Hearts games and movie nights when Allen (Kev's brother) and Shauna (Kev's sister) have been visiting.

- SEMINARY! The kids crack us up. Scripture Mastery Jeopardy, World Series Baseball, and SM Pictionary have been exceptionally fun. Next week we're trying Scripture Mastery broom hockey.

- Weekend with the Guths- Miranda and Regan came out for the weekend and we adventured around San Fransicso, explored our favorite shops/boutiques on Chestnut & Union, at sundaes at Ghirardelli Square, Kristina and Miranda got mani/pedis while the boys golfed and then we played Settlers of Catan until late into the night. It was so good to have such good friends in town! (Please come back soon!!!)

- Spooky M&Ms Bingo w/ the Buskirks- We manned a room at the Ward Halloween Party and had fun passing out treats and played games w/ the kids. Kevin looked especially spooky as a vampire/wizard. We were also reminded of Jerry Seinfeld's "get candy" Halloween philosophy as we watched the 2/3 yr olds grabbing handfuls of M&Ms and dumping them in their candy bags.

- Halloween- Seminary was actually the highlight of the day-one boy dressed up in a head-to-toe jester costume. We started off their day right by pumping them up with sugar and sending them off to school :-) Kevin was a spooky vampire/auditor and Kristina was Luke Skywalker (all the 3rd grade teachers decided to be old school Star Wars characters). The little people at Escondido Elementary were especially excited about her light saber. It came in handy when she tried to keep kids out of trouble on the playground. The first graders thought she was Darth Vader and ran away.

- SLEEP! That has been the major highlight of the month... whenever it happens... which is rare. We hope to do lots more of it this next month as we start enjoying some holidays.

Happy November!
Love,
K&K

Buskirk Health Watch

Allen (Kev's dad) met with his doctor at Stanford's Comprehensive Cancer Center today and was excited to learn that he is responding to the chemo!!!! Shari, Kevin, and Shauna were able to be with him at the hospital to celebrate the good news. Tests indicate that he no longer has any cancer in his liver. Tumors in lungs, bone, and lymph nodes have shrunk and tumors in his brain haven't increased. He starts round three of chemo next Monday. They plan to do 2 more rounds of chemo (6 more weeks) and then re-assess/re-test. Allen will also begin consulting with the radiation oncologist to determine a course of treatment for the brain tumors.

We celebrated with take-out from Outback Steakhouse (since Allen isn't really supposed to go out into the germy public that much). Kev and Allen also got to play some pool while Shauna, Shari, and I chatted. It was a great night!

Thanks for all of your continued prayers... they are obviously working, so please keep them up! The Buskirk family still has a long was to go until this cancer is annihilated!!

Love, K&K

Elder Smith in Wales

News Flash: Scotty has been transferred to Wales. He is super excited...

He's been transfered to a zone called Merthyr Tydfil in Wales...the furthest away from the Mission office. In the past it's been referred to as Outer Darkness, and basically deemed as the place you don't want to go. He thinks the President is trying to change that perception, so hopefully the Scotter can do some good work there and get things cracking. He gets an unbelievable amount of mileage in the car to travel all over, kill sheep, and go to district meetings and do workovers. Apparently the scenery is amazing and it should be great. He is really looking to the adventure, the 2 man flat(more study and personal thought/contemplation time) and a new country.

Halloween Costumes...

Send your pics along for me to post...I know Kristina has an awesome Anakin Skywalker costume that she'll hopefully take some good pictures of.

Jessie posing as a "Molly" Mormon.












Elise as a 50's girl in a poodle skirt (yes, I'm slightly sunburnt)

A Full Weekend

Well…I know I have been a slacker in posting so in order to encourage everyone to keep up the blog posts, I’ve decided to add some new highlights from my weekend…

Since it was my friend Andrew’s birthday last week, we celebrated over the weekend with karaoke and cake. Since there were like 20 of us crammed into a small karaoke room, I only sang a few songs (including “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”) and then we headed back to my soon-to-be new apartment (with Kirsten and Broek) for cake and ice cream. I made my checkerboard cake at Andrew’s request and despite some frosting issues (the top layer of the cake started sliding off) it ended up tasting pretty good despite its less-than-perfect appearance.

Saturday I spent a full day at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert with my friend Bryan. I tagged along with him bright and early for the base’s annual open house and air show.
















We got some amazing pics, and I’ll post more of them later once he sends them along. Some of the airplanes we saw were the F-22A Raptor, F-15, F-18, P-51 Mustang, Stealth, B-52 Bomber, Mig-17, F-16, etc.

My favorite part was watching the Thunderbirds air show at the very end as they zoomed past each other, almost hitting, and making intricate patterns in the sky. I also got to see several of the planes on display up close. Despite not being an airplane aficionado, I definitely learned to appreciate how difficult it is to fly and maneuver those planes. It was an all around pretty cool day. Since I had been up since before the sun, it was also a pretty long day.

Saturday night was the Ward Halloween Party and I went dressed in my poodle skirt and 50s girl costume. People went ALL out for the party and it was quite entertaining. There was someone painted all green as The Hulk, several pirates, Pocahontas, Little Red Riding Hood, a Geisha, Slash, etc. You name it, there was someone dressed the part. Afterwards a big group of us went to a diner down in Santa Monica (Swingers) for some after-party fun…I finally got dropped me off at 1am (which was actually 2am with daylight savings). Luckily, church wasn’t until 2pm so I could sleep in!!

Overall it was a fun weekend…and I’m excited for this week because the American Society of Criminology’s annual conference is in Los Angeles so I’ll be hanging out with all of my favorite authors in a few days.

ALSO, I just found out that I’m going to get to come out to New York in mid-February (24-27th) for the AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education) conference. I’ll be staying in midtown at either the Sheraton or Hilton. AND I get to go to the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference in Chicago in April. So, it’ll be another full winter of conference travel. Whoo hoo!! I also get to go to Seattle in March probably for The American Criminal Justice Sciences's conference and possibly to Oakland, CA in March for the Pacific Sociology Association's meeting, Detroit in March for the American Counseling Association's annual meeting, and maybe Philadelphia in March for the Eastern Sociology Society's annual meeting...unless the conferences overlap too much. I’ll keep you posted….

I hope everyone has a great week!!

Luv,
Elise