New Year's Resolutions

I usually don't make them, but I was wondering if anybody in the family had a New Year's Resolution. I just finished reading the book "In the Heart of the Sea", a book I borrowed from my dad about the true story of Essex. It's the story that inspired "Moby Dick". Anyway, I liked the book so much that I'm making a resolution to read at least one book a month.
So let us know if any of you have resolutions of your own.
Mark

Engaged!!!

In our ideal world, all of you would have shared Christmas Eve and our exciting news. Hopefully, we'll see you at the wedding, April 2009!!

~ Love, Elias and Susan

Christmas Carol Music

I just wanted to put up a link to the website that has free Christmas Carol Sheet music. For each song there is sheet music in all keys, and I believe there are guitar tabs for most of these. It's just a start, but I think this can give us some ideas for a list of music to work from. I just want to thank Nate for the idea. It's really going to be a fun challenge.

Also I would like to thank Aunt Elvia and Uncle Jim for hosting a great Christmas Eve party. The kids had a blast seeing Santa Claus. The food was great, and the games were fun.

Mark

old pics of Nate, Doug, and Mike fishing

Just found some pics of Mike, Doug and Nate fishing into the nite at Camp Wishon! LETS GO AGAIN! How about a Fishing Trip guys??

The New Lord of The Ring

Congratulations to MEEEEEE!!!! I finally broke through and got a win in the Lord of the Rings Risk game on christmas eve night 07. The players were Mike, Greg (who di very well for his first LR risk game), Red Beard, and Me(nate). Mike had a really strong game and would have won if he would have been able to roll high enough to move the ring to the ending position, but he wasnt able to so i was able to sweep through his depleted armies and end my turn and roll high enough to move the ring to end the game. Due to the fact that i NEVER win I had to make a posting and let everyone know i finally got my first and probably last win in Lord of the Rings Risk. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!!

The Gift and Love of Music within the Meneses Family......Just an Idea!

Just throwing this out there to see what type of response i get and what you guys think............Ok here's a pretty crazy idea that has been kinda running through my mind lately that i think would be great to do ( though I am not sure if its very feasible at all). I believe that music has been a huge part of many lives within the Meneses family and I am convinced that it has brought many of us closer to each other as we grew up in Woodville. I think we can all remember all of the things we did together which include but aren't limited to the many different trips, concerts, marchings, competitions, playing in church, and other things that we did together because of music. We have all been part of great programs which have given us great experiences together. Do you guys remember the feeling of winning Selma or Visalia as a Marauder? I'm sure if we sat and talked about different things that we have experienced in music we could talk for hours. For example, I can still remember an instance where we were marching around Woodville, as we did often in practice for a marching competition, and getting to the Sams house only to see Landons two box turtles in the middle of the street after they had escaped from his backyard. I think there was a time where all of the Grimsleys and Smiths were in band (either Monache or Woodville elementary) at the same time. I remember playing in Larry Sams church band with all you guys too and that was always great, and i actually miss that sometimes. So my thought has been that it would be really cool if we could all get together, dust off the old instruments, practice a few hymns, maybe Christmas songs, and when were comfortable with our awesome skills, record! I think if we put our minds and efforts together we could do something super cool with this, have a lot of fun and create a family musical CD for our parents, kids and ourselves. I'm sure people would be willing to let us use enough equipment to do this, like Scott and his four track recorder, Larry Sams with instruments and a place to play, anyone with a computer to make the CD, anyone who would want to make a video recorder of our day of music. I think it could turn out great. So the players I'm interested in getting in on this project would be........Carolyn-clarinet, Mike-percussion, Allison(Butch)- Trombone, Mark-Sexyphone, Scott-Trumpet, Nate-Sexyphone, Dave-percussion, Doug-Trumpet, Larry Sams- saxaphone, trumpet, whatever he wants :), Purvy Sams-organ, piano, Chris Craven-guitar, John Meneses-Guitar, Jae Meneses- Piano, and anyone else who would want to be a part of this project would be more then welcome. We could create a song list, practice until were comfortable, then record. Anyway, this is just an idea that i know would probably be pretty tuff to pull off especially with all the varied schedules, family situations, and living distances. So if anyone else out there thinks this would be cool, fun and actually possible then start blogging :) If i mispelled any of your names to bad, I suck at spelling!

funny stuff from the net!

Hey guys its nate! just wanted to put up a few funny things to check out from the net! maria, harrison, you guys have seen a couple of these so im adding a couple more for you two! check out ping pong football its pretty funny! my favorite is still the man fights bear commercial and matrix ping pong. so if you guys havent seen any of these check them out! they are pretty funny! anyway if anyone else has anything cool or funny from online let me know. oh i also recommend watching anthing from the strongbad collection. just go to homestarrunner.com and theck out the sbemails. sb stands for strong bad. i recommend watching the fishing episode first! anyway happy viewing all!

from
the nate


Man Fights Bear

Matrix Ping-Pong

Matrix Karate

Matrix Futbol

here's one more that Darrel set up

Still Need Pictures

Hello everybody (in my mind I hear Dr. Nick from The Simpsons saying that, so I get to laugh, but I don't know if you guys got that joke so I'll try not to laugh out loud)!
Well I am still in need of pictures from a lot of folks out there. Counting the newest kids, our family has grown into a number in the 60's, so I am hoping to get lots of pictures. I've got lots of old pictures that I go through and my dad has lots of pictures that I can get to, but I'm really wanting people to submit their own choices, I think that would be more fun.
I was going to post a list of people who I still needed a picture from, but the list was way too long. So I've got a few more days that I can wait, but if you've got pictures please email me so that I can get everyone included. Thank you,
Mark

Mother Daughter Luncheon.

We wanted to thank all the ladies that made it to the Mother Daughter this year. We had a lot of fun and had a good time in general. Here are some pictures. Sofia and Lillian enjoyed their very first one and we hope they enjoy so many more in the years to come. Brea had a good time too, and she looked like a little princess in her dress. We were so glad to have all the new girls with us.

Meneses Family
Christmas Events!!!

December 16th @ 3:00p.m
Tamale Making
Favereaux’s House

December 22nd @ 6:00p.m
Harrison’s Birthday
Favereaux’s House
Shafter

December 24th @ 4:00 p.m
Cookies and Hot Chocolate
Grandpa and Carlos’ House
Woodville

December 24th @ 6:00p.m
Dinner and Gift Exchanged
Grimsley’s House
Woodville
*Finger Foods Potluck
**Bring a wrapped DVD, CD, or game for

Entertainment Musical Chairs**

January 1st @ 11:00 a.m.
Volleyball
Lost Hills School Gym

Merry Freakin Christmas!

OFFICER SCRAPS

Above: Walking the line to get into scraps gang

A MESSAGE FROM OFFICER SCRAPS : "Hey Meneses bloggers, YOU GUYS WILL NEVER CATCH ME!, Oh and um The Merry Freakin Christmas to you guyses. Also I am pretty sursesy that you guyses would like to know what im being up to lately, I mean especially since you guyses are like trying to catch me and send me to the kitty pound for the bad kitties! Actually i cant really tell you guyses what i have been up to becuase im like on the run and stuffs and doing some things. However, in my defenses, I don't believe that doing things such as you know, snorting the kitty nip, or make other meneses aminals chasing their tails and stuffs, or knocking over 32 bank of americas in three years should be illegal!! Anyways, I was hoping that for christmas maybe i could stuff some of your guyses pets into my stockings for christmas :)? Anyways, i like you guyses and hope you guyses have like good holiday cheering and you try not to get to cold. I mean im lucky because i was born with this furry suit. easy to wash you know, few licks here, few licks there and brand new! Except there was this one year you know i was freezing my freaking paws off. You know i wishes that this could just be a happy message but to be the truthful, this is also kind of a business proposal. I need some more people or pets to join my gang, I mean my company so we can do some things together! There is just one test to get into my gang, and that is to walk the line you know. Look at the picture above to see what i meanings. Anyway if you guyses want to join, or donate your pets to me go ahead and call ron meneseseses ok! So have a happy holidayses and dont forget to spay and neuter your aminals Or ill do it with a steak knife for you!!

Ok

Merry Christmases to you guyses

SCRAPS OUT!

Christmas Project

Hello everyone. I need to get everyone's help on something. I'm trying to put something together in time for the Christmas Eve party. Can I get everybody to email a picture of themselves to me? I promise they won't be used by any cats. My new email address is mark80smith@gmail.com. Thanks for the help, the sooner I get the pictures the better.

So I mentioned in the comments that I'm looking for individual pictures, but family pictures are also good. Doug asked me if they can be any picture, and sure they can be funny, formal, it doesn't matter as long as I get a photo of everybody. I've received about 11 photos so far. I also have some old photos on disks somewhere, but I'd like these to be photos that you submit instead of me just picking them. Again, thanks for the help on this.

Mark

Christmas Eve at the Grimsley's

Hello To Everyone,

Just a note to let you know that Jim and I will be hosting Christmas Eve at my house and all are welcomed.

I spoke to Connie first and made sure it would be ok. Susan reminded me that cookies and a cup of chocolet will start the evening at Grandpa Meneses' house first, around 4:00 p.m.

At this time I will plan to start things going around 6:00 p.m. As for the menu I am not sure yet what I want to do, I'll take a couple of days to plan it out and if one of my boys are here to help me post the information, I'll let you know by Wednesday.

I got a note from the North Pole, there may be a good chance that Mr. & Mrs Clause could drop by that evening and surprise the children. I'll give you more information on that too. (Just between you & me let's keep it from the children. If we play just right this could be a nice surprise for them.) If all of you parnets could give an idea as to what time would be good to have the jolly Mr. & Mrs Clause come it would be a great help.

I just want to let you know that Mr. Clasuse does have to leave early to make his trip around the world. He is a touch older than many of us, so he likes to get things done before it gets to late. The truth is he just gets tried sooner than most of us. :)

Today I just want to let all of you know for sure the place and time.

Love Elvia

Mother Daughter Luncheon

Hi Everyone! This is just a reminder that the mother/daughter luncheon is next Sunday at Connie's house. Also, for any men and boys feeling left out - you are invited to hang out with Jim, Everett and Sawyer at their place at 3 or afterwards. Sandwiches and beverages will be served.