Christmas and Fun in the Snow

Katee's annual picture in front of the Christmas tree. Jamie and Nick spent the night with us after they had spent the evening with

Nick's family. We had such a fun evening. Although it seemed a part of us was missing. That was our Paul, Casandra and Erik. Here's a shot of what I like to refer to as the Christmas house. Do you like Laurie's pine halow?
Christmas morning.
Gene's new growth. (on his face, silly)

Katee really wanted window glasses for Christmas.

Matching pants. Thanks to the girls.

Before we knew it, the opening was done. Then it was time to begin the adventure of finding out how everything worked. Katee really wanted a bullet mixer to make smoothies. She and I got one and she made smoothies for us that tasted yummy.

During the Christmas vacation, we went sledding at a hill by our house.

Good Times!

I think the pictures speak for themselves!

Katee's Time to Shine

I thought this was a really pretty picture of Katee at Christmas time.

Laurie is an excellent photographer.

January is dance recital month.

I think Katee has a natural talent for dance.

See for yourself.

She took 2 classes a jazz and a hip-hop class. She really liked the hip-hop class.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Lots of fun going on around our house.

Laurie had her grand opening at the bank.

Can you guess which one is Laurie?We made candy houses together. Stay posted for the finished products.

I need to get some batteries for my camara.

We needed this smile on the next picture.Great Grandpa looks so nice in this picture.

It would have been the perfect picture.

But this one is good too.This is a 4 generation shot.

Jamie graduated Magna Cum Laude from Weber State University.

What a proud moment for us!

This is a great finishing shot.

After the graduation we went to a restaraunt that was packed with people, many from the graduation. They had the graduates sit on a saddle while we yelled for them. Then they gave her a free chocolate sundae. Yum! I'll have to see if I can get a picture of it.

First Day of School

Oh, the excitement! Oh, the dread! What will this day be like? I wonder.

What will my future be? I wonder. I feel a song coming on...let's all sing together.

No, JK!

I've been looking for these pictures on the computer and I finally found them today.

So I thought I better hurry and put them on before I loose them again.I'm already missing our flower gardens.

Happy Halloween

So Halloween was really fun this year. I really enjoyed it.

Katee was a football player. She was a very cute boy.

We got to be with our cousins for a little while on Halloween and it was awesome.

It is so nice to have cousins Katee's age.

Now Jamie and Nick are another story. No, just kidding.

Jamie dressed up as an elementary school teacher. She is

student teaching at the high school and the kids really liked her costume.

One person who was able to guess her costume right off, knew because his mother was and elementary school teacher and he recognized the uniform. Funny!

Oh, the rest of the story. Nick was an elementary school custodian. I let you figure out the rest.

This is Laurie in the process of her costume. They really ratted her hair up high. She ended up being a really pretty 50's girl. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her.

And I was just myself. That is scary enough.

Happy Birthday Katee!

So Katee we love you so much and you are such a joy in our lives. We are so glad you could celebrate your birthday and have so much fun. You are sweet, sensitive and loving. You care very much about others and you ask often if we are okay. Maybe having older parents makes you worry about our health. But we are fine and we are so glad we have you.

The girls who came to your party painted really cute pumpkins. I was impressed with their skills.

Lauries painted the Frankenstein and Katee painted the Joker.
It was nice to have family down to help us celebrate.

We LOVE you Katee!

Pioneer Trek

For Youth Conference this year our stake did a pioneer trek.

This was some of our ward the morning we started.

We loaded up 5 buses and started off.

The first year our stake did trek there were 10 families.
This time, we had 20 families.

This was our family.Laurie and I were not in the same family, but we were in the same company.

So we still got to see a lot of each other.

Here we are showing off the bloomers.

This was taken down in a little valley right after Gene and I did our viniette of a Mormon batallion soldier leaving his wife for battle. Many people told us that that was very touching for them to see. It was a neat experience for us too.

This was how we slept at night. Girls on one side and boys on the other.

Some of my girls from Young Womens. You gotta love the glasses.
We camped right under the needles. We were right on the original pioneer trail at this point. Many experiences took place here.
All we have now is about 3 to 5 miles and then we are done we pulling our handcart!
This is our ward after the trek. We look like we survived, but we were pretty dirty.
Everyone was talking about what they wanted to eat and taking a shower. When I got in the shower you could just see the dirty water running down my legs. It was disgusting. Oh yeah, we went to Lonestar steak house for dinner with a group of us. It tasted soo good.