Issue 192

UMNH

Uncle Tai and Aunt Kersten gave us tickets to the new Utah Museum of Natural History for Christmas. MLK day turned out to be the perfect day to go use them. Its a beautiful museum where you can learn about everything from earthquakes to Indians, dinosaurs to gem stones. The outside of the building was as amazing as the inside and it made for a fun family outing. Thanks for the gift!

Issue 191

What a Week!

A week in which few pictures were taken, because who has the time? Between Relief Society meetings, non-profit meetings, book group meetings, Young Men's meetings, work meetings, we were also dealing with a raging case of the Chicken Pox! Poor Steve L. was exposed at a holiday party, and two weeks later he came home from school and came down with a fever. So much for vaccinations! It was finals week at school and Whitney was doing some pretty intense projects to maintain her great grades. Steve will have some make-up work to do, but after a week of Pringles, Benadryl, Dr. Who, and Hydrocordazone cream, he should be able to finish up fine. Whitney helped me run the 5th Annual Freedom Bowl Competition for our Youth Leadership organization on Saturday and I even pulled off a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Is anyone else glad it's a holiday tomorrow?

Here is a photo treat - Whitney's Student Body Presidency year book photo. Looks right of the cover of a Law and Order DVD.

Issue 190

Ellie's Easel

Ellie's favorite Christmas present is her easel. She spends hours creating at it. She especially likes the chalk board. This is a drawing of a New Zealand cat's claw that she is very proud of.

Lego Robotics Competition

Saturday Daniel's Lego Robotics team competed in the all day regional competition. They competed in four different areas, the final being the robot challenge. They did a good job for their first year. Daniel says, "It was awesome!"

Issue 189

The Nutcracker

For Christmas the girls received tickets to Ballet West's Nutcracker. What an amazing production!

Happy New Year!

 We had a wonderful New Year with family in Idaho! Our oldest nephew is heading to Italy on his mission, so we trekked up to our relatives to hear his farewell. We brought in the New Year dancing with the Wii, reading Dave Barry, and watching movies. Whitney went with her cousin to the local stake dance and had a blast! Happy New Year everyone!

Issue 188

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2011, we've been having so much fun, we almost forgot to blog about it! We started off Christmas Eve with a matinee of the new movie "Tin Tin." The kids were really into the Tin Tin comics when we lived in New Zealand, so we loved the movie.

Then it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's with our Subarus loaded down with gifts. Grandma had gingerbread houses for all the kids to decorate. Grandpa grilled steak on the BBQ, which reminded me Christmas in New Zealand, where every one grills and goes to the beach to celebrate the holiday.

We spent the night and opened our Santa gifts in the morning before church. Its was wonderful to attend services in the ward I grew up in. The rest of the day was spent exchanging gifts with waves of family as they arrived at different times throughout the day. We had so much fun, we didn't want to go home, so we didn't. We spent the night again, and repacked our Subaru's for the ride home.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

Issue 187

Food Bank

Whitney had the chance to serve at the Food Bank for a Young Women's activity recently. It was a wonderful service opportunity that she enjoyed. But she says, "Don't donate pineapple!" They have enough.

'Tis the Season

Whitney's school choir had six performances downtown on Tuesday, and a full concert on Wednesday at the school. They performed Christmas music and Temple Square, The Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the State Capital. Steve got back in town in time to see her sing at the State Capital and then run over and see Janey's first swimming race, and then home to run Scouts. 'Tis the Season!