Our Christmas

We had a very nice low key Christmas. In the afternoon we went to see the new Adam Sandler movie Bedtime Stories. Then we came home and ate our traditional Christmas dinner...Mexican food. We played Taboo after dinner and got a good competition going, everyone had a great time.

Present Time

Some of our favorite gifts this year were:
Alayna: Zune 120GB MP3 player (for Bday and Christmas)
Dakota: Cabela's hunting game for Wii
Arissa: DS game and stuffed Bobby Jack
Ariana: Guitar
Doug: Roomba
Jen: Foodsaver and camera's (Both Doug and Santa gave me 1 so now I need to decide which I like better and the rest of the family can use the other one).

Christmas Letter

We hope you all are enjoying your holiday season. It is snow, snow, snow here in Wisconsin! It sure does make for a pretty Christmas. In case you don't hear enough about what our family is up to, here is the run down:

Doug is enjoying his job with Miller Electric. He survived the first round of lay-offs and we are very grateful for that. He is also busy with scouting (again)and loves snow blowing our (and the neighbors) driveways whenever he gets the chance.

Jen is tired. Normally my job is part time and mainly I am in my tiny office doing my human resources tasks. The past month or so I have been working full time (except when I was in UT). I have been out on the floor more than in the office. I'm looking forward to things calming down a bit after Christmas. I'm also getting back into school starting January 20th. I'll be attending UW-Platteville online. Interestingly, this is where my grandfather graduated from and my dad was born in Platteville. In addition to this I am still teaching primary and the activity days leader at church.

Alayna is now 16 and gets her license in a month. She is working in the men's department at Younkers department store, the same one I work at. I think she is starting to realize work is hard and inconvenient! She has been getting many life lessons lately. It has been an exciting year for her with the big 16, driving, work, and being a bridesmaid for her cousin Sabra's wedding.

Dakota has grown lots this year! He is 13 now and has just about caught up with me in height. He is 5'7". He is still playing cello and loves his video games. He is getting more practice with the snow blower lately. Dakota occasionally likes to cook and he does a great job with it. I told him that his future wife will love that!

Arissa got braces this year. She has also grown tons. She 11 now and is about 5'3" or 5'4". She enjoys school and safety patrol, working in the lunchroom on Fridays, and science club. One of her favorite TV shows is NCIS and she has decided (at least for now) that she wants to be a forensic scientist like Abby on the show.

My baby Ariana is 8. She was baptized this year. Ariana loves playing with her friends...especially Allison. She is very artistic and loves to write people love notes. Ana is very thoughtful and tries to be a peacemaker. She is getting more grown up every day even though I tell her she needs to stop it.

Wisconsin may not be perfect, mainly because it lacks many of our loved ones and mountains, but we enjoy living here anyway. We are so blessed. We are thankful to have so many wonderful friends and family members. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and that 2009 bring you much happiness, health, and peace.

Sabra's Wedding December 13, 2008

Alayna and I flew over to Cache Valley Thursday afternoon for my neice Sabra's wedding to Troy Clark. Like a dummy, I forgot my camera. So more pictures will be posted after I mooch them off of other people! (Got some...thanks Jess and Dan) The morning of her wedding was a horrible snowstorm that dumped 5 or 6 inches really fast so when we left to go help decorate I was white knuckling it from Hyrum to Smithfield...at least 1/2 of the way the roads weren't plowed and I was driving my parents car. Sabra and Troy were married in a clubhouse at a golf course on top of a steep hill. A few of us (me included) had fun trying to get up that dang hill. We had to work really fast to get everything ready before people showed up at 11:30. My neice Jessica was the wedding planner, I thought she was going to have a heart attack she was so stressed!
It went off beautifully. So did the luncheon that Troy's mom put on. Wow! Everything was delicious and so fancy, very impressive! The reception capped off a long and exciting day. Thankfully the roads were cleared by then. They are now off on their honeymoon cruise to Mexico. They are such a cute couple. I hope they have a beautiful life together. I cant believe my Sabie Baby is married!!!!!

Alayna's Sweet 16

We celebrated Alayna's 16th birthday on Friday the 5th. I can't believe I have a 16 year old! She had a very long day. Seminary at 5:45 then chocolate birthday cake for breakfast and off to school. Her leaders at church took her out of school for lunch which she enjoyed. After school she rushed to get ready for her first official day as a sales associate at Younkers! I had her on computer training so it wasn't too strenuous. She did that from 4-7:45 then we came home and ate dinner and the young women at church came and kidnapped her and took her to their leader Marci Stevens house for a sleepover/Christmas party. She had a good time but was so exhausted so she left at midnight and came home to sleep because she knew she had to get up at 8 the next morning to work again. We gave her a 120 gb MP-3 player. So she will have fun loading songs on that sucker for a long time.

Poor Picture Quality

If you've been noticing my pictures aren't very sharp and are often discolored...you are correct! Our digital camera died earlier this year and I've been using my camcorder to take still shots. Its not the best way to do it but it'll get me by until Santa comes. I hope he brings me a new camera this year! :-)

Feast at the Summers

Our Thanksgiving dinner was very tasty this year! Our dear friends the Summers had us over to their home along with the Gregory family and 4 missionaries. Above is our lovely host Stacy.

Appleton Christmas Parade

Doug, Arissa, Ariana, Allison Stevens, and I went to the Christmas parade the other night. It was one of the biggest parades I've ever been too. It was pretty chilly but we found the museum selling hot chocolate...we were so grateful! We had a great time and decided it would be a new tradition for us. These were some of our favorite floats.

It is that time of year when we think of all of the things we are thankful for in our lives. I did a little digging and found a few quotes about being thankful that I'd like to share.

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

“Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.” (Oprah Winfrey)

“In every one's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” (Albert Schweitzer)

I have had some people come into my life over the years who have rekindled my inner spirit. I am so thankful for them. I am thankful for my wonderful husband who has loved me and put up with my craziness for so these past 18 years. I'm thankful for my children who I love dearly and who are growing up way too fast. I'm thankful for my parents and their example of hard work and selflessness. I'm thankful for good, stable employment that we enjoy and that sustains our family's needs. I'm thankful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and how it blesses my life and the lives of so many of my friends and loved ones. I'm thankful for too many things to possibly list...I'm thankful for you taking the time to read my blog because that shows that you care enough about us to take the time to read this! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Fall Program

Arissa's was the first of our children this year to have their concert. They program was titled "out of this world". She did well remembering the words to all those songs. 1 school program down, 2 more to go in the next month.

Arissa's Party

All of the girls from Arissa's class were able to come to her party. Thankfully it was only 8! They had a great time...my ears were ringing by the time they left. She was given some fun things for her birthday but I think her new fuzzy pink chair and the DS games were her favorites.

HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY ARISSA!!!

Happy birthday wishes to my special Rissy D!
Active
Righteous
Intelligent
Silly
Sweet
Artistic
Mother Nature's gift to Arissa this morning was the first snow of the year that she could go out and play in!

Snowflake Temple

On November 1st my parents and Doug and I went on the 3 hour drive to this temple to do ordinance work for our ancestors. We went to a session in which my Great-Uncle Al Ray was officiating with his wife Edith present. It was interesting, all of our audio was in Navajo; the subtitles were in English. After our session we all went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch then headed back to the valley.

Halloween

Halloween was lots of fun. I especially enjoyed being able to take the kids out trick-or-treating in nice warm weather for the first time in their lives! My mom has her front entry decorated cute for the holidays. My brother Richard cut made the witch and cats you see here. They are backlit at night and looked really cool. Ariana's costume is easy to figure out but Arissa's is unusual...so if you are wondering, she was a barbarian. We went to my sister Lisa's neighborhood in Mesa and went trick or treating with her and her 5 year old son Nate. After that Arissa and Ariana went to Uncle Richie and Aunt Toryi's house and spent the night. Alayna spent Halloween afternoon through the next day at Uncle Aaron and Aunt Liz's house. Saturday afternoon while we were at the Snowflake temple Aaron and Liz took our girls plus their 5 kids plus cousin Emma to the Phoenix Zoo. Brave souls! Dakota hung out at Nanny and Grandpa's all day. The kids had a great time...thanks a bunch to all of you Aunts, Uncle's, Cousins, and grandparents for making this a fun trip!

Target shooting

As part of our desert trip we did a little shooting. Here is Dakota (with my dad helping). Dad has had this 30.06 forever, it is what I shot my first elk with when I was 10! So you know its really old. Here I am practicing with the 9mm, that was hard to get the hang of. I like rifle shooting better.

Desert part 2

Trip to the motherland, the desert part 1

We had a great time in Arizona! One of the first things we did was take a trip to the desert. We went out by Four Peaks and it was during the week so there was hardly anyone out there which was great! We enjoyed visiting, grilling hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire (although it was very HOT), we brought out dad's new ATV and had a lot of fun with it.