29 December 2013 - Christmas and a Trip to St. George

This week was busy with final preparations for a Christmas, and then our trip to St. George.  It started off with school choir concerts for both Emily and Jessica.  This is Jessica's concert, which was actually held at The College of Idaho's auditorium.

Joanne was very proud of this coat rack that she made for Aunt Kathy.  Joanne is very creative.

Once the girls were out of school for the break, we took them skiing at Bogus Basin.  This is the first time any of the three of them had ever been skiing.

Here are Madeline and Emily working the magic carpet run.

For Christmas Eve, we all got together at Aunt Kathy's house.  Joanne made her cousin Emily a Star Wars pillow case.

That night, Santa came to our house.  You can see the mantle I've been working on in this picture, and we hung our stockings on it with care.  We are very blessed.

On Christmas morning, I was too excited so I woke the kids up.  Actually, they were awake and afraid to to come wake us up too early.

Madeline working on opening presents.

Thank you to everyone who sent card, gifts and other Christmas wishes.

Joanne's laptop was near death, so we got her a new one with a snap-off tablet screen.  It's pretty awesome, and it was a good surprise for her.

That afternoon, we loaded up the car and drove to Orem for Christmas dinner.  There were more presents waiting for us there.  Here are the girls with Uncle Colby.

The next morning we drove the rest of the way to St. George.  More presents awaited, as well as awesome cousins to play with.

Aunt Angie (North, not Atkinson), made minion hats and goggles for the girls.  They wore these skiing and received numerous compliments on their awesomeness.

We also surprised my dad.  The boys got together and organized a trip to San Francisco to see BYU in the Fight Hunger Bowl.  As you can see, he was a little surprised.  He kept saying, "Are you kiddin me?"

We weren't kidding though.  On Friday morning, we caught a flight to San Francisco, ate Thai food, then went to AT&T park for the game.

Despite the beat-down Washington put on BYU, we were all still smiling at the end of the game.

Sunday was my cousin Konrad's birthday.  We got him an awesome Marvel comics shirt.

22 December 2013 - Holiday Work and Karate

We enjoyed a short visit from Mike this week.  It was very cold while he was here.  He helped us get our TV set up.  We had some way funky hoar frost because of the cold.

Madeline has been progressing well in karate.  She is the one in the middle, farthest to the wall with the white belt.

On Wednesday she was tested and advanced to yellow belt.

Since we have season passes this year, Joanne and I took Thursday and went skiing at Bogus Basin on a glorious, sunny day.  This is Joanne coming down the slope.

I got a little Christmas present this week. Now that we have TV service, we needed a TV to go with it ;-).

Joanne decided we needed a mantle to go with the new TV.  As usual, she designed it, and I got to work building it.

Some progress on the mantle.

Getting closer to being ready for paint.

15 December 2013 - Grandma, Phil & Jennifer Visit

This week we took the girls to The Nutcracker at the college.  We couldn't take pictures of the performance, so we snapped a quick photo with the mouse costumes.

Friday was our ward Christmas party.  The primary did a nativity program with music.

We also visited the girls' swim practice on Friday.  Emily is working on her butterfly.

We spent some time at the Y trying out the rock climbing wall with Grampa Phil.

After the Y, we took a tour of the college campus.  This is the building I work in with Grandma, Jennifer and Madeline.

Phil and I in my office.

We took the family with Eric and Lara and their kids, Kathy, pretty much everyone to see the Caldwell lights.

8 December 2013 - O Christmas Tree

This year we decided to go for a plantable Christmas tree again.  It was very cold the day we went to pick it up, so we were glad to have a fire to stay warm by.

Caldwell has a fantastic Christmas light display for the holidays.  On Friday, Joanne and I had a date in sub-zero temperatures.  The lights were awesome, and then we warmed up with some hot chocolate and live music at the Bird Stop Cafe.

On Saturday, Caldwell held a holiday electric light parade.  We took the whole family and found a spot where we could watch from the car so we could try to stay warm.

On Sunday we hosted family dinner.  Joanne had gingerbread houses for each of the kids to decorate.  It was a hit.

We also got our Christmas tree decorated and ready for the holidays.

1 December 2013 - Thanksgiving in Utah

For Thanksgiving, we took advantage of the major reason that we moved west this summer.  We drove to Utah to spend time with our family.  Here are the girls with Aunt Jennifer playing at park.

Phil took us rock climbing in Provo at The Quarry, a large indoor climbing gym.  The girls had a blast.

This camera angle is accurate.  Each of us took turns climbing parallel to the floor.

Madeline hanging out after a 30 foot climb and rappel.

Jessica navigating one of the more challenging overhang routes at the gym.

When Phil asked me if I wanted to go skiing on Thanksgiving Day, I worried there wouldn't be enough snow.  Then he pulled the boat out.

Both the air and the water temperatures were just above 40 degrees.  When we launched the boat, there was a thin sheet of ice where seagulls were standing on the south side of the marina.  The water was glassy smooth though -- perhaps the best water I've ever skied, and with the sun brilliant and Timp as a backdrop, it was a gorgeous day on the lake.

Here's one of Phil's turns on the ski with Timp in the background.  He lasted longer than I did, not because of the cold, but I just am not in water skiing shape.

Thank goodness for dry suits.  After our outing, I blew up my dry suit to make myself puffy man.  If it's water tight, it's also air tight.

After two days of climbing and skiing, it was time to sit down with our family for a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner.

 Joanne's made some Christmas decorations for her mom and sister.

We played games every night.  The girls even found Body Boggle and we all took turns spelling words Twister-style.

On Saturday we all went out to enjoy the sunshine and take photos.  The girls climbed the tree in the back yard for a few photos.

We coined a new word this weekend too.  If a self-taken photo of one person is a selfie, a self-taken photo of two people should be an us-ie.

While we were goofing off in the previous photo, we also tried to take a few photos that looked nice as well.

After nearly a week in Utah, it was time to come back home.  The girls were a bit disappointed, but it was easier knowing that we'll have visitors here with us in a couple of weeks, and then we'll go to Utah again at Christmas time.

24 November 2013 - Birthday and Excellent Young Women

For my birthday this week, we went out for Mongolian barbecue.  Here's Emily proudly displaying her bowl.

I had a most excellent birthday.  I got some Utah State and BYU gear, some tools for me new garage, some rock climbing gear and a book, and several other things as well.  Thank you to those who sent cards and notes as I turned another year older.

The same night as my birthday Jessica had Young Women in Excellence.  These are the desserts.

Each of the Young Women made a value dot.  Jessica's is the purple one in the center (Integrity).

We also finished up Madeline's science fair project this week.  We successfully used the graphite in a pencil as a resistor in an electrical circuit.

Madeline did very well on her science fair project and was proud of her poster.