Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve - New PJs

Silly

Christmas Morning - Going to find out if Santa came. HE DID!!! What fun.

Happy Birthday Adam - December 28, 2010. Adam is now 6 YEARS OLD. Oh my. We celebrated by going to pizza at the Brick Oven in Provo. We headed all the way down there since Tanner was playing in a soccer tournament just down the street from the Brick Oven.

Could Anyone Love Skiing More Than Josh?

Josh went skiing on Monday AND Tuesday. Then he went skiing today (Thursday) with me and the other kids. That left Wednesday with no skiing. How sad. But wait, Wednesday afternoon I looked out the front window and saw this.....









Could anyone love skiing more than that? Just for your information. The first time Josh did the 360 he landed it perfectly. Then I decided to video tape it and he never landed it again. I think I jinxed him.

Feel the Joy

We had a great time as a family last night helping with a Sub-for-Santa at APX. We went and wrapped presents for kids in need and it was awesome. It was so nice to see so many people doing this to give to others. I can't wait to see the video of the kids receiving their gifts and I truly felt the Joy of Christmas as we thought about and helped others. Thank you APX.

A Surprise in London for Gaylene

So David told me that he had an HR Conference in London and it happened to be the week of my birthday so he invited me to go with him. We would use frequent flier miles to get me there and then I could just stay with him in his room for the conference. Then we decided we would stay a few extra days at a different hotel that we could afford. I was so excited since it has been over 20 years since I was there on a semester study abroad with BYU. I had it all planned out although I was kind of wondering what I would do by myself all day for 4 days but I was pretty familiar with London and thought I wouldn't have any problem getting around and seeing things on my own.

I've posted a slideshow including a few video clips. It is a little long so you can just press the skip ahead button if you want to go faster. We had a great time!!!

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If you watched the first video clip you know all about my surprise. David is so sneaky but it was really fun to get such a surprise. I loved it all. Thank you to my wonderful husband, David.

A Jazz Game for Family Home Evening

Thanks to APX, we got to go to a Jazz game for Family Home Evening. We had one extra ticket so we also brought one of Joshua's friends, David M. It was a great game (the Jazz won), we had great seats, and Adam liked meeting the 1/2 Bear.

Behind In My Blogging

I'm doing a little catch-up since I haven't posted anything for over a month. We went to Cornbelly's at the end of October and had a great time. David and Tanner opted out so they aren't in any of the pictures. Notice the stuff that Rachel, Rebecca and Adam are playing in. Those are kernals of corn. Tons of it. The kids play in it like sand.

The month of November was a busy one including a surprise trip to London for my birthday. I will do another post all about that wonderful trip.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Terry's house with lots of Marilyn's family as well as my mom and dad. It was a large group but dinner was great and we had a good time visiting with everyone. We missed having leftover turkey though so we had a small family Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday.

The day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) I got up at the crack of dawn to go shopping! JUST KIDDING. I'm not a big fan of Black Friday so we loaded up the car and went skiing for the day. It was fabulous.

David and I did get to do some Christmas shopping on Saturday. It seemed like all the sales were for the whole weekend so we still got some pretty good deals.

Now it is December and we are in the full-swing of Christmas. I play the radio station that plays only Christmas songs all day and I'm not sick of it yet. The decorations are up...

... the presents are being wrapped, and we still manage to slip in a ski trip here and there. The nice thing about season passes is that we can go for just a few hours instead of feeling like we have to stay the whole day to get our money's worth.

Season's Greetings to everyone and be sure to enjoy the holidays and not get to frazzled. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Costumes, Candy, Pumpkins, Haunted House, etc. FUN!! FUN!! FUN!!

Snow and Crazy Hair Day

IT SNOWED!!! YEA!!! We are rather excited in our home because we are eagerly awaiting ski season and the snow really helps. :) Not to mention that it is just beautiful.



It is also CRAZY HAIR DAY at school. Aren't Rebecca and Adam just cute?

Rachel Goes to NYC

It's a tradition in our family that when you turn 12 you get to go on a trip with Dad anywhere you want... as long as you can pay for your own part of the trip. Rachel decided to go to New York City to see Wicked and to go to Carlo's Bake Shop among other things. They got back last night after being there for 4 days and it sounds like they had a great time. I picked out a few pictures that I think captures the essence of all that they did. It makes me want to go do the NYC thing again. Maybe some day.

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Pictures of Jared on His Mission

We finally got some pictures of Jared. He sent home a memory card from his camera and there were over 200 pictures and some great video as well. I went through them and picked out a few that seemed to capture what life is like for him. I haven't labeled any of the pictures because I don't know anything about them except that Jared is in a lot of them. Enjoy!

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Kennecott Copper Mine

For those of you who live in Utah or have visited the Salt Lake area, I'm sure you have seen the big mounds of dirt on the west side of the valley. That is the Kennecott Copper Mine and I have always (since I was little) been curious about it. So I dragged all my kids with me yesterday to go investigate. It was fascinating. Since Adam is not too keen on reading everything in the visitors center, I plan to go back without any kids some time to read everything there. I definitely recommend it though for the whole family. All the kids liked seeing it and seeing how it goes from plain old dirt to 99.9% copper, not to mention the gold and silver they get out too.



The big tire that the kids are standing by goes on one of those trucks in the other picture. The truck is as big as a 2-story house. The pit probably doesn't look that deep but it is 3/4 of a mile deep and they said you could stack 2 Sears towers on top of each other and still not get to the top of the hole from the bottom. It is massive.

Happy 12th Birthday Rachel!

My little girl turned 12 on Thursday and we celebrated yesterday. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Rachel is awesome and always makes me smile. I look forward to the years ahead with her as she grows into a beautiful young lady. Love you Rachel.

Nitro Circus at APX Company Party

I was introduced to the world of Nitro Circus last Saturday night. If you don't know what it is, don't feel bad, I didn't either. It's a group that puts on a great show doing tricks and stunts on motorcycles and bicycles. APX hosted it at their Provo campus for their company party and it was a great evening for all. I included a few pictures and a video clip so you can kind of get a feel for it. Needless to say, Tanner, Joshua, and all their friends loved it. Actually the rest of us really enjoyed it too... it was very fun to watch. It was much better in person than on TV and I only caught a little bit on camera. Some of it was just so crazy I had to watch and not bother with a camera. :)

This is what the front lawn of APX looked like. Ready for some action.

Rachel, Josh, Hayden, Becky, Brad, Tanner B., Tanner P., Curtis (my brother). Others that were there but aren't in the picture were Aaron, Amanda, Hunter, Rebecca, Adam, David, and of course, me.

In the video clip below, look for David standing with the group that the motorcycle jumps over. He is the one just to the right of the last number in the front there. The number represents how many alarm systems they installed this summer. They exceeded their goal so everyone was truly in the celebrating mood.

Do All Girls Love Horses?

Rebecca is taking horseback riding lessons. She goes once or twice a month and is loving it. Today was her second lesson and she rode a horse named Sara. Rebecca said she liked Sara a lot better than Diamond.... the horse she rode last time. She can saddle and bridle the horse, lead it, mount it, dismount, and unsaddle it as well as all the riding stuff. Here is a little video of her at her lesson today.

Adam went to watch today and he totally lucked out when Rebecca's teacher asked him if he wanted to ride for a few minutes. He was so excited. She helped him up on the horse and then told him a few things about riding and then he was on his own around the arena twice. He loved it.

It's All Part of Life

Today we celebrate life as we recognize Joshua's 17th birthday. Wow! I can't believe he is already all grown up. It was just yesterday that he was a little kid. I sure love you Josh and I'm so proud of the fine young man you have become.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Adam, David, Josh, Rachel, Tanner, Rebecca

This week we also celebrated a life as we said goodbye to David's grandmother, Betty Dodge. She passed away in Odessa, WA, on September 17, 2010, at the the age of 93. We had her Memorial Service here in Salt Lake last Wednesday. It was a beautiful service and we will truly miss her but look forward to the day when we will all be reunited.

The Governor's Gala

Yep, that's David and me with the Governor and his wife and the
Lt. Gov. and his wife. Through David's position at APX we got invited to the Governor's Gala including the VIP reception where we got this picture with the governor. It was quite an event. We even stood in line right in front of Senator Hatch. Somehow we ended up at being assigned to the very front, center table.... the best seats in the house for the show. We had a delicious dinner, heard a few words from Governor Herbert and then watched a great show of singing and dancing representing some of America's musical history. It was really a fantastic show with many famous performers native to Utah. I had a great time and it was fun to get all dressed up.

BYU vs. Air Force at AFA

David and I just got back from a great little trip to Colorado for the BYU vs. Air Force Game. We went with a group of BYU sponsors so we were the representatives for APX Alarm. We had a fun time even though BYU got killed by Air Force. We did get to go see the Rockies in a baseball game and we also got to tour the Air Force Academy which I thought was really cool. It is quite an amazing place. The group we traveled with were a lot of fun too so we had a good time with good company. Hopefully BYU will do much better next week.

Adam's First Soccer Game

Yesterday I went to Adam's first soccer game. It was also the first time I had ever seen such little kids play. All my other kids waited until they were 7 or 8 to start soccer but Adam has been chomping at the bit and begging to play.

Adam did great. You could tell he's played soccer a lot with his older brothers and sisters since he knew exactly what to do (unlike some of the other kids who I think were the oldest in their family and had never played soccer in their life... they'll pick it up quickly). Adam has 2 other friends on the team and they won by about 5 goals. Adam made 3 or 4 of the goals and it was just the most entertaining game of soccer I've ever watched. It was so cute. The best part was after Adam's first goal he did 3 perfect cartwheels down the middle of the field. All the parents around me were hardly impressed with the goal but they were VERY impressed with the cartwheels. I could hear parents saying that they didn't think their kids even knew what a cartwheel was let alone knew how to do one. It cracked me up because Adam just does what his sisters do and they do cartwheels. I wish I had video of it.

We Love Visitors!!

Hopefully this picture will show up. :)


Our wonderful friends, the Hurtados, came to visit us all the way from Michigan. OK, so they came to visit their family but we are lucky to live in the same area as their family so they came to see us too. It was so fun to get caught up. We both moved from San Jose the same summer a couple of years ago and our kids are actually really good about keeping in touch via email so they had a great time together. I'm so glad we got to see them (at least part of the family).

Thanks for coming to visit! :)

"I'm going to make lots of new friends"

That's what Adam said when he got to school today. It was his first day of kindergarten and I think Adam was the happiest kid in the world. He finally got to go to school like all the other kids and he was thrilled. He wanted to walk with all the neighborhood kids so I walked along with them. He went right into his class. I got to stay for a little while to do a few things with him to help ease into the classroom but he was happy as could be even when I said good-bye. He made sure I was coming back to get him and then he said, "OK, bye mom."

Some parents seemed a little sad but I have to admit that I was one happy mom. It has been 20 years since I have been home by myself during the day. Don't get me wrong, I have loved every minute of it (well almost every minute). But 2 1/2 hours a day all to myself seems too good to be true. I'll probably end up just doing dishes, yardwork, laundry, etc. but I enjoy that too. Besides, how could I not be happy when I know that Adam is so happy to be at school. I hope he loves school for the rest of his life.

 

Josh's Senior Year

Can you believe that my little Joshua is starting his senior year in high school? I can't believe I'm that old. He started 2 days ago and is very excited about this year. My first-day-of-school picture is of him getting in the truck to go to school. Just a side note.... it is not HIS truck but he does get to use it. Good luck in your senior year, Josh. You'll do great!!!!

First Day of School for 3 out of 5

Rebecca started 4th grade today... oh my. Tanner started 9th and Rachel started 7th... oh my my. I can't believe that my little girl (Rachel) is in middle school Wow. Everyone was very excited and happy to be going back to school.

Josh doesn't start school until Wednesday and Adam will start next Monday. He's not too happy about having to wait a week. Oh well.

A Few Last Pictures of Summer

A few weeks ago Adam jumped off the diving board for the first time. I was so impressed because he had to swim a long ways to get to the side of the pool but he did great. Maybe I have another future swim team member?

Last week we took a few days and went to Park City. It was nice to have a few more relaxing days before school started.

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Mountain Biking Gone Wrong

Josh and Tanner went up to Park City to go mountain biking. They rode the lift up with their bikes and started their first run down. They didn't get too far before Tanner came upon a huge ditch going a little faster than he wanted and the next thing he knew, he was flying through the air and his body met dirt and rocks. I just had to post the pictures. I hope they don't gross anyone out. This happened on Tuesday and he is doing much better by today. It really didn't slow him down much at all. Thank goodness there were no broken bones or worse. :)

A Hike to Cecret Lake

Yes, that is how you spell it. The original spelling is Cecret Lake but it is often spelled Secret Lake.

We decided to hike to Cecret Lake for Family Home Evening. It is in the Albion Basin which is basically the upper part of Alta Ski Resort. We were hiking on many of the runs that we have actually skied. The wildflowers were in full bloom and it was spectacular. There were literally millions of them. I really wish I knew how to take pictures in a way that could capture the majesty. Or maybe it's something that just has to be seen in person to really feel it. The hike was about a mile and we had a great time... although there were a million mosquitoes. That always seems to be the way it is. Find a beautiful mountain lake and then have to contend with mosquitoes. Oh well.

After our hike, we found an empty campsite in the campground and we roasted hotdogs and marshmallows and made a peach cobbler in our dutch oven while sitting around the campfire. It was a beautiful cool night and was quite a relief from the heat of the valley.

I've posted a slideshow for anyone who likes to see pictures of wildflowers. There are a few pictures of kids too but mostly wildflowers. Oh, and there is a picture of a moose and her babies. They were right by the parking lot when we arrived. For those of you who don't know, I have an obsession with "mooses" and I am always watching for them.

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A Trip to San Jose, CA

I drove to California with Tanner, Rachel, Rebecca, and Adam last week to visit my parents in San Jose and to help them get packed up and ready to move to Utah. Joshua and David joined us on Thursday and we spent several days being tourists. It was great visiting my old wards and seeing old friends. I'm sorry I didn't have time to visit with everyone but there are only so many hours in a day. Hopefully I'll get another chance to visit sometime soon.

Here are just a few pictures of some of the fun things we did. I didn't take any pictures of us packing boxes but that is what we did a lot of the time too. :)

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Keepin' Cool

Rebecca and Adam found some relief from the heat on the slippy slide along with a few friends (not pictured). I even wanted to try it but was afraid I would end up too bruised so I just walked along the side by the sprinklers. :)

An Amazing Weekend

David and I got to go to Banff, Canada for the weekend. My niece, Tera, took care of the kids for us. THANK YOU TERA!!!!

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Independence Day Celebrations

Happy 4th of July from the Powell kids. We had a great weekend. A neighborhood parade and breakfast, a BBQ and swim party, Stadium of Fire, church, a big family dinner and fireworks, and another BBQ the day after the 4th. Wow!!! What a weekend. I love America and am so thankful for our freedoms that we have.

Rachel

The largest Eagle Court of Honor ever. 261 scouts received their Eagles at the Stadium of Fire in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of scouting. It was absolutely awesome. When they did the Eagle's Next they had everyone who was an eagle scout in the stadium stand up and hold up a poster of the eagle scout emblem. It really was cool.

Notice the ear plugs Adam and Rebecca are wearing. We learned last year that ear plugs are really nice so we all had them this year. :)

Seven Peaks Water Park

I haven't been to Seven Peaks since just after David and I got married... before we had any kids (I have a 19-year-old so it's been at least 20 years). Yesterday I took Josh, Rachel, Rebecca and Adam and we spent the day. Tanner is at EFY at BYU so he wasn't with us.

We had a great time and my very favorite ride was the Boomerang which is a giant half pipe (it's in the slide show). Today we are recovering from being out in the sun all day yesterday but it was worth it.

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