Christmas Celebrations

We had a wonderful Christmas and our wish came true..... IT SNOWED!!!

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And Tanner's Mission Begins!!!

We took Tanner to the MTC in Provo yesterday afternoon.  On the way down, we picked up Grandma and Grandpa who were so happy to get to go to lunch with us and then drop Tanner off at the MTC.  Josh met us for lunch at Malawis for a few minutes but had to hurry back to work.  Rebecca had a test at school that she couldn't miss so she said her "goodbyes" earlier.  The MTC was bustling with excitement and energy.  I am so excited for Tanner but I have to admit that we are really sad to not have him with us.  We will miss him but we are proud of him for going on a mission.

Back to Thanksgiving

I need to back up a little bit and tell about our wonderful Thanksgiving because I was just so very thankful the whole entire week.  It's taken me a little while to get some pictures together because it turns out that I didn't take a single picture.  I had to beg, borrow and steal pictures from everyone else in the family.  LOL

Joshua was home from his mission, Tanner isn't leaving on his mission until Dec. 17th (tomorrow) and Grandma stayed with us as well.   Jared, Tori and Boston came to stay with us for the whole week too so we had the WHOLE FAMILY HOME.  YAY!!!    Everyone wanted to hold Boston all the time, and I mean all the time.  He was so fun.

Thanksgiving Day was perfect.  The guys all went to play football in the morning and then we had our big dinner in the afternoon.  Grandma and Grandpa came and so did Christian Hill and 2 of his friends.  It really was nice.

Other fun things we did during the week included bowling, family pictures, movies, games, puzzles, and eating out.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving was Joshua's homecoming talk at church and Tanner's farewell talk at church.  They both did an excellent job and I was definitely on an emotional roller coaster.  After church we had friends and family over to the house for some lunch.

Josh and Tanner with Grandma Ginia

To finish off the week, the night before Jared and Tori had to go home, we decorated the Christmas tree.  

What more can I say?  How thankful I am for the gospel in my life, for my beautiful family, and for all the blessings the Lord has given me.  Happy Late Thanksgiving.  Below is a picture I stole from Grandma Ginia.  I think it's so cute and wanted to share with everyone.  :-)

Oh.... and it finally SNOWED!!

But it only stayed on the ground for an hour or so.    :-(      At least there is new snow in the mountains and we can get up skiing very soon.

Happy Early Birthday, Tanner!!

We celebrated Tanner's 19th birthday yesterday since he will be in the MTC on his actual birthday (Dec. 19th).  He got a camera to take with him on his mission so we will get to see lots of pictures of him in Portugal.  Yay!!!    The reason we are doing the "cake" on the couch instead of the table is because we were Facetiming with Jared and Tori so they could sing with us.  WE LOVE YOU, TANNER!!!

Wildcat Pride

So Proud of Adam for receiving a Wildcat Pride Award today at school!!

Adam Earns His Bear Award!!

He also earned a bunch of belt loops, pins and the Conservation Award.  Good Job Adam!!!

Catching Up

It's already DECEMBER!!   My how time flies when you're having fun!  It has been a great month full of fun and family time.  I will probably take a few posts to get caught up but let's go back to the end of October when Tanner, Rachel, David and I left for Spain to pick up Josh from his mission.  It was a great trip and between the 5 of us we have about 2000 pictures and video clips.  I quickly went through the ones I had and picked out about 60 which I think give a good feel of the trip.  One of these days I will go through all of the pictures and make a Scrapbook for our shelf.  In the meantime, enjoy this little glimpse of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Morocco.

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Thanks to Grandma Ginia who stayed with Rebecca and Adam while we traveled.  They also had Halloween while we were gone and I did get a picture of Adam in his costume before I left.

A Quick Trip to California

The kids didn't have school last Thursday and Friday so we loaded up the car and drove to San Jose, California.  We drove all day Thursday and then David flew out Friday night since he doesn't have any vacation time left.

We stayed with Jana who was wonderful in accommodating our crazy schedule, feeding us lots of yummy food and taking great care of us.

Cousin Time is the best.  This is Adam and his cousin, Ethan (picture courtesy of Bella on Instagram)

It was the first time for everyone to meet Boston (except me) so of course he was held by a lot of different people.  (And these pictures don't even include Tori's side of the family)

On Friday we headed up to San Francisco for the day.  It was a beautiful day and we had fun on Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli, the Boudin Factory, AT&T Park, Lombard Street, and more.  Gotta love the City.

Rachel, Rebecca, Adam, Tanner, Tori, Boston's Stroller with Alcatraz in the background.

On Saturday we headed up to Oakland so Tanner could go through the temple.  My sister, Shawna, and her husband, Jeff, joined us there, as did Grandma Ginia, and Jared and Tori.  It was wonderful to all be in the temple together.  While we did that, Rachel and Rebecca did baptisms and Adam stayed outside with Boston and Tori's mom and dad.

That night, after we got home from the temple, we all met together at Jana's for dinner.  Tori's mom and dad and her sister, Kiera, and her family, plus Grandma Ginia, Uncle Michael, Ethan and Bella, our family and of course, Jana.  THANK YOU Jana for being a wonderful hostess and letting us all be at your home.

Now the main reason we went to San Jose was to be there for Boston's baby blessing.  It was so nice to be there and Jared gave him a beautiful blessing.  Of course, I loved every minute of the whole weekend.  I love my beautiful family!!

Tori and Jared and Boston

 Rebecca, David, Rachel, Tanner, Adam, Gaylene, Boston, Tori, and Jared

Jared, Grandma Ginia, Boston, David (4 Generations!!)

Grandma (me) and Boston

Happy 16th Rachel!!!!

Yesterday was Rachel's 16th birthday so the first thing we did was go get her driver's license.  You can tell she was pretty happy as she drove off to school all by herself.

After school she had a soccer game.  They won 4-2 and Rachel scored 2 goals and had an assist.  It was a great game and I got a few good pictures.  The real significance of these pictures is that it may be the only time you will see Rachel wearing PINK.  

Lone Peak

I don't know whether I should be sad that I didn't quite make it to the top or really happy that I almost made it to the top!!   Tanner and I started early (like 6:30 am).  I had a good map (at least I thought it was good).  I had researched it a lot and talked to many people.  Everyone and every blog said that it's really easy to get lost so follow the directions carefully.

First of all, Jacob's Ladder is called a ladder for a reason.  It goes pretty much straight up the mountain for about 2 or 3 miles.  Ouch.  No switch backs, no steps, nothing.  I've decided that I am extremely spoiled from hiking in National Parks where trails are very well maintained and marked.

We finally got up the hardest part and were following the trail.... we thought.  Then we lost the trail and realized we were way too far south.  The directions all said that we should cut across the front of Lone Peak and climb up around the north side of it.  So, we headed north without a trail.  We finally stopped for lunch in the Cirque of Lone Peak.  It was spectacularly beautiful and we did see the trail that went up around the North side to the top but we were out of time and I was out of energy.  I'm sure Tanner could've done it but I knew we needed to start down if I was going to make it out before dark.

So we headed down.  The leaves were beautiful reds, yellows and oranges.  We saw quite a few deer including some that were full out running down the mountain (a little startling).  We even hiked across a little bit of snow.  It was the perfect day for hiking.  Clear and sunny but cool enough to need a coat when we weren't actually hiking.

As we headed down, I was very worried about my knees going down Jacob's ladder.  I had my poles (which absolutely saved me!!) and I was wearing my knee braces which made it so they didn't hurt when I did Half Dome.  Not so lucky this time.  They started to hurt almost as soon as we started down.  It was very steep.  We decided to try a different way back along a trail that was longer but not as steep.  It didn't work out so well though because we lost the trail.  :-(  We ended up trail blazing a lot.  We would pick up a faint trail for a while and lose it and have to trail blaze some more.  We finally made it to the road at the bottom.

We hiked about 17 miles (I have a cool app that tracked our mileage and rate and altitude).  We went up and back down 4,000 feet and it took us about 10 hours.  It was a great hike, very hard, but I had a good time with Tanner and maybe some day I'll actually make it to the top.

Here are a few pictures we took.  I didn't take my good camera because I didn't want to carry the extra weight so I didn't really take many pictures.  Maybe next time.

If you look below those big cliffs in the center of the picture, there is a mounded rock.  There is a big area of trees to the left of it and a big area of trees to the right of it.  We ate lunch on the mounded rock and then headed back down.  So close yet so very far away.

 This is panorama view that Tanner took.  To the left is Utah Lake and to the right is Salt Lake.  We could see 5 temples from where we were standing.... Mt. Timpanogas, Draper, Oquirrh Mountain, Jordan Rive and Salt Lake.  It was pretty spectacular.

September Wrap Up

It has been a very busy month but mostly busy with humdrum stuff of life, i.e. soccer, school, church, work, chores, etc.   I did manage to make a whole bunch of chili sauce using the tomatoes that Rachel grew for us this year.  Always happy to have enough chili sauce to last until next September.

I go to lots and lots of soccer games for Rachel, Rebecca and Adam.  They are all doing great and it really is fun to watch them all.  I don't take very many pictures anymore because I feel like I have so many already but I did take a few of Rebecca's team after a tournament.

In addition to playing soccer, Rachel and Rebecca have been very busy reffing.  They work hard and put up with a lot of garbage from abusive spectators.  People really need to learn how to behave at 10-year-old soccer games.

I keep up with Tanner by checking my Instagram for pictures of his activities.  Here are a few (which you have probably all seen already on Instagram but I need them for my book).

(You may notice that Erin is in a lot of pictures with Tanner  ;-)

I keep up with my grandson via Instagram as well.  Here he is on his one-month birthday.  Isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw?  Love you Boston!!

Let's see, what else.... Oh, David went on a business trip to Canada and the UK.  We sure did miss him.  He got back on a Thursday and the kids had Friday off of school, so he took time off too and we went to the zoo.  Fun Times!!

The month of September has been fairly warm, in fact, HOT.  But we are finishing up with a week of rain and cooler weather.  I LOVE IT!!    I also love this beautiful rainbow that I saw from my bedroom window.

First Day of School

The day after Boston was born was the first day of school.  Adam started 4th grade and was happy to see lots of friends in his class.

I've been told that pink socks are the in thing right now.  ;-)

Rebecca started 8th grade and wasn't too happy about getting up so early, but she does like her classes this year.

Rachel started 11th grade and is already keeping busy with a heavy class load which means lots of homework.

You may be wondering why it took me a week to post pictures of the first day of school.  Well, I headed to California the day after school started to help Jared and Tori with Boston.  Therefore, I must add some pictures here of the cutest little baby ever!!!   I promise I will try not to fill up my whole blog with baby pictures but I just can't decide which ones are the best so I ended up including a lot.  :-)