Christmas Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow! has it been a year already.  Time has flown by and it appears that blogging has been the lowest of my priorities.  So I guess it's my yearly "catch up."

Joe continues to work as the MIRC chief of training.  It keeps him busy and often traveling.

Jamie is still trying out the homeschooling thing.  Keeping up with 3 kids ranging in age from 17 to 7 is tricky as she can't really dovetail any of their curriculum.  Add one very busy 4 year old and you will understand why blogging has been a low priority.

KayLee and Joshua are doing well in Spanish Fork.  KayLee will finish her master's in Social work this Spring. We are quite proud of her.  She is much better at keeping her blog up to date.  You can see all her info at Dunn Dunn Duuuuunnnnnn.

We loved having Ben home for 8 months.  He works for Alexandria Yellow cab.  It started as a temporary job helping to install screens in cabs and they liked him so well they hired him full time.  He worked with them here in Virginia until he moved to Mesa in September to go to MCC.  He still works for them taking calls.  Yea for comptuers and technology!! After some paperwork problems, he is finally registered to attend Spring Semester at Mesa Community College.

Darin is currently serving in the Arizona, Tempe mission.  If you recall, that is the same mission Ben served in.  And the most interesting thing is that they also had the same first area.  He is doing well, learning a lot and loving the people.

Melissa graduated from Mount Vernon High in May.  In September she flew the nest and moved to LaVerkin, UT where she lived with Aunt Sherece and Uncle Tom and worked at Dairy Queen.  In November, she moved back to Lansing, Kansas.  She will be working at a mailing shop and attending KCKCC working towards her CNA.

DeeAnn decided that she'd try homeschooling this year so she is taking some of her Junior year classes from BYU independent study and some of them from her mother.  She is enjoying setting her own schedule and moving at her own pace.  She auditioned for a musical with a HomeSchool theatre group and will be a Narrator in an upcoming production of Aladin Jr.  She keeps busy attending all of the practices.

Adam continues to work on scouts.  His goal is to have his Eagle by the end of 2013.  He also continues to homeschool.  He's a big help around the house and is always willing to babysit.

EmmaLee is 7 and amazes us with her vocabulary.  She uses such interesting words.  We wonder where she learns them.  She's a great big sister to Nathan and loves playing with him.  She joined a homeschool group called Classical Conversations this year and it's unbelievable all the things she has memorized.

Nathan continues to grow and entertain us all.  His imagination has really blossomed.  He loves angry birds and usually spends his day playing with a myriad of toys but always including his angry birds.  He's also joined the "brony" ranks as he loves playing "My Little Pony" with his sister.

2011 has been quite an eventful year for us.  We started it out on the beach in Florida as we'd spent Christmas with Joe's mom.  We spent another week on Virginia beach in August.  Half of our kids have now graduated from high school and moved into the "grown-up" world.  (And Jamie likes to say Half my kids have graduated but sadly one hasn't even started school yet." Jamie was in an accident and totaled our car so we had to get our other van back from Melissa in Utah which precipitated her move to Kansas and got Ben home for Thanksgiving.

We'll be having a quite Christmas at home as three of our children will be away.  But we are very excited to see Melissa!!!

Cherry Blossoms

We didn't want to miss the cherry blossoms so we drove to D.C. one evening for Family Home Evening.  Unfortunately by the time we got there it was dark so we checked out the Jefferson Memorial and bought a few souvenirs.

A few days later we made it in time to see them.  Wow!!! They are beautiful!!!

Adam is good at taking close ups of still life.

DeeAnn and Melissa

Adam and the Washington Monument

We also decided to check out the Franklin Roosevelt Monument

Nearly Killed by a Tree

Friday, after having gone to the store for a few things, I drove up to the garage and pushed the opener.  Nothing happened.  Think that our garage door was broken or messed up again, I sent Adam into the house to open it from the inside.  He returned a few minutes later to inform me that the power was out.  So I left the car in the driveway and went inside.

DeeAnn works at a nearby library and it was time for her to go to work.  She called them and they still had power so I took her to work.  I was just pulling into my driveway again when she called to say that the library power was out and they were clearing the building so I needed to pick her up.  I left Nathan in the car and ran in the house to make sure Adam was home as he had not been before.  He was home and since the power was out and they had nothing better to do Adam and EmmaLee got in the car with us to pick up DeeAnn.

On the route I drive to the library there is a really strange road Map of Road (click here to see it) One direction stops (going east on 23rd @ Bixby) the other direction can either travel straight on 23rd or curve on Bixby.  Hardy anyone signals so if I'm stopped at 23rd and there is an oncoming car, I wait.  Well on this particular day waiting saved our lives.  A car was coming in the opposite direction, no signaling to turn but I waited anyway.  After I realized that it was going straight I began to make the sharp turn onto Bixby when we heard a loud cracking noise.  I slowed and looked around and in a split second a tree fell right across the road.  None of the branches that were attached to the tree hit the car but a lot of flying debris which broke off the tree as it fell did hit us.

At first I thought that it was just a branch that broke off a tree and fell.  So seeing that the road was blocked and that no one was hurt I turned around and took another route to pick up DeeAnn.  It was a couple of minutes later as I was driving that the enormity of that close call hit me.  We were literally 3 feet from being smashed by a falling tree.  Our guardian angles were certainly watching out for us.

After we got home I sent Adam to take some pictures of the tree.  By that time there were workers trying to clear it of the road and they had a perimeter set up so he couldn't get very close but here are a few of the shots he did get.
Side Note:  our power didn't come back on until 10:53 pm. Lot's of downed trees from the wind kept the power company busy.

Mount Vernon

We visited Mount Vernon on President's day.  It was cold, and because it was free, there were a lot of people there.  But it was fun to see the historically dressed soldiers and hear the band.  We also got to hear a Pres. George Washington speak.  Hopefully we'll get to go again and see more.

Darin Leaves

On February 16, 2011 very early in the morning we dropped Darin off at the Reagan National Airport.  From there he flew to Salt Lake City and from there caught a shuttle to take him to the MTC.  He will be serving for two years in the Arizona, Tempe mission.

When his call came, Joe and I were out.  When we got home all the kids were kind of laughing and said we needed to sit down to hear where he'd been called.  Earlier in the day I was thinking it would be funny if he was called to the Tempe, Arizona Spanish Speaking mission.  For some reason I always assumed that Darin would be called to a mission where he would need to learn a language.  Anyway, I jokingly said to Darin "It's the Tempe, Spanish speaking mission." He said, "Well one of those is right." So then I thought, "Oh, South America somewhere." So when he said, "Arizona, Tempe English Speaking" I was totally blown away.  Ben would get home from that same mission in December and Darin would leave in February.  We called the mission home and got special permission for Darin to call his brother to tell him he'd be serving in the same mission.

Time4Learning Review

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as an online homeschooling curriculum, afterschool tutorial or an online summer program. Find out how to write your owncurriculum review for Time4Learning.

New Year on the Beach

It's still unbelievable that we were on the beach New Year's Day.  It was a gorgeous day. The water was cold but the kids didn't mind. And when they weren't swimming they were making a sand sculpture.

KayLee spent the week with us!!!

It was a family effort.

And the creature is finished!!!

Burying EmmaLee was also fun.

Joe and I just read, watched and relaxed.