2011 in Review

Instead of typing up and sending out a Christmas letter this year, I've decided to kill two birds with one stone and do it on my blog instead. That way I could save ink and paper, and more importantly update my poor, neglected blog. (I didn't think it had been THAT long since I'd posted, then I got on here and saw that it was fall. Fall of 2010. Yikes.) So here goes. I'm going to shake up the Christmas letter norm and go from youngest to oldest this time.

Breanna is 7. She is in second grade, and she loves that her teacher challenges the class and that they are learning some Spanish. She says she wants to be a teacher some day, and her dolls and stuffed animals can attest to the fact that she will be a great one! She loves to laugh, and she is very creative. She's an amazing author, and has written and illustrated tons of paper-and-staple "children's books". She has three countdowns going on right now- days until Christmas, days until her Birthday next week, and days until her baptism on January 7th.

Lindsey  is 10. She is in fourth grade, and she is a very good student. She is extremely creative and loves to make things like purses out of duct tape and flowers out of fabric scraps. She's our entrepreneur, and we think someday she'll own her own business and we'll be coming to her for loans. She has money she's saved from her very successful lemonade and cookie sales this summer, as well as what she's earned by selling her beautiful flower hair clips. She loves to play soccer, sing, and play the piano. She got her ears pierced for her 10th Birthday last month, so along with her countdown for Christmas is one for the next few weeks when she can finally take the studs out and wear her cute new earrings.

Ashlee   is 13. She is in the eighth grade and is loving middle school. She's doing well in her honors classes and is on the student council. She continues to share her amazing musical talents by singing in church and in the school talent show, playing 1st chair clarinet in the school band, and playing the piano. She's also written several of her own songs, and would like to pursue a career in music or acting some day. She plays basketball on a Jr. Jazz team. She likes to totally freak us out by counting down the few years until she'll be old enough to drive. (I think she's also secretly counting down until school starts again after Christmas break, though, 'cause she misses her friends.)

Taylor is 16. He's a sophomore and loves to be a Cedar High Redman. He enjoys school and his friends there. He loves participating in the Special Olympics and has a display of his medals hanging in his room. He also loves listening to music and has perfected "Dynamite" on the Just Dance 3 Wii game. He has informed us that when he is tall he will become a teacher, and has begun wearing his shirts tucked in with a belt like his dad does to prove it. We think that when it comes to happiness, forgiveness, and Christlike love, Taylor is already the best teacher we know.  He thoroughly enjoys getting presents, and has been writing lists of what he wants for Christmas. He posts these lists on the fridge, and gave one to Santa at our Ward Christmas party. The kid is covering all of his bases. So, as you imagine, he is absolutely counting down the days until Christmas, after which I'm sure the countdown until his Birthday next November will begin.

LeAnn is not feeling the need to tell you her age, though perhaps she should while she can still say she's in her 30's for the next six months. She is also not going to continue to refer to herself in third person, 'cause it's just weird. I'm currently a literacy aide at South Elementary where Lindsey and Breanna go to school. I work with Kindergartners, and teach Kindergarten and fourth-grade reading groups. This is my second year in this position and I love it. I've deciding it's time to begin teaching full-time, however, so I'm hoping to get a teaching position with the district next school year. I should be getting my renewed Utah teaching license in the mail any day now. I've also been taking ESL (teaching English as a Second Language) classes through the district, and have 3 more classes to go in order to get my ESL endorsement. I'm not counting down until anything. The kids are growing up and time is going by way, way too fast as it is.

Tim is in his 20's at heart. Or at least you'd think so the way he runs marathons every year and half marathons at least twice a year. He's been training hard and is hoping to beat his personal best time in a half marathon in St. George next month. Though I have a very hard time believing it, he insists this torture is actually fun. He's beginning to convince me, however, by running dressed as Barney Rubble in a Halloween Half Marathon last October, and by eating the required twinkie at each aide station in the Hostess Half Marathon a few weeks ago. (Runners are slightly crazy, but really fun people!) Tim continues to teach fourth grade at Iron Springs Elementary. This is his 15th year teaching. He also continues to write when he's not teaching or running. I'm not exactly sure what he's counting down for, but suspect it's his next race (or summer vacation).   

Our family feels very blessed to have amazing friends, neighbors, and family. We are grateful for the gospel, and especially grateful for our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. We wish all of you and your families a wonderful, happy Christmas Season and a joyous New Year!

Fall Pictures

My little man is all ready for High School!

Gotta love the bus coming to the front door...

7th grade, here she comes!

Ready for third grade



All ready to be a big first-grader




Lindsey- Jr. Cheer



Just ran 26.2 miles and still smilin'!

Tim and kids at the marathon

UDSF Buddy Walk

Picking pumpkins

at the pumpkin patch

in Paragonah



Say....Pumpkins!



Hay ride action shot

The hay ride was a blast, even though it actually involved no hay. Less itchy that way.

Fall 2010

I figured if I called this "Fall", I could get caught up, especially with the first day of school pictures from two months ago! This year Taylor started High School and is a Freshman at Cedar High. He seems to love it and has transitioned really well. Ashlee is in 7th grade and continues to do great. She has a 4.0 so far this year. Lindsey is in 4th grade, loves her teacher, Mr. Shirley, and is also doing really well. Breanna is in 1st grade and has adjusted well to going to school all day. She loves her teacher, Mrs. Robb, and continues to do well also. Tim is still teaching 4th grade at Iron Springs, and he is having a good year. He is really enjoying his class this year. I had the opportunity to move from Fiddlers to South Elementary, where Breanna and Lindsey go to school. It's a long story of how it worked out, and the Lord's hand was definitely in it. I LOVE, LOVE being at the girls' school, being close to home, and the people I work with. I get to be in charge of 17 Kindergartners for an hour everyday, and it's honestly my favorite part of the new job. I also teach reading groups to 4th and 5th graders, and I'm starting to enjoy that more as I learn the program that we use better.

In September we attended a football game at Cedar High where Lindsey got to cheer for the first quarter. She had practiced all week with the High School cheerleaders and about 50 other girls as part of the Jr. Cheer program. She did great and had a lot of fun. It was a really exciting game to attend as well, since it went into double overtime! Unfortunately, we lost by a field goal.

At the beginning of October we enjoyed General Conference, and watched Tim finish yet another St. George marathon. There was record heat this year, so it was really tough for all of the runners. He is amazing!  Last weekend we also enjoyed the Utah Down Syndrome Foundation's Buddy Walk. We went to the park where they had a big blow-up slide and bounce houses, games, face painting, and lunch, plus, of course, the "Buddy Walk" around the park. It was all free and lots of fun. Our neighbors, the Stuckis, came as well. We appreciate their love and support!

This past weekend has been Harvest Holiday. We were all out of school Thursday and Friday, and will also be off tomorrow (Monday). We've had fun relaxing and getting some stuff done around the house. On Friday we went to St. George and saw "Nanny McPhee Returns" at the dollar theater. Yesterday we had a great time at the pumpkin patch in Paragonah, picking out pumpkins and taking a hay ride.

Fishing

The week before school started and again last weekend we went fishing. Both times all 3 girls caught a fish each! Taylor didn't want anything to do with it the first time (he preferred throwing rocks in the water down the shore...), but this past weekend he discovered the joy of casting and reeling it in as fast as he could so that he could cast again.

Navajo Lake

The Kids' Fishing Pond up Cedar Canyon

Summertime!!

Okay, so I'm finally blogging again. I always wait too long and then my posts are huge, so bear with me. I need to get better at keeping up.

The summer has been great. We started it by going up north the weekend after school got out. We spent some time with Tim's side of the family as we celebrated our nephew's high school graduation. We also had a family reunion with my side of the family to say goodbye to my mom. She entered the MTC on May 31st. She's serving as an employment specialist in Vancouver, Canada. Then on my Birthday we went to Lagoon with my sister Kristine and her family and my sister Camille. It was a blast. What a great day!

The following weekend Tim, Ashlee, Taylor and I had a great time at our ward's Youth Conference. We went to a cabin in Pine Valley and enjoyed great food and fun activities. Tim and I don't currently work with the youth, but we went so that Taylor could go. Tim worked really hard helping will all of the amazing dutch oven food. I was a leader of one of the groups. We were "Moroni's Army". We had challenges against the three other groups, and we all wrote and performed skits about our Book of Mormon hero. It was a great couple of days. Lindsey and Breanna had fun playing with their cousins while we were gone.

We've gone to Zion National Park several times this summer. We hiked the River Walk, Weeping Rock, and Emerald Pools. No matter how many times we go, I'm always completely blown away by the amazing beauty of the red canyon walls. We've enjoyed cookouts up Cedar Canyon as well. We feel very blessed to live with so much beauty around us.

Tim was able to hike The Narrows in Zion Canyon. He went with my brother-in-law Brad and two of his boys and a few others from their ward (it was a scout hike). It was a two-day hike through a river. He had fun and took some amazingly beautiful pictures.

Ashlee attended her first Girl's Camp this summer. She had a blast. It was hard to have her gone for four days. She's growing up way too fast!

At the end of June my new little great-niece was born. (Wow. That makes me sound really, really OLD!) My niece Shaelynn and her husband Jason had their first baby. They named her Kyrie Noel. She is absolutely adorable and we can't get enough of her! Good thing she lives down the street and is in our ward!

Ashlee attended summer band for about a month after school got out. She plays the clarinet. Their concert at the end was amazing. Hard to believe they are Middle School students! She got to march in the 4th and 24th of July parades with the band. Breanna and Lindsey were in the 24th of July parade as well. They were dressed as pioneers and rode on our ward's "handcart" float. They had a lot of fun.

We've had a few visitors this summer as well. Tim's parents came from Nebraska in May. They stayed for several days. We had a great time visiting with them, and of course we took them to Zion National Park and then had dinner at the In and Out in St. George. Last month Tim's brother stopped by for an hour or so on his way home from business in St. George. It was fun get to visit with him for a little bit. Then one morning we got a surprise phone call from Ashlee's kindergarten teacher who was in our ward in Blythe. She was in town and wanted to stop by and say hi. It was so fun to see her for the first time in 4 years and to catch up on how our friends are doing in Blythe. This weekend we also had my friend Michal and her sister Sarajan here. They came down to see plays at the Shakespeare festival. It was fun to visit with them here and there in between their plays. Michal will be coming back next weekend as well. We're going to see the play "Pride and Prejudice" as well as a performance of Broadway songs by some of the Shakespeare Festival actors. She's generously taking me as a belated birthday gift. I can hardly wait!

The rest of the summer was spent mostly here at home, enjoying our time together as a family. We went to some of the PTA-sponsored movies, enjoyed free movies in the park, went to the Green Show for the Shakespeare festival, played at the new little lake here in town, went to Discovery park, and had barbeques with the neighbors and my sister's family. The kids also played with friends and had a few sleepovers with their cousins. They saved up their money and the pooled it together to buy the new Harry Potter Lego game for the WII. They've had a great time playing it the last few weeks.

Last night the kids convinced Tim and I to play "sardines". We turned off the lights in the house and wore glow-in-the-dark bracelets Michal had given the kids. One person would hide and then the rest of us would try to find him or her. Once we found the hidden person we would hide with them until everyone was all hiding together. The last one to find everyone would be "it" for the next round. There was a major lightening storm going on outside, which made it more interesting and maybe a little more scary. We searched in teams of 2 for the most part so the younger ones wouldn't be scared. (I have to admit I preferred the team method as well!) It was a lot of fun. Then we sat out on the front porch and watched Mother Nature's light show. It was pretty amazing. Even Taylor sat there with us and watched it, which is a miracle because thunder and lightning usually scare him.

So, there is the summer in a nutshell. I can't believe how fast it flew by! Now with very mixed feelings we are getting ready for school to start in just a week and a half.

Summertime Pictures

Lagoon

Zion National Park

Tim hiking The Narrows

Cedar Canyon


Youth Conference

Tim and his friend Byron at the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay race. Their team ran 190 miles, from Logan to Park City.

February 2010

I'm going to get better about updating my blog! I think I assume it has to be a huge project to post something, but I know I could just make it short and sweet. (Then again, this is ME we are talking about....)

The last few weeks have been busy, but good. My friend Michal came for a visit President's Day weekend. We spent a fun-filled day in St. George touring houses for the parade of homes. Then on Monday Tim and I took the kids to St. George and took turns going through some of the homes Michal and I didn't get to. It was a fun day, and Tim and the girls got to see a couple of humongous homes.

Later that week Tim's brother Ken was here on business. He had stayed a night with us. It was great to see him.

Other than that, we've just stayed busy with work, school, Ashlee's basketball games, and my Relief Society meetings. I was called as 1st councelor in the Relief Society presidency a month or so ago. It's been very humbling so far! My biggest goal is just to get to know the names of the women in our ward. I've been in Primary almost the whole time we've lived here, so I'm mostly only familiar with those who have young kids. I'm working on it, though.

I'll have to add some pictures later. Right now the laundry and dishes are unfortunately calling!