Cute kids in Utah

I have a lot to catch up on from the past 2 months but I will have to do that when I get home. Here are some cute pictures of the kids after Christmas etc. Jeffrey and Owen with their new Nintendo DS-es the morning after Christmas before everyone else woke up, playing nicely all snug in Jeffrey's bed. Paige sitting in her new doll baby's bassinet/carrier, and then wearing her brother's Star Wars clone trooper helmet that is almost bigger then she is. I actually thought that she would topple over backwards. :o) Also, Paige in the shopping cart between the sack of potatoes and drinks. Too cute!

Mini mission reunion

Yesterday I met with Wendy Holt Brown and Russ Bowers here in Salt Lake for a mini reunion. Russ lives in Washington DC now and was home for Christmas, while Wendy lives here with her family. It was so good to see them both even if it was a wild ride home with Russ! :o) (Not his fault, it's still just snowy and getting icy, especially after dark.) Wendy's husband Spencer came in with the kids after a while. My how they've grown! Her kids are Mikelle, Truman, Andrew and Joshua (Joshie). Beautiful family!! It's so good to see them. It's hard to believe that us 3 came home together almost 12 years ago next month (Jan. 21-22, 1997). Time flies! Other than a few Brazilian missionary friends, these 2 are pretty much the only Americans that I have kept in contact with or seen on a regular basis.

Christmas in Utah, well sledding anyway

Sledding with Jeff's family today in Daybreak, South Jordan. This is the field to the school yard. A beautiful winter wonderland. Boy was it cold out there. We didn't last too long. Jeff, Erin, Jeffrey, Owen and Paige. Beautiful, huh? Oh, the last one is them coming home.Such snow drifts in front of their home. Poor Jeff has to shovel that himself, and they have a corner lot. (Double sidewalks)

Halloween night with Gene and family

The day after

I liked what I wrote in response to my friend's blog that basically was just a title that said that she "didn't even want to talk about it". So here goes my response: "I wore black yesterday because the foreshadowing was foreboding. At least Prop. 8 (protection of traditional marriage) passed. I couldn't even turn on the tv last night to watch the media gloat!! Sick. Do you have your 72 hour kit and food storage up to date?" I'll just add that Joe Biden already promised a couple of weeks ago that they/we would be tested (ie. another 9-11 or something like it, in my opinion) in the next 6 months. That's why I ask about your food storage etc.. Are you ready???? If only I had some kind of assurance that they will deal with it correctly...... It's going to be a long 4 years.

Halloween 2008

Ok, there are like 20 pictures that I want to post for Halloween. Does anyone know how to do one of those slide shows in a blog? I've seen it done, but haven't a clue as to how to do it. Halloween was fun with Gene's family. There was this pirate house around the corner from them. Talk about Disnyland, I thought it was a "Pirate's of the Caribbean" set. Totally cool. Anyway, if someone knows how to make a slide show, PLEASE enlighten me!!! Thanks!

Utah trip, pre-Halloween

Ok, here's my silly photo for the blog. Jeff and I went to the BYU vs. UNLV game that saturday and had really good seats. I tried to order some tickets online and there weren't any, so we decided to go anyway and see if we could pick some up outside of the stadium. There was a guy (actually the one on the left in the navy T-shirt) that wanted to sell us 2 for $50.00 over in the west stands. They were $92.00 a piece tickets. Jeff said that he only had $40.00 in his pocket and the guy took it. So, now why it's silly.... just beside us was Jimmy Osmond!! Too funny. He sat there and texted or did something on his PDA or phone or whatever the whole game. Even though you can't really see but a small area of his forehead you can see his hands, legs and the phone. :o) Silly huh??? But they were great seats.

Oops, another out of order photo. Sunday morning as we were gathering up kids to get in the car to go to church, I asked where Paige was and Erin said, "she's in here, in my closet." Cute little girl hanging from a hanger drinking her ba-ba. Erin was going through her closet for clothes to donate that week.

Ok, back to the game. Here's just a photo of the sign. There are now 2 of them, one in each endzone. I don't remember which one is new.


Here's a shot of the press box. We were only 3 rows from the top. When we got a touchdown and "Rose and Shouted" we could see Bishop Edgley, Elder Ballard and others. I actually saw Karen Seamons (from LB 10th ward 20 years ago.)right there in the front and I think that she recognized me. She did wave. I'll have to call her daughter Lori and ask.

This is just a shot of the beautiful stadium and mountains which were our view for the day. You can see the Provo Temple just above the stadium on the left and then the "Y" on the mountain on the right. All's well with the world. Ahhh. Boy do I miss those mountains in Provo!! There were some Fall leaves lingering and the mountains were still orange-ish.

I'll have to remember to upload pictures backwards. You'll have to read later for the explanations.

Here's part of the Pumpkin Walk. There was a large amount of pumpkins just off of the "walk" that I think were done by a school.

Here are the 3 major universities in Utah together on the pumpkin walk. The U, Utah State, and BYU. Some were actually carved through and others were just carved/scrapped off on the surface of the pumpkin.

This kind of shows how extensive the "Walk" was. It was in a big circle.

There were certain spots along the way where the kids could get candy. They provided some little bags at the beginning. Erin and the boys.

Here's Jeff's family in front of the Pumpkin Walk sign.

These downloaded last first etc.., but here are some cute photos. When I was in Utah last weekend, we went to The Pumpkin Walk in Syracuse, Friday night after eating dinner at Rodizio's (Brazilian Churrascaria) at Trolley Square. The Pumpkin Walk had about 1,000 pumpkins displayed. Here are Owen, Paige and Jeffrey as we stood in line for an hour. It was like Disneyland, going back and forth 10 times. But it was well worth it. (A fun new tradition that Jeff and Erin started last year.)

Here are the two brothers!

Momma and Poppa! (Jeff and Erin)

Ok, here are Jeff, Jeffrey and Owen at Rodizio's. Jeffrey foregoed his fork to eat with the tongs that you use to grab the meat as the waiters are cutting it from the skewer. Umm, good food. I left with all of the rest of the Pao de Queijo's from our table's bread baskets in my purse. (Pao de Queijo is yummy cheese bread formed into balls) I'll have to remember to take a plastic baggie or a napkin with me next time. :o)

Here's Owen as we arrived at Trolley Square. It took him a while to wake up.

The Primary Program

I am just so happy that the Primary program went well and that it's over! The Primary President's husband, David Bennedict said, "If you don't believe in miracles, you just need to go to a Primary program practice and then the actual performance and you will believe." Yes, our practices were pretty scary! One neat thing was that when Geno came down from the stand afterwards and went to see my Dad, he said, "Grandma was here today. She was standing right behind you." As my Dad said, this is definitely someting that she would want to come to. In the hospital, before she died, she said that she wouldn't miss out on anything. Primary Programs were her favorites, and with her own grandchildren performing in it, I could definitely imagine her being there today. It took a child, her own grandchild, to see her. (One that she's never met in real life, seeing as how she died 2 weeks before he was born. And he was the first grandchild.) But it all went well today, after some pretty interesting moments in the last 2 days. The kids really stepped up and sang their little hearts out, Brigham Welch accompanied on the viola beautifully, and almost all of the kids had their parts memorized. The families that sang "Called to Serve" in the 6 different mission languages did a great job. Everyone was pretty emotional during that part. Many said that they teared up. I am just glad that it all came together. Yeah, it's over. I've already started looking at next year's songs.........

Disneyland at Halloween!!!

Last night I met Gene and family at Disneyland after work. Their annual passes are about to run out, so it was a last hoorah! Here we are waiting in line for the Matterhorn. Ericka, Geno, Isaac and Malia.

Malia and I rode together and then Ericka, Isaac and Geno rode together. This crazy camera of mine makes "Bubbles" on the photos in a night shot. Anybody know why????

After Gene and the rest of the family left, Malia and I stayed until almost closing. We finally left at 11:30 pm. Malia and I waited in line for Space Mountain for over an hour. Here she is with the building in the background. That loop to the side of her chin is the elastic strap holding the hat on, that has been tied smaller.

By the Big Thunder ride there was this place to take Fall pictures. I put Malia up on that box and then she knew what to do. There was a lady by us that said, "She's a poser."

On our way out of the park at the beginning of Main Street, there was this huge Mickey shaped Pumpkin. Too cute. There was a line to take pictures and people kept coming up from the side and sending their kids up to take pictures after someone else had finished. How frustrating!!

Katin last night as Tigger!!

Last night Ericka came over to pick up Malia, who was spending the evening with us and she came in with this cute little animal! He was so cute in his Tigger jammies, that I stuck him on the floor with some other Halloween decorations. He's got a black star from the tree behind him. Being a baby, the star went right into his mouth.

He's such a scary tiger, I mean Tigger!!!!!

Dad's Wilson High 50th HS Reunion

I went with Dad to his 50th High School Reunion Sept. 6, 2008 at the LB Recreation Golf Club Clubhouse. There were actually quite a few people there, about 220 or so. He wasn't sure how many of them that were still left (alive)!!! They had displays of old memorabilia and some pictures that could be taken home.

Here are the display tables of WWHS and some other things from the Elementary and Junior High Schools.

Here's Dad chinning with some of his old friends in the Clubhouse.

Here are 3 of his friends from HS. Joe Colangelo, Joe Faris, Dad and Art Johnson.

Here's Dad's 6th grade class photo. If you click on it it should enlarge in it's own window. He's the one under the third picture from the left, on the back wall. He's the one with the dark hair that looks like Geno. :o) Really, doesn't he though???

More family party pictures

Erin and Paige at the Institute.

Erin and Owen making s'mores outside after the dutch oven charcoals were no longer needed. Emily, Bruce and Caroline.

Everyone pitching in to put together the dutch oven dinners and desserts, in the Institute's kitchen. YUM!!!! L to R Mindy, Kaycee, Tyler, Jeff and Andrea. It's still weird to think that we were all the little cousins running around when the family got together and now everyone is all grown up with little ones of their own. Weird.

Steve and Mindy and the rest checking on the dutch ovens. Are they done yet? We're hungry!!! Mindy is making pizza's on a grill over some charcoal.

Everyone helping out in the kitchen. All meals were put together in boxes with a list of ingredients, a recipe and the ingredients. All you had to do was grab a box and recipe, put it together in the dutch oven and take it outside to cook. Good food. Way to go Hunsakers and Aunt Kate and Gram for putting everything together. L to R- Jeff (barely), Kristy, Erin, Gram, Steve, Kaycee, Tyler, Mindy and Andrea.

Big family party at the SLCC Institute that weekend

Here are all of the little cowboys and cowgirls in line to play a toss the ball in the hole game. The big kids (the little kids parents :o)) were playing volleyball in the background.

Holly, Kaycee and Erin chatting at the table and watching the little kids.

We are mostly BYU fans in our vast family, but there are a couple of U fans/grads. Some are not too accepting of them. :o) This is the teepee that was made and put together that everyone was able to draw and/or write on.

Doing what we do best, sitting around and chatting. Rolf, Andrea, Kim, Mindy, Aunt Kate and Gram.

All of us doing what we do best again! Eating!! Ha Ha!