Catchin up...

Time to catch up ... It was so nice having some days off and enjoying time with the fam and celebrating Christmas... of course we felt an empty spot for our family that wasn't physically with us, but know that they are serving and safe. AND speaking of safe... here is an excerpt from Kristin's blog of her little experience before Christmas:

...I just finished working Saturday, and was going to stop at Christopher Diamonds on my way home to get my ring cleaned. As I pulled in and parked in front of the store, I saw that the glass doors in front were completely shattered. ... I was trying to figure out what could be going on as I got out of the car. As I walked up to the store, I thought I heard him say they were just robbed. I asked if he was OK. He started walking towards the doors, and I told him who I was (we've known him for a long time). He came out and told me they were just robbed, he had gotten pepper sprayed, and his dad had been shot. Just then the police cars were showing up. I had called Jaron to tell him what happened. My phone call was at 6:51 pm. We found out later the robbery happened at 6:48 pm. I knew I was there very shortly after since the police weren't there, but I hadn't known it was so close! My flight I worked earlier landed about 15 minutes late. Had I been on time, I easily could've still been there when the robbery took place. I can't stop thinking about that and how fortunate and watched over I was!!! ... As far as Christopher Diamonds, the dad will be fine, and both suspects were caught. The Chandler Police did an excellent job! I am truly grateful that I was watched over, as well as the families involved.

So our family has LOTS to be grateful for. But as with all our family gatherings, there was lots of fun, kids, eating, game playing, movie watching, shopping, food, eating out and even some sleeping in.... BUT... then MONDAY had to come and it was back to work... but only for three days, then a few more days off. YAY!! We took WAY too many pictures to put on the blog... but here are a few highlights... Giant bugs?!? no that's just us going in to see the Polar Express in 3D... It was soooo good!All Trent wanted for Christmas was one thing... so I told him I had to turn his request over to Santa and he had to BELIEVE....

Well... I guess Trent was a good boy cuz Santa brought him his gun... he hardly let go of it the rest of the day!
Lots of food... Cute kids...Everyone looking for the pickle... Jadon found the pickle!
Lots and LOTS of presents

From Brazil...

We didn't get a phone call from Brazil cuz Brandon is still at the CTM there, but we got an email the day before...

Hey family, tudo bem? ... I get a christmas breaktoo because today is my pday and tomorrow we are doing a diffent scheduale. We get to watch Its a wonderful life, and we are doing games during the day and watch the 1st pres message at night. This keyboard is REALLY bad so don´t mind any misspelled words. ... Christmas feels the same asany other just a little warmer. I found out more bout Goiânia this week. We found a teacher that was born here and he said it is a really clean city and everyone there is rich and there are a lot of shoping centers. Then outsde of the main city there is only small towns and farms. So thats sounds fun. We got a new teacher this week because they are making him be the presidents secrtary while the other one is on vaction for a month. So now we have a chinese teacher but he has liveed here his whole liife. For some reason it is easier to undertand him wen he talks. Irmão Sato is his name. Well i can´t stand this keyboad anymore so gladd to see everythig is good at home. FELIZ NATAL!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! I wish everyone peace, joy and happiness this Christmas day.
Many special thoughts to my hubby, my family and friends and to my family that is far away, and especially to my two stripling warriors in far away lands!
Many thanks to Jesus Christ for all he has done for me, and for being the reason for this season.
Life is great!

KFC and Red Elephants!

My brother came to visit and THAT means KFC!! Everytime he comes to visit he treats the WHOLE family to KFC. He's been doing that for years and EVERYONE sure enjoys it. To add a little holiday flare we included the Red Elephant game. It's just like the white elephant game that everyone plays except all the gifts are red! After that we ended the evening with yummy banana splits. We sure know how to party!

That's a lotta KFC!

Everyone diggin in

YUM!

The red elephant game begins!

Red elephants are funny!

Everyone with their red elephants!

Church Ball!

It's that time of the year again... the season we've all been waiting for.... you guessed it... CHURCH BALL has started!! AND.... boy did it start off with a sittin on the edge of your chair cheerin and bitin your fingernails game! I didn't take too many pics, cuz the game was just too close and I didn't want to distract anyone.... but get this.... three overtimes and it STILL ended in a tie. AND... just a little FYI... Trent made the last point to make the final tied all up score of 44 - 44. What a game!

Here's Isaac (out team is wearing blue jerseys)

Trent has the ball

Trent going for a shot

This is the best pic I took... just look at Davis.. look at that action!

Trent was double and triple teamed a lot

I think this is Chandler

I've gotta bring a bigger first aid kit next time! Good thing the game begins and ends with prayer!

Annual party!

Friday night we had our annual three family party. It's been going on for over twenty years I think and now includes another generation! We always have VERY yummy food, play the white elephant gift game, talk alot, catch up, ooogle over the newest additions to families, sometimes sing and/or have instruments and sometimes play Big Booty (if ya don't know what game that is, don't ask... ya have to experience it!) But no matter what we end up doing it's ALWAYS a lot of fun. Our familyand friends that came white elephants are always funny... ...and exciting! Sharon, Brenda and me Our honeys... Mike, Carl and JerryBrendas familySharons familyMike got Sparkling Cider... YUMSilly us!

email from Brazil!

Here's our weekly excerpts from our missionary:

Hi family! The pics look great! ... Looks like fun, here the weather is great the highs are about 80 and its not to humid to me. It rains alot and there is usually a little breeze. Our rooms have no air conditioning, all we have is a fan to circulate the air and i´m fairly comfortable everyday. We have a sheet and a light blanket to sleep with and its perfect. As i said we went proslyting last week and thst was really cool. I got someone to take a B of M and we handed out alot of passalong cards. We went to a bridge where there was alot of little stands and people walking around. There was also the most prestigeous catholic law school in brazil at the end of the bridge. I saw some full on monks come out and that was kind of cool. Anyway, i found out that listening is the hardest part. I could say the message fine but if they told me a story, which some did, i was lost. I could pick out words they were saying and kind of the jist of what they were saying, so i just said my testimony and got them to commit to call the number and went on to the next person. It wasn´t bad, one guy called me satan and another was talking about God and that He couldn´t of created the world for about 15 min. Other than that it was good. We were only out for about 1 1/2 hrs....All the kids look the same so far but i probably won´t say that in a few months. ... Sounds like you are having fun at home, but im still having fun here... Crazy to think im leaving in 3 weeks. Goiania is still an unknown place in the ctm. There is 6 of us going there and none of us have heard of anything about it and none of the teachers know anything about it. Some have come to the concluson that it is an imaginary place. jk but it is wierd that no one knows anything about it. I guess i´ll find out when i get there. I can´t attach pics on this computer, i actually can´t take my camera outside the ctm for anything not even to take pics at the temple which stinks. I guess i´ll have to come back here sometime to do that. Well i got to go, Keep writing and i´ll talk to you next week. Boa sorte

Graham cracker houses...

Tonight was our annual graham cracker house decorating for family and friends. We started this tradition several years ago when Brandon and Trent were young. We save up our Halloween candy, buy LOTS of graham crackers, make some royal icing and let the kids go at it. First of all, we had to eat.... so what would be better than chili dogs on a rainy day. Everyone came dressed for the occassion!

Let the decorating begin!

So MUCH candy..

Trent made one too. Looks like a future architect may be in the making.

Everyone is busy.Some of the houses and their designers. The decorators on the Food channel better watch out!

I think everyone had a good time...... the cool dudes chillin out...

... and even the ones that slept through it all.

Light parade...

This weekend, we also took a little drive over to a lighted boat parade at my work. The yacht club (the word YACHT is used loosely... there are absolutely no yachts in the yacht club)... did a great job on the decorating and 18 boats participated. It was hard to get a pic in the dark, but here are a couple. Just a side note.... if you notice I'm not blogging at 5 in the morning.... that's cuz I took a day OFF....Yep a whole day to do STUFF! .... so I better quit bloggin and get goin!

Coyotes...

Mike and I went to our first Coyote game at the Jobbing.com arena (weird name for an arena!)
We went to dinner at his boss' house then we piled in cars and headed over. I forgot that we would be sitting in a building with giant ice... so it was a little chilly... but I fixed that with some hot chocolate. It was a great game... overtime, then a shootout! The coyotes lost but our tickets are good for a free chalupa from Taco Bell. YAY Coyotes!

We raided the boys closet and dressed in our Coyote best!

It was quite a place going in... shops, eateries, huge lighted billboards and big Coyote hockey guys!

Mike's favorite part... the Zambonies

No more blonde...

When Trent was little he was QUITE blonde compared to his siblings.... Brandon and Trent were the youngest and the other siblings were a lot older.... soooooo.... they used to tell him our family went on a trip and we found him in Russia. So... unknown to me.... he believed he was adopted from Russia for a while. Sometimes they STILL tell him he is adopted from Russia. So here's a picture of him and his brothers a LONG time ago when he was still very blonde:

When he got older and his hair dakened up a lot, he did blonde highlights sometimes.... but NO more blonde now. Here is Trent sporting his new look with dark hair. A lot darker, and still cute!

News from Brazil!!

We finally got an email from Brandon. Sounds like everything is good in Brazil. Here are some excerpts:

Oi! How´s it going in America! I made it to Brazil but I didn´t send you a letter so i will do that now. The brazil ctm is nothing like the one in provo. It is only one building and only aout 300 missionaries are here.I saw andrew before he left and he was excited to go. the food here is not vey good but i´m getting used to it. the ctm is very beautiful and we are in kind of a poor part of são paulo, it is very different than anything im used to seeing. .. My new district is really cool and my new comp is elder nyman, he is from wyoming.the ctm is alot more relaxed than provo and we can go outside the gates on p day. I´m writing this email in a small store down the street from the ctm. we also go teaching this friday so we will head to a busier part of the city for that. We just got back from the são paulo temple and that is really cool because everything was in potuguês, thats because i did inititories. its really cool to go out and about through the city and see things. ..I´m having lots of fun here, the teachers are really good. this city is huge, they said that it is one of the top five biggest cities in the world. But one of my teachers said in goiania there is only cows. Nice that you won the contest! All the brazilians think i´m related to c.s. lewis or jerry lewis. And i guess lewis is really hard for them to say because every single one pronounces it as levis. The e sounds like the e in levy. But its all good, the brazilians are so cool and are really friendly. We also have usa vs brazil pillow fights that we always dominate at. i have it all on video! haha. Poruguese is coming along better now that i can here the real accent and can pronounce things correctly. I´ll be here for about another month and then i´m off. ..I better go now, write back any questions you have. see you later,ate logo.

Decorated!

We finished up decorating this weekend... not that we had that much to do ... just finally had a block of time to do it in! Mike put up our lovely Christmas lights!

I put up the decorations, the Nativity and the Winter village

... and hung the stockings

Me, Mike and Trent decorated the tree.... They did a great job!Thanks to my brother... we have a whole bunch of miniature Craftsman tool ornaments and those are Mike's favorite... NO one else but Mike puts those on!

We don't have room for everything on our little tree... so we pack it full!
Our tree is a memory tree... we don't have a theme or color scheme.... just Christmas memories. We have pictures of all the family members, decorations the kids made when they were little, decorations I made, decorations that friends and family have given us. When Mike and I got married we started collecting Christmas ornaments on our honeymoon. So now everywhere we go we buy a Christmas ornament. It's amazing how many places sell ornaments all year round!

We even have a Partridge!

So now the lights and decorations are in place, the fireplace is going, the baking has begun and the Christmas music is playing.... that means the next thing is ..... SHOPPING!!! We gotta put some presents under that tree!