Heat Wave

This posting is dedicated to those of you who reside in locations on the far east and far west side of the country! We just wanted to let you know that we are having a heat wave...today it was around forty degrees. I was afraid that I might have to break out the bikini; however, before you become alarmed, or sick, I left it in the drawer. That being said, I will give you a little update on life. Lately, Mike and I have been working and the kids have been busy with school. In our free minutes, we are hiding in the house in our three layers of clothing. The other night when Mike and I went to bed we checked the temperature and it was a balmy three degrees outside. (I know that you are all jealous and would love to come and visit for a week or two) Now, I do like the winter and having the occasional snow storm (or every other day like it was in December) is fun; that being said, when it is too cold to snow, or leave the house, or get out of bed, I long for the warm weather. As you will notice, all of the background music has been changed in honor of the occasion. I can't complain too loudly because we have not had the inversion out here like they have in downtown and so we do get to see the sun. I also have been dying to take up skiing again and it looks like we will take some lessons with the kids in February.
Nothing much is new here. Mike is working on several projects for his Lieutenant. She keeps him busy, which keeps him out of trouble. (ha ha) He is also looking forward to/ dreading the Lieutenant's test that is in the spring. He is excited to take it, but no one is exactly sure what the format will be; so it is hard to study for it. He is, of course, worried about how he will do on the test. (We all know that he will do awesome on the test!) I am busy with work and trying to decide exactly where I would like to apply for nursing school and finishing up my last prerequisite class. (Nope, one college degree is not enough for me; I must have variety...or is it insanity?!) The kids are both doing the Destination Imagination competition. This is a world wide competition that trys to get kids to work together, be creative and think outside of the box. There are set challenges that the kids have to pick from , and then the team must figure out how to complete the challenge which includes building things, presenting things, and solving problems. No adult intervention is allowed so we can watch but cannot give suggestions or help the kids with building anything. Damon's group has decided that they are going to build a very light weight structure that must hold a significant amount of weight. His challenge also must include two artforms that have been merged to form another art form. There are four boys on his team. The team has come up with their art forms that they are combining and are currently working on the design of their structure. The next step in this process will be actually creating the structure and testing it. Madison's age group does not actually compete but they work on their own challenges and solve problems together. When the older kids go to competition, the younger kids can still go and perform in the challenges but they are not graded at that age. Utah does not have many teams so we go straight to state competition. From there the next step would be the national competition.
Damon has started the Knights of Freedom group. This group is based on the childhood of famous Americans books. The boys have books that they need to read and then meet twice a month to discuss the books and have activities. The boys are very much a part of planning and conducting the activities. This is great because it gets him out of the house, he gets to read some really cool books, and it gives him a variety of responsibilities that he must carry out. He had his first meeting the other day and seems very excited about it. He gets to read Benjamin Franklin first. He is currently in "his off season" for sports. He decided not to play basketball this year and instead is hoping to play lacrosse early this spring. (Hmm, another sport that involves hitting people and there is less padding. I'm not sure what I think about this. )
Madison is her usual, social, self. She is currently in hula, dance, and liberty girls. The liberty girls is like the knights of freedom. Liberty girls is based on the American Girl books and the girls have books that they read and then activities that go along with the book. Her group is just finishing up the Kirsten books and will be starting another series at the beginning of March. The girls have decorated cookies, painted trunks, sewn little quilts, and decorated sun hats as some of their activities. Each of her activities have involved a book discussion and then activities that have something to do with the book itself. She loves it and she loves the group of twelve crazy, giggling girls.
Okay, I am finally done. We just want to tell everyone "Hi" and let them know that we are still alive even if we don't get to talk to everyone all of the time.

Love ya,
Michelle

Surviving the Holidays

Well, we made it through the holidays. We had a wonderful Christmas and the kids had LOTS of presents under the tree. Some of their favorite gifts under the tree were:

Madison- A Barbie house that is taller than she is, Raggedy Ann dolls, Littlest Pet Shop Vip, jewelry, and polly pockets, a gift card, and a book about Mango the green cat.

Damon- A long board, An MP3 player, A short wave radio, some reading books, and some drawing books.

However, their favorite gift by far was the Wii that Grammy and Grandpa gave us. It has even given the kids incentive to keep the basement clean! We spent the day with my parents and went to see my Grandma and my Aunt's family. We had a great day even with all of the snow that we had.

We rang in the new year with a pizza party with the Thuesons. We even made it to midnight, of course, we left at 12:15 am. What can we say...we are real party animals! The kids are back into school and madi is in dance and hula. Damon is taking a break and is looking forward to lacrosse this spring.

Well, hope that this finds you all well. Love ya!!

Well, here it goes...

I finally was able to download the pictures from our very unhappy camera. These are some of the pictures from our cruise. We had a wonderful time! We went to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada. Damon and Madi had a blast on the ship. We all enjoyed the shore excursions, and the kids are wanting to go again. Hmmm, I think we will have to save our pennies!! Anyway, here are some pictures that we took while we were there. We sailed from San Diego, spent one day at sea, spent one day in Cabo San Lucas, another day at sea, one day in Ensenada, and then returned. We did a little cruise to Land's End in Cabo and then went on a tour and the kids played in the ocean. In Ensenada (not pictured here) we went to a Mexican fiesta and did some shopping. The kids looked awesome for formal night on the ship, and they had a blast at camp carnival. They made new friends which they did activities with and even ate dinner with a couple of the nights. Of course we came home to winter weather. (yuck)

Love ya,

Michelle

Catching up

Okay, so I fell off the planet for about a month. We really are fine but things got a little out of control for a couple of weeks. We had a fabulous time on our vacation and really didn't want to come home. I will tell more when I am at my home computer and can post pictures to go along with it. We thank Chris and Alicia for putting up with us and a sick Damon for one night. Sorry that we shared the lovely cold that is going around and won't go away. We returned home a couple of days before Thanksgiving and hit the floor running. Mike and I both had to work the day after we returned and worked through the holiday. Then it was back to school, more work, and the start of the Christmas season. We have also had dance programs, school activities, and everything else. I promise to post pictures of everything. Unfortunately that may be a little while. We had to buy some disposable cameras while we were gone because the camera had a little accident. No worries, I just have to figure out where I put the cameras and then get them developed.

We did have Thanksgiving dinner with Chris and Alicia. This involved going out for pizza and pasta at Pat and Oscar's. It was quite yummy. Then we had a real Thanksgiving dinner, on Thanksgiving, at my parents house. We worked it in between sleep and going back to work. (Actually just Mike had to work that night, I worked the night before. hee hee)

The kids are gearing up for Christmas. They have lists a mile long and think that they are going to get everything. Damon wants anything that is electronic and Madison wants everything that is cute, fuzzy, pink, or can have it's clothes changed. (Pretty much everything) The good news is that Mike is off for Christmas this year and I only have to work four hours on Christmas Eve. Then, to top it off, we get the New Year's holiday off too. Our children won't know what to do with themselves. They will actually have everyone together at the same time and no one will be sleep deprived while celebrating.

All joking aside, we really are blessed to have the jobs that we do. We are so happy to be able to visit our family members that are scattered around the country. We are also thankful for our family and friends that actually put up with us, especially Mike and the kids (they can get a little out of hand).

I do promise to post pictures of what I have and fill you in on the details.

Later,
Michelle

Missing Time

Somewhere between August and November I lost some time. I believe that I am missing about two months. I am unable to figure out where the time has gone, but I hope to find it soon because I desperately need it back. I was not ready for Halloween, I am not ready to be gone to California, I am not ready for Thanksgiving, and I certainly am not ready for Christmas.... That being said I suppose that I am out of luck and will have to face the here and now.
We did survive Halloween, and Madison was able to down her entire stash of trick or treat candy in a matter of 48 hours. I believe that Damon is still working on his candy. The kids made out like bandits while trick or treating. Madison was Elizabeth Swan from Pirates of the Carribean and Damon dressed up like a zombie Doctor.

Mike entertained himself by decorating the yard for Halloween. Later, Mike went ghost hunting with Corey while the rest of us went to bed. (Sane people don't hang out in old grave yards on Halloween night. Now you see why Mike and Corey were there. ) For those of you wondering, yes they did find some "paranormal activity" in the graveyard in Eureka. No, you don't want to know what it was. I informed Mike that if any of his spooky little friends followed him home that he would be sleeping in the graveyard.

We have had the kids pictures taken and I have posted a couple of there here on the blog. I will also be sending pictures out with Christmas cards so watch for that. We will post pictures when we get back from our trip.

Just a little side note...we have reason to celebrate; my brother Chris just found out that he is having some of his research published in one of the science journals. He has had research published before but he was a second author on the project. This time it is his project and he is the author! Congrats Chris!

Fall Fun

It's been a while since I have posted anything. Not to say that nothing has been going on; everything is going on and that seems to be the problem. We have been busy with school, dance, football, halloween, friends, and fun. So, here is the scoop. Despite having been busy, we were able to take a nice trip to Logan with our friends the Thuesons (Yes, people other than our parents will claim us!) We had a nice drive up to Logan, visited the Gossner cheese factory to load up on a car load of cheese, and then we drove up over Logan canyon and down to bear lake. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and rainy that day so it wasn't as pretty as it could have been. We were able to take some neat pictures so I thought I would share. Hope that you are having a nice fall (those of you who live in warm climates, such as florida and southern california, keep the weather comments to yourselves :) ) Thanks, Chad and Wendy, for putting up with us and our crazy kids!!!

Way to go Damon, we are proud of you!!!

Okay, so I finally am getting around to posting pictures of Damon's football. Please note that Damon is number 40. You will recognize him as the defensive lineman that is not built like a monster truck. Most of the kids that are on the line are what they call x-men; they weigh over a certain amount and are not allowed to carry the ball and other restrictions. Mind you, the x-men all weigh twice what Damon weighs but that does not stop Damon from wanting to play defensive line and go up against these boys. He had an awesome year and is looking forward to next year. It is cool that this is the one and only year that they will play under the name Saratoga Spartans, next year the new highschool will be finished and they boys will play under the new high school name. (It's neat to be the first and only spartans)

He is down in his defensive stance. Making a tackle by the ankles.

Off the line and hitting hard


Attending the coin toss as defensive capt. Notice how close Damon is lined up, he's ready

Bring it on