Happy New Year!

Seriously, I am blown away by the fact that it is 2011! I remember the years when my kids were little seemed paced right--except some days and nights were soooo long! Now that my kids are older and we are busier it just seems as if each year has accelerated from the last!

Monday we slept in...how nice is that? Tim and I left the sleeping kids and went to breakfast at a little local bakery. It was yummy and then we headed to Costco for some supplies! When we got home the kids were up and Timo actually had a group project meeting again--and he had them several times this week even though they met a few times before Christmas! They are quite gungho! Later we went to Tim's parents for dinner, and all his siblings that live here came with their kids. It was a lot of fun and the food was yummy! Although we did mis Juan who was home nursing a kidney stone--not fun!
We had fun visiting, watching a Jazz basketball game (not--they lost), cousins played together. Tim's parents opened their present from all their children and their families, a photo book of the family reunion this summer. They seemed to enjoy it and so did the rest of the family members who looked it over. After Emily got to spend the night at her cousin Maddie's which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Tuesday morning Micah has basketball practice. Not too much later we had our dental check ups, well 5 kids did not fair well, they have one cavity each. The rest of us were fine--I did have a piece of tooth that came off when they were scraping off plaque so now it needs fixing, not happy about that! But that's better than a cavity or worse! After Emily was done Tim took Emily home and came back and waited for the rest of us. We went to the indoor mini-golf (black light) at Trafalga. It was pretty cool. We got these season passes to 7 Peaks (waterpark), 2 Trafalgas, Flash Basketball home games and Owl baseball home games so we finally got to Trafalga and it was a lot of fun even though I stink!
Tim played basketball that night and I ran to Walmart for the weekly shopping. I finished a book I got for Christmas STILL ALICE. It's a realistic fiction about a woman in her 50's who gets Alzheimer's--Early Onset. It was quite the tearjerker. I had heard it was a good book about the disease and the many facets to it. It was very good but made me feel so bad for my dad and mom. I don't think I'll read it again but it is a great book if you have a friend or family member with Alzheimer's this gives perspective to what they are dealing with--the author interviewed people with early onset (under 65) and based her character's experiences from their experiences.

Wednesday we woke up to a winter wonderland. It was super heavy and wet. Izak and Micah headed out to sled first thing but then came home soaked after an hour! Teresa needed help setting up the printer she got for Christmas. So after Tim and I went to the National Forest Service to check out the road conditions for the canyon we headed to her house. By the time we were heading home it was colder and the snow was still falling but the roads were nasty. We had planned to take our scouts snowshoeing up the canyon but we were told they did not want us up the canyon the next day because the roads would be worse after that slushy snow froze. The forecast showed the high at 20 degrees but that it would feel like 7 degrees because it would be windy and snowing. Tim was dropping hints, asking if we really wanted to take the scouts out in that weather. I got an email from my co-scout leader questioning going with the weather so I called one of the WEBELOS leaders and asked what she thought. So we postponed it until this month. Hopefully it will pan out, it's always lots of fun but I think they might have been miserable! That night Izak and Micah went to some friends who are brothers and watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice. They really liked it. Meanwhile Zane watched Ironman 2 on Clearplay. He enjoyed that!

Thursday it was really cold, the roads were bad and the snow was still coming down. My friend Melissa (who was down from Boise) and I had set up to go out to lunch Friday but when I told her we had postponed snowshoeing she asked if we could change that to Thursday so another friend could come. So we went to lunch that day, it was great to spend time with her. She is a great friend and I miss her so much! Tim helped out with Timo's basketball practice that afternoon. That night Taran and some of his friends went rollerskating and Emily got to go with. They had a lot of fun. Timo and his friends ended up at the big dance a couple blocks away. I was glad they went even though he said that it was okay.

Friday Tim and I went to see Harry Potter 7 part 1 at about noon. I enjoyed it, I thought it went by fast and was somewhat bummed I couldn't see the second half! This summer! We ran some errands on the way home. I also went out looking for my sister a birthday present. I brought home Panda Express.

After dinner Timo went to a friend's, Taran had already gone to a party and we played games until the cousins showed up. Then we played more games.

The cousins hadn't seen Despicable Me so they watched that. I did other things at that point.


Then we watched the ball drop and the kids blew the horns I had bought and popped the poppers. So we had confetti all over! It was fun. Taran and Timo made it home safe later. Emily had tried to no avail to find a friend to have over but they were all doing family stuff which is pretty normal at her age.

Saturday we let them sleep in but they were up by 9 AM. They played games and then a computer game. I took stuff around to the kids in my new Primary class. That was fun. Then we were off to my mom's to celebrate the New Year and Teresa's birthday with my siblings and their families.




It was fun we ate yummy food and played games: Loaded Questions , The T-Shirt Game, some word game, PS2 karaoke, Madden and Star Wars Lego. Thanks to Keith for bringing the gaming system to play. A real treat for the kids! The photo of me with my siblings in our matching red t-shirts is significant in that Keith bought those t-shirts and they have our elementary school colors and mascot on them! It was fun of him to them to us. We decided to take some goofy pictures in our matching shirts and I liked this one best! But we got home super late--after getting our van stuck in my mom's cul-de-sac! Teresa got injured from helping us push it, we felt bad about that. When we got home I still did some laundry and chores to get the house ready for the Sunday. It was a late night! One thing I need to add is that we got an email back from Timo's friend Porter's mom--this is his friend who passed out in PE and we learned he had a stroke...his mom worked with our brother-in-law and resigned when Porter was hospitalized when Nate mentioned Timo was there to the mom she asked if Timo could send her details of what happened. Timo wrote her and Nate got it to her. She sent us an email Saturday and said that he has an unusual condition where his blood clots too fast thus causing the stroke. She said that the stroke damaged his speaking skills and motor skills on his right side but that he has been able to get some use back since starting physical therapy and speech therapy. He is not up for visitors but he should be coming home in a week--they and we hope anyway! It was nice for Timo to find out something since he gets asked all the time. We fasted for Porter today. We feel good about his prospects at this point since she was upbeat. She did ask that Timo to continue to pray for Porter--which Timo had mentioned to her that he and his friends had been doing that.

Taran got up kind of early and went with some friends to the MoTab broadcast this morning for a concert report for choir. He got back just in time for our 11 AM meetings. Zane got his picture taken before church as part of the bulletin board of children who are getting baptized this year. I was totally not prepared for that! Of course when he turned 7 I said hey in a year you are going to be baptized but since then I have to keep reminding myself he's 7 not 6!

Testimony meeting was good, Zane got Tim to share his testimony! I didn't teach so it was nice to hear all the great lessons: we are starting the New Testament in Sunday School and we had a special speaker in combined RS/Priesthood on Mental Illness. It was very insightful and inspiring. My parents and my sister are coming for dinner. So I am going to end this! Happy New Year and may it be your best yet!