A Taste of Christmas

This is what we do for Christmas. It is a tradition that Brian's dad taught us the Christmas before he passed away. And he got it from his mother whose funeral we will be attending tomorrow. Mine still aren't as pretty as Ron's were, but they are just as tasty. This year we had the privilege of the Arizona cousins coming to help. Thanks guys.

Included in this year's candy making:

• Penuche
• Fondant fudge
• Orange flavored fondant dipped in dark chocolate
• Cherry cordials dipped in milk chocolate
• Cherry cordials (without the cherries...blech) also dipped in milk chocolate
• Vanilla fondant dipped in milk chocolate
• Chocolate truffles

Yummy!

Great Grandma

Last night, Brian's grandma passed away peacefully at the age of 93. She will be missed.
We love you Grandma.
18 Oct 1917-17 Dec 2010

A Long, LONG night.

When we got to Salt Lake on Friday night, Zak complained about his arm hurting. I knew that he had a spot (from a virus he has called molescum) under his arm that was a little red and swollen, but I had no idea how bad it was until now. So on the way home, we decided that it would be best to take him to the doctor to have it looked at. And since we were there and paying a co-pay, I asked if they would take care of the wart on his foot too.

Little did we know what we were in for. Apparently the doctor had another patient that she was communicating with Primary Childrens to make sure she did all the right things. We finally got in to see the doctor an hour after Zak's appointment time, and then Primary Childrens called and it was another hour before we saw her again. By the time she got to Zak it was 11:30. (Amber and Les were waiting in the waiting room too.) After she looked at his arm, she decided that it would be best to lance the spot and squeeze the infection out, and she said that the wart was so big that she was going to have to cut the top part that was dead off before she could freeze it.

Zak is such a brave kid. He laid on the table as if nothing was going on and let her do what she needed to do. She had to cut into the infection two different times, but he said it felt so much better to have all of that out, that it was OK. She was able to squeeze at least a dime size pocket of infection out, and said that there was a lot more, but it would involve too much cutting and that she would have to cauterize it if she did any more. So she bandaged it up and gave him an antibiotic and moved to his foot.

Again he laid there very brave and let her take care of his wart. He said it hurt a little bit, but not too bad.

Anyway, after leaving the doctor at 12:20, finding a pharmacy and waiting for his prescription to be filled, and driving the rest of the way home, we finally arrived home at 1:00 in the morning. It was a very long night.

Lights in Salt Lake

Friday night we decided to go to Salt Lake to see the lights on Temple Square. It was warmer than it has been, and so we thought we better do it before it was too cold or the roads were bad.

As always, it was beautiful. I always enjoy just taking our time to see the lights and enjoy the music and crowds (but we always try to go on a night that the crowds won't be too terrible!)

We love the luminaries that are around the Church Office Building. They are always fun to look at and see the different depictions of our Savior's birth. And then the fun of the night began after we left Temple Square (dun, dun, dun!)

Santa Run

This year for Thanksgiving weekend, we helped with the Santa Run 5K in Ogden. We were at one of the aid stations.But instead of water and Gatorade, they had cookies and milk. It was lots of fun to watch and to help with.
This is one of our friends that did the race. It was only his 2nd 5K. And even the Grinch did the race! Zak had fun giving out cookies to J.R. After the race, we stuck around for the Ogden Christmas parade.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving this year with my family. The kids all got an assignment from Mom of something that they had to help make for dinner.

Zak made chocolate pudding to fill the pie crust that Mom had left when she was done making the real pies. And Les had to whip cream to make marshmallow fruit salad.

And Amber helped with several things including making the rolls. It was a wonderful day and a great dinner!

Thanks for having us Mom & Dad.

Tooth #2

Yesterday, Zak had to go to the dentist to get his other tooth pulled. His permanent teeth were coming in way behind the baby ones and they weren't pushing them out. So now he has lost two teeth in two days.
Thank heaven he was very brave. He wasn't worried at all about what the dentist might do to him. He sat there and watched TV like nothing was going on.

And the tooth fairy brought two silver dollars for being brave and letting the dentist pull his tooth.

My Big Kid

Last night, after days and days of effort, Zak finally lost his 1st tooth. His permanent ones are coming in so far behind, that they weren't pushing out the baby ones. He is actually scheduled to have both bottom teeth pulled today. Now we just have to have one done!

Yesterday he said that he wasn't a big kid yet because he hadn't lost any teeth. Shortly after he pulled this one, He said "I'm finally a big kid!"

Big Springs & The Waterfall

Yellowstone closed for the winter on Sunday, so on Monday, my parents took us to a few places close to the cabin. The first place that we went to was called Big Spring. It is the spring that is the headwater for the Snake river.

Standing on the bridge, we saw a Muskrat.

The muskrats loved harassingthe ducks. The ducks were beautiful. If you look closely, you can see five fish in the water. The water was so clear that we could see everything in it all the way to the bottom. The spring comes out to the right of this playhouse sized cabin.
Then they took us to a waterfall on the snake river. It was simply breathtaking. Behind Brian you can see Amber and Mom right next to the fall. It gives some perspective to the size of the waterfall. Unfortunately as you can see from the photos, the weather was not real great. We really didn't dare spend too much time for fear our little 2 wheel drive cars wouldn't get us out of the areas we were in, but I'm still glad that we took the time to go see these places. Especially the waterfall.

After the falls, we went back to the cabin to play games by the fireplace and soak in the hot tub. thank heavens for places to get warm!

Yellowstone

We spent last weekend in Island Park and Yellowstone with my parents. We went to Yellowstone 10 years ago, and have tried many times to take the kids back there, but until now we haven't been able to work it out. It is such a beautiful place. The weather was beautiful the two days that we were in Yellowstone, and it snowed the other two days we were there.
Here are a few (quite a few) of my favorite pics.

This one was ruined by a car that pulled in just as I got ready to snap the photo.

This buffalo along with 2 others were only about 30 feet from us!

Riverside Geyser.

Brian has always wanted to see this one erupt and has never been able to until this time.

Morning Glory Pool

Firehole Falls

The kids walking through the steam.

Crater Geyser

These buffalo were only an arms reach out the window of the car.

They were in a large herd.

Science Fair

Amber won 3rd place at the school science fair this year! She ran tests and collected aquatic macroinvertebrates to determine the health of the Weber River. It was exhausting.

Good job Babe.

Halloween--Nearly Forgotten

I almost forgot to post Brian's Halloween costume.

Every year he has to dress up for Red Ribbon week.

This year he chose Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
His students are too young to know who Mr. Burns is...

But he had fun, and that is all that matters!

Happy Halloween

Halloween at our house was lots of fun this year. Costumes were EASY! thank heaven.
Zak recycled a magician costume that we already had!

Les recycled Amber's Hermione costume from last year and was Harry Potter!
Brian made him a pretty cool wand too.

and Amber wore lots of BLING and was movie star! They really were cute together!
this year Brian needed to work, so the kids had to take themselves around the neighborhood. They did a great job and I think they enjoyed not having an adult tell them what to do!

14 Years!

Happy 14th Anniversary Brian!!

Pumpkin Carving

Because my birthday is just 3 days before our anniversary, we usually go to dinner for my birthday and then end up at home carving pumpkins for our anniversary. I know, we're pathetic, what can I say?

This year, all the kids were able to carve their own pumpkins. I think that when they had to clean the ooey-gooey guts out, they wished that they hadn't chosen such large pumpkins. But they had fun creating and learning how to do it all over again.

I'm not sure I like a knife in Zak's hand!

And Les worked really hard and did everything himself! He was very proud of his jack-o-lantern!Carving 5 pumpkins the size of ours really makes a big mess!
Zak's skeleton...

Les's bat...
Brian's pirate....

My cyclops....

And Amber's ....uhh...jack-o-lantern!

Happy Halloween!

(a little late!)