Happy Birthday Amanda

Since Amanda's birthday is so close to Christmas her birthday is usually celebrated with our Family Christmas party. She doesn't seem to mind....yet. She thinks it is great that she gets to open presents three days in a row. Hopefully she still feels that way when she is a teenager.

Zach is 12!

I am not a big party person....but for our kids 12th birthday we try to make it special. So they get to have a birthday party. Zach wanted to go rock climbing. So we took him and a couple of his friends rock climbing at rockreation. They had an instructor and they were able to climb on several different walls. After about 2 hours they were all very tired but had a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Zach!

It all about the Water

This year for our family vacation we went to visit my sister in Spokane. We usually go about every other year. This time is rained most of the time but we were able to have some fun anyway. The plan was to go to Silverwood which is a amusement park in Idaho but it was about 50 degrees and pouring so we went to this indoor water park at a Ski Resort called Silver Mountain in Wallace Idaho. It was a really nice park and just the right temperature. The kids had a ball. There were Three big tube slides and then the lazy river....but the kids had the most fun on the surf machine.

Most of the kids just tried the boogie board but Zach wanted to surf and managed to get up a couple of times.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. This is Anna's most awesome fall. Sometimes you just get lucky and are clicking when something happens.

This is Kayla on the boogie board. Even Amanda was able to do it....I was just content taking pictures of the action.

This is at lake Cour de Laine (spelling?) We manage to make it to the lake before the rain came....and it came. There was a dark wall of rain coming across the lake and we started to run to the car but didn't make it and all of us ended up soaked. Zach is alway good for a pose.

Anna and Kayla just sitting looking out at the lake.

This is the kids having fun on the trampoline. I am not sure what game they are playing.

Once again we had a great time! Thanks Jensens!!!

The Half Marathon

So Craig decided that this year he was going to run a 1/2 marathon. I think he would have run a full if he thought his knee would have made it. It seems to be the thing to do around here. I think it is a form of a mid-life crisis. Nothing you would ever care to do when you were young but knowing that your are hitting "middle age" you want to prove that you still can do it. I at this point was not 40 yet so I didn't feel the need to try...maybe next year. This one was up in Logan. Craig ran with his sister Cathy and her husband Guy and My friend Lisa's husband Scott. Craig's whole goal was to make it under 2 hours....which he did!!

The kids watching for Craig at the finish line.

Craig as he ran past....almost there.


Kayla running with Aunt Cathy to the finish line.

Just Happy to Be Done....Now lets find some food. Good job guys!!

Daddy Daughter Pinewood Derby

Kayla got to participate in here first daddy daughter pine wood derby. She was to excited to decorate her own car . She didn't win but I thin her care looked the best.

Lagoon

I finally gave in and took my kids to Lagoon. They have been wanting to go for quite a while now. I am a Disneyland person myself and Lagoon just doesn't match up.....the last time I was there was in 1989. My friend had some discount tickets so I decided to take the kids. (Except Anna who was at YC with Craig.)
The kids had a good time...especially Zach who loves the thrill rides.

Mandy was too short to go on most the the rides so me and her did alot of waiting for the other kids. Can anyone explain why you have to be 46 inches for the bumper cars? Once again Disneyland is alot more family friendly.

Kayla is not quite at brave as Zach and sat with me and Amanda while the others went on Wicked.

The Rocket was Zach's favorite ride.

This is the last picture of Zach with his glasses on .....because he lost them in the rapid ride. So my nice cheap lagoon day ended up costing me an extra 200$ to replace Zach's glasses. Who would have thought you would need to remove your glasses for the rapid ride. Even though he couldn't see the rest of the day he still had a great time.

TVG reunion 2009

The 1988-1989 School year at BYU was my most favorite year of college. I had the best roommates every. We named ourselves the TVG as a joke. (TVG stands for The Very Greatest.) This comes from Jayne and I. When we were kids we would write letters back and forth and we always signed our name TVG. Over the years is stuck. We even had our adopted roommate Alicia's brother make us sweatshirts that said Club TVG on them. Carrie, Jayne and I had come back to the dorms for our second year because my cousin Amy wanted to live with us but also wanted to spend her first year on campus. So we stayed another year. Jen and Holly were randomly assigned to our apartment.....as you could say it was a match made in heaven. They fit right in with our crazy sense of humor. We had so much fun playing practical jokes on other apartments....I can' remember a time that we had a fight. So after about 20 years through the wonders of facebook we arrange a reunion. It was just like old times except there are now husbands and kids involved. There was a lot of laughing and remembering all the crazy things we used to do. It was so great to see everyone and I really hope that it is not another 20 years before we get together again.

Me,Carrie, Jayne,Jen, Holly and Amy

This was the reenactment or our Christmas card picture from 1988.On the bottom is Holly, Jayne, Rob (Jayne's Husband then was her fiance) and Carrie. Next row is Amy and then myself and Jen on the top.

This is all of the spouses and kids that were able to come. We were missing about 10 people.

I had to have a picture of Carrie and I. We were best friends and were always together until she met Allen and got married that next summer. That is Holly behind Carrie....I guess we won't ever grow up!