Hike in the Foothills

Camille, Matt, Spunky and I enjoyed the warm dry weather on a hike in the foothills during the Christmas break.  We love to see the city at our feet!

Happy Birthday, Scott!

I can't believe Scott is 18! My sweet little, enthusiastic, fearless, talkative boy with the big smile is all grown up.  Big things are ahead in the next year and I am so proud of the path Scott is on.  

Happy Birthday, Scott!

Merry Christmas!

I didn't take pictures of the kids with their presents this year, but don't worry, Santa didn't forget them.  Here is our tree after all the presents were cleared out, since I forgot to take one before Christmas.  It always looks a little lonely after Christmas is over, but it's still the last part of my Christmas decor that I take down.  I always hate to see it go.  'Til next year!

Christmas Eve

 Christmas Eve Prime Rib dinner with Grandma and Grandpa O. and Mommer and Grandpa L.

 New PJs were BYU sweats this year

 Obligatory asleep on the stairs picture.  This worked better when they were a little shorter.

 I'm not sure what prompted this picture.  They look like they're guarding the Christmas tree, but I think it's one of Scott's tough guy poses and everyone else is copying him.

Finally, everyone is smiling normally! These pictures can be hard to come by.  Merry Christmas!

Soccer Team Service Project

Camille's Home!

...And she gets a turn at gingerbread house making, too!

Matthew's Choir Concert

Matthew performed in an awesome Christmas Choir Concert.  Even Santa thought so!

Lasagna Party

We had our annual Lasagna Party with the Lane family at our house but I didn't get a lot of pictures -just this one of a newspaper search game.  One highlight -Steve and Karleen (far left in the above picture) announced their engagement!

It was our last time seeing Olga before she returns to Russia.

Heartbeats

This year I had the opportunity to sing with a choir called the Heartbeats.  It is made up of volunteers from the Weber County Medical Alliance, which is made up of spouses of doctors in Weber county.  We started practicing in September and spent the first three weeks of December singing at various senior centers and other locations around Ogden.  It was a lot of fun and very rewarding.  I made many new friends and spread some Christmas cheer.

Mission Call

We Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa O. while they opened their anxiously-awaited mission call and were thrilled with them to learn that they will be serving in the Stockholm Sweden mission where Grandpa served his 1st mission and where his family originated.  They enter the MTC in March.  We'll miss them but are proud of their decision to serve and grateful for their example.  Before they return we will hopefully have one and maybe two more missionaries serving from our family.

Lunar Eclipse

Since Matt's current career goal is to become an astrophysicist we knew we'd better get up at 6am to watch the progress of the lunar eclipse.  Pretty cool.

Gingerbread Houses

Mmmm...merry Christmas!

Windstorm

 On December 1st, a huge windstorm blew through Northern Utah.  School was canceled and there was quite a bit of damage.  Matt is standing in front of some trees that blew over at Forest Green park near our house.  The bottom picture is a tree along the road to our house.  Our house didn't sustain any damage, but two small windows in my car were shattered by the wind.  It was pretty crazy for a while, but it was even worse in Davis county, especially Centerville, where we used to live.  Some friends from our old neighborhood posted pictures on Facebook and there was much worse damage there.  My thoughts and prayers are with them.