Where Are You, Christmas?

I guess it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  I, for one, am ready to say goodbye to this year at this point! Too much sadness.  I'm glad we have our blog to look back on and remind us of all the happy times we had, too .  There were many!   Darren (above) reminds us to look forward and you can't stay sad for long when you are around him.  We are missing a lot of wonderful people this Christmas and praying for my brother as he starts his treatment.  I'm thankful we know the real meaning of Christmas!

A Little Behind!

Since Carl's birthday, we went to Colorado for Thanksgiving with some of my family, went to the best Denver Nuggets game, had Darren's 3rd birthday party, went to TX for 4 days, looked at 25+ houses, and now I'm home and Carl will be back on Friday.  We just found out my brother, Carl, has lymphoma.   Hopefully, we will find out more information on his condition this week.  Please keep my brother and his family in your prayers.

Happy Birthday to Carl!!!

Pictures coming after all the celebrating!  :)

(This pic is from last year.)

Opera Time! (They could've been on Oprah, though!)

Oh the joy of doing a student opera with second-graders! 

Gloucester Abby AKA Hogwarts

Cotswald (I think)

England Countryside Ala Carl

Warming & drying off by a fire afterwards.

Hiking in the UK

Carl forwarded this email from a guy who is going to take him for a hike:

The plan for the mornings hike will start at the historic Painswick church and then head out on the Cotswold Way taking in rolling countryside, woodland and the odd big hill. We will finish at Coaley view point which provides one of the most picturesque views in the county, weather permitting! It is about 8 miles.

I will have parked my old car at Coaley view point so hopefully we can then head off to a pub for a hot meal and I will drop you back at your hotel.

I have booked you a taxi for 7.45am, to pick you up from the hotel and drop you at Painswick Church where I will be waiting.

Bring warm cloths and a waterproof jacket. If you need to borrow some kit then we have some at Stonehouse, so let me know.

I have your mobile number if there is any problem.

See you Sunday.

Andy

He's pretty excited to check out the area. I'm pretty excited he gets a day off. Traveling for work isn't nearly as glamorous as it sounds. I guess I can relate with field trips I have to go on. haha They are seriously NOT glamorous!

Dubai

A room with a view...

Halloween Trick?

Looking For Carl?

Goodbye Dad

We miss you.

Kids & Leaves Make Everything Seem Better!

We were thankful that the AZ family stopped in for a visit!

Some of Grandpa's Visitors

Answered Prayers

Carl's dad is doing much better! He fought off the H1N1 virus and sepsis!

Darren was able to leave the hospital on Saturday morning! The Docs still don't know what was causing his seizures, but he has 3 appointments with specialists coming up. He loved going home in the snow. :)

:(

Carls dad and my great-nephew are both in the hospital. Please keep them in your prayers.

Just Say No To Drugs In Singapore!

Carl's passport...

More Zoo Pix

Monkeying Around in Singapore

After a bunch of super long days, Carl had some free time on his Saturday and went to the Singapore Zoo. He called me from the Primate Kingdom where he was living one of my dreams of hanging out with monkeys (they were free - not caged!)!

"Flat Carl" Gets a Grammyish Thing!

Carl finished his big training in Singapore today (well, it's his tomorrow) and they gave him an award or trophy and they all applauded him. :) I asked him how he did with all the names and he said it was pretty interesting. I guess we're getting used to the time change.

Long, long days...and nights...

Carl looks pretty flat in this picture! I dropped him off at the airport at 5:45 AM on Monday. He left at 1:30 PM. 12 hours to Tokyo then 8 hours to Singapore. He finally landed on Tuesday around 11:30 my time. FYI: No American phones will work in Japan. He couldn't call at 1:30 am to tell me he landed. Little freaked about the missiles being shot off out that way. Oh, and the Tsunami that hit Samoa. His first night in Singapore, there was an earthquake in Jakarta and he kept getting Tsunami warnings. He goes there next Wed. Great. It's going to be a long 2 weeks!

Guess Where "Flat Carl" Is Going!

First:Second: (Carl says the picture below isn't fair, but I got it from the map by where he'll be. So, it might be misleading.)
Third:

...GONE!

Yeah, it made me cry.

...going...

Going....

Challenge (click here for link)

I ran across this. I agree 120%. We found out this summer how very dear and treasured pictures of family members are.


"Many scrapbookers knew Aleida Franklin. She was a wonderful wife and mother and a brilliant artist. I didn't know Aleida personally, but she taught me something I will never forget.She emailed me last year to tell me she loved my blog and to ask if I liked my short hair-cut. This lead to a series of emails which eventually led me to remark that I really loved how often she posted pictures of herself with her children on her blog. And she replied to me, "Have you ever seen a photograph of your own mother and thought to yourself how fat she looked? Or how she wasn't wearing make-up? Or wasn't dressed in a glamorous outfit?" Of course my answer was no. She then responded with saying that she made it a goal to take a picture of herself with her children at least once every month. And that to use excuses about how we look, as women, is ridiculous, since our children will never care what we looked like, but only that we had physical evidence of the bond between mother and child. Aleida tragically and unexpectedly passed away in an auto accident in September of 2008, leaving 2 small children and a grieving husband. After she passed I thought of how those children must feel to have those precious photographs. I have made it my personal goal to follow her wise suggestion and I try to take photos of myself with my children....double chins, make-up free, bed-head and all. I invite Mothers everywhere to take Aleida's Challenge. To photograph yourself with your children each and every month. And to post them here so that we can see Aleida's legacy unfolding." (I'm not posting pictures on her site, but I am going to keep this in mind for my own family.)

Happy Autumnal Equinox!!

Swine Flu, I mean, H1N1 Virus

I was serious. Well, I'm sure I didn't GET it from the bacon I had when we went camping, but I did wake up that day with a sore neck -the kind when you can't turn your head, and within hours my throat hurt and the rest of me was achy, fevery, and I was dizzy. I slept all day Sunday and went to school Monday. :/ That almost killed me, so I stayed home Tuesday. I thought I would be OK since Wed was early release and I had an "easy" afternoon. NOT! I don't even remember the day other than feeling like the meanest teacher in the universe. I finally got into the Dr (they were too full on Tues) Thursday AM and I have a strain of the Swine Flu. Too late for the medicine, so let it run it's course and stay home, he said, and hope that I don't get the respiratory end worse than I did (which is a minor miracle considering my "compromised respiratory state (AKA pneumonia & bronchitis too many times)." I thought it might be a the worlds worst UTI, and actually said, "Shoot" when the nurse said it wasn't that. If you have symptoms, go within 48 hours if you want that medicine that's on the news. My Dr. said it's spread by spit (coughing, sneezing). I am obsessed with hand washing and sanitizing, so go figure. It got me anyway through the air. :(

And I laughed when my Principal offered face masks on the first day of work.

What do these two pictures have to do with me?

Clue: Bacon (Swine) + Medical Ctr (Flu) = Swine Flu!

Camping!

Who knew camping so close to home could be so fun!? We had big plans to go high in the Uintahs last weekend, but that changed and we arranged to go this past weekend for one night. Not much is open, so we ended up only about 15 minutes from home - where we cross country ski! I made tin foil dinners and they were pretty darn good! Why does food taste SO good when you go camping? We had a great time!! Other than the camp host told us bear stories from the summer for about 20 minutes. There was a 600 pound one oh, about a mile from our campsite. And 3 others close by. It's the campground where this camp host shot a bear on July 3 - it was in the news at the time. We had Clyde with us, but I didn't sleep. Tug sounds exactly like a bear when he groans next to your head all night.

09:09:09 on 09-09-09

We stopped everything to take a picture at the preciseish moment (not a guarantee with our school clocks)! This group has photo personality - it comes out when I use the timer and they forget I'm there, I think. We were all holding up 9 fingers because I have no creativity. 3 kids missed it and were sad, so I told them to have their parents do it with them that night. They all stay up later than me anyway!

Provo River Bike Ride

We finally tried out the Provo River Parkway! We went about 50 miles (Carl says 15)! In the park where we started, a guy was singing "I Did It My Way" in Spanish (on huge speakers). I guess that was like foreshadowing! This path has a lot of tunnels under roads. They are wide enough for one bike at a time and you can't see if anyone is coming from the other side because of the hills. I didn't mind letting Carl go first and once I thought it was safe to go, I would follow. No need to do those hills after stopping! It was a little rollercoasterish and one wrong move and one would end up in the raging river. It was a lot of fun, though. We went to the mouth of the canyon and then headed back. We watched some BYU students play slip-n-slide kickball when we were done. Home was a slip-n-slide (and that's where they kicked from) and the bases were blow up swimming pools filled with water. They had to go through the pools to round the bases. Lots of water splashing. Then they had to slide back into home. It made me think of Shauna and Kimberly, so we tried calling them. It was a lot of fun and labor to do this ride on Labor Day! I was proud to wear my Dutch orange and pretend I was in the Tour de France!

Belly Boat!

I had to force Carl to go out in his float tube this morning! I didn't get a new license this summer, so I read on the "beach." I should have taken a picture of the guys taking pictures of him. They were from another country and were fascinated by what he was doing. They started talking to us in the parking lot. He caught 3 and spent almost 2 hours out there. He started to go rescue a couple kids who did a "Karen" (slid into the water and couldn't get out) and tried out several different flies he made. The last time Carl when out on the float tubes was with Paul. We miss him.

September Weekend at Pine Hollow

We headed up to the cabin on Saturday morning. It was a nice lazy day. Cool enough for a fire and we had a nice thunder storm. Dad made us go exercise the iron mules, so Clyde (pistol) got to come along since it's bear season. We watched True Grit and loved it. We listened to BYU play Oklahoma. Amazingly, BYU won! It was nice to cheer for the same team as the men. Never been a fan of OU. Autumn is in the air! We were glad we changed our camping plans (We'll have to try the secret campsite another year - it's closed now.) and had this special weekend with Carl's dad at the cabin. It was bittersweet - Dad seemed to be memorizing every inch of the cabin. We hated to say goodbye for the year, but are thankful we made it up with him so many weekends. We wish he could have gone up more, though. We are still wondering who left the front door & a window open in July - and the outside chairs were all messed up, so we know someone was there. Hmmmm! Guess it's going to remain a mystery. Maybe the bear had some buds over! Carl has missed Roger's shirt on the little bunk bed, so he kept one of his own there all summer.

Peaceful

Secret Campspot!

We found a perfect camping spot!Complete with: