Name That Tune!!

Name that tune!

The hit of the morning

 

 The usual snacks

We had a great Christmas.  We invited Aunt Tami over for Family Home Evening on Christmas Eve.  We watched a video (they showed "O Come Emmanuel" from the Mormon Channel at our ward social so I had Matt bring it up on his smart phone and then patch it into our TV), I read Luke 2, we sang, and then opened our secret Santa gifts.  In the morning we all slept in, then arose slowly and calmly, sat around and visited, and then began opening presents (thanks everyone).  It still went by too fast.  We had about 4-5 inches of snow.  We watched a bunch of movies, ate, visited, Matt played bball with Richards, ate, slept, watched more movies, and ate some more.  Matt and Kimbre went home this morning, he had to work today at 3:00pm.  He gets his new rookie to train today.  Mom and I did a little shopping and exchanging and napping.  It was a great Christmas.  We loved hearing from everyone and hope you had a good Christmas too.

Random Thoughts

We've had my work party, Mom's work party, the ward social, and our Christmas sacrament meeting, Matt is at the stake center playing basketball with the Richards, Kimbre and Riley are upstairs watching Elf, Mom is wrapping gifts, it snowed about 4" last night, and I am working on the computer.

There were lots of kids and young couples at church yesterday.  They are all home for the holidays.  We hope you all made it to where you were going safely.  Enjoy the holidays.

Game night

 

We were scheduled to drive around and look at Christmas lights last night- but instead it turned into an impromptu game night. It was fun to just stay home and be silly as we played each other- even Aly got into the act.

 

-Brant 

Just a quick note to let you know we made it to London. Our flight was uneventful and I have now been awake for 27 hours because there were too many good movies on the plane and I didn't get any sleep. Enjoy a photo of me with the Tower Bridge and Kelly with a dragon she found in the armorer's shop in the Tower of London. We'll post a few more as they come. 

Concerts and Clay

We attended the kids' school concert on Thursday. It brought back memories of singing on the stage of the old Warden Elementary School when I was in second grade. Seeing the boys in band also reminded me of Mr. Kleinert and Junior High concerts.

For FHE we made a nativity set out of Sculpee Clay.

Gas War

Most of you are probably too young to have experienced a gas war.  They were fairly common in the 50's and 60's but since the price of gas has sky-rocketed over these last 30-40 years you don't see them much any more.  This last few months they have been building a new Maverick gas station in Lewiston.  It opened a couple of weeks ago and the war was on.  Prices were running about $3.42 and instantly dropped about .$20.  Then daily Maverick has been dropping the price twice a day.  The other stations have had to drop their price to keep the business.  As I passed the station Friday on the way home Maverick had just dropped the price to $2.89 per gallon.  There was a car at each of the 10 pumps and many of them had a car waiting in line.  It will be interesting to see how long and how low the price goes.  We are all loving it.

Hope you are all ready for Christmas.

Saturday

 Aimee had another cheer competion this week, complete with Santa afterwards.  She had a lot of fun and they did better on their routine.

 

 Saturday was also Scout Ski day at Copper Mountain.  I took Tyler up for his first time.  He did really well and got the hang of it pretty quickly.  He learned how to turn well and made it down the run several times without crashing.  I took him on a bigger run and he did well until it got a little steep at the end.  He had a beautiful crash that ended with him tumbling in a cloud of snow and a ski shooting up in the air.  I wish I could have captured it on video.  Contrary to his expressions in these photos, he had a lot of fun and is ready to go again.

 

-Brant

Today I super glued three of my fingers (on two different hands) to a Christmas ornament. I've super glued my fingers many times (including times I did it on purpose), but this is the only time I've actually been worried about it. As the glue hardened, it started to burn and a small puff of smoke came off of my fingers. It took me about 5 minutes to get my fingers loose and Kelly kept telling me to just yank them off. In the end, no blood, but my fingerprint is permanently imprinted on the back side of a small felt goat that now hangs from our tree.

Our weekend

 Friday- Tyler received his Star Rank

 

 Saturday morning- Aimee competed in her first cheerleading competion.  Her group was the smallest, but they did well and had a lot of fun.  They placed 5th out of about 9 groups.

 

 

 Saturday evening- Tyler marched in Brighton's Parade of Lights.  It was actually a very fun parade that only lasted about an hour.  There were some cool entries- a concrete truck covered completely in lights and a monster truck fire engine.

 

Saturday night- Leslie performed with her Barbershop group at a nursing home's Christmas program.  She sings "Bass" and they did really well.  The residents seemed to have a good time.

 

-Brant



Polar Express

Last night we watched Polar Express with Kev's family on the big screen at the Wildlife Experience.  This photo afterward made me laugh.  Each kid's expression is priceless!

Brant

PS- The best part was the preview movie while we waited- A Christmas Story.  We walked into the theater as he unpacked his "major award."

We're Still Here

Yes, it has been a little slow on the blog these last couple of weeks but we have been busy.  I just got home from tithing settlement and I'm tired.  Nobody told me that the Executive Secretary would be so busy.  I never really had one as a bishop and I'm trying to be a help to Bishop Skinner.  I do  lots of lists, interviews, e-mails, answer questions, etc.  I just spent 10 hours at church getting people headed in the right direction. 

No pictures this week.  I'll try to do better new week.

Flash Mob

So me, my mom and my friend all did a mormon flash mob. My mom's friend decided to do a flash mob to On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons. The lady who orginized this has blue jeans on so try to find her. As you can see it keeps getting bigger and biggger each time. Every body would start with their jackets on and then throw them off when it was there turn to join in. Oh ya we did this at southwest plaza back in lakewood.  The mall had a light show on the christmas tree and as soon as it was done our music started. Me and my friend are hiding behind the sunglasses booth but you can see my mom clearly. Me, my freind, and my mom all came in at the begining of the chorus. At the end we all sang Silent Night. We had so much fun. 

 

 

Here we are at our part!

 

 

More people,

 

 

and more,

 

 and here we all are!

 

-Aimee



Hidden treasure

Over Thanksgiving- Rulon took us all to his "friend's" largest private musuem full of WWII vehicles in the US.  All the vehicles are restored and functioning.  We were able to wander around as much as we liked, then we headed out to the mountains.  When we arrived, the "friend" shot a WWII cannon and then let us shoot his 50 caliber machine gun- (think waist guns from Mephis Belle.)  We shot at cars and a motorhome that were loaded with gasoline and fire works.  He asked us to keep the videos off the internet, so I'll have to show you sometime when you come to visit.

 

 

"Ain't Misbehavin"

 

 

 

Brant

The blog has been a little slow lately, so I would like to add a picture for your viewing enjoyment. This is Kelly wearing her "head scarf of protection" while she slaves over a hot stove. She didn't want the mixture of onions, garlic, etc to attach their smell to her freshly washed hair before we go to church, so she took the proper precautions.