We Made It

Snow across praire. Boise good. Burley good, power off in whole town for couple of hours, Mom had headlamp. Snowed overnight. Snowing this morning. Near whiteout at Snowville. Semi's and cars off every where. Sometimes speed was 15 MPH. We're here at the motel looking forward to more excitement tomorrow.

Klondike

This weekend was the Klondike campout.  The theme was "Frozen Longer than the Dead Dude."  You need to read this article about the frozen dead guy of Nederland to fully understand the story.  Although there wasn't a lot of snow, we had a fun time.  Here are some pictures of the various activities-

 

Thanks to help from Uncle Travis, Tyler received a new tent for Christmas.  It is the yellow tent behind the sled and it is a lot like Uncle Matt's.  It worked well on the maiden voyage.

 

We ate great on this campout!  Here Ty is cooking grilled cheese sandwiches that included ham, pineapple and brown sugar as well. YUM!

 

Not a lot of snow this year.

 

So we played on the frozen lake

 

Fire starting with flint and steel

 

Muzzle loading rifles.  Black powder is fun!

 

Ty hit his target, a hanging clay pigeon.

 

Brant

The Glory Days

The boys and I borrowed the Ranger to take our Christmas tree to the recycling center this afternoon.  We capped off the experience by driving home with the windows down and the heat blasting.  Reminded me of a few too many Saturday mornings.

We had the day off today, so we decided to go on a walkabout across town. I've been wanting to go on a long distance walk for a while and I thought it would be fun to see how far we could make it and how tired we would/would not be. We walked from our house straight north through a park that runs through most of DC and ended up at Cousin Marlo's house on the other side of town. I haven't calculated it exactly yet, but I think it was close to about 15 miles in 5 hours.

Lunch time

The official border. Maybe Obama could order up a little nicer sign. This one is actually pretty good considering DC seems to have a strict policy against clearly labeling streets and intersections.

Brady's Birthday

Brady's big day was today. We opened his presents here at our place with Mom and Dad and then had cake and ice cream at Richards along with Sam's birthday. I've given up on making cute cakes and am now focusing on flavor. I tried an orange creamsicle cake from Pinterest. It was pretty good.
We had fun visiting at Matt and Kimbre's this weekend and Kimbre attacked my hair and I am now a brunette. I love it!!!!

It's Been A While

It's been a while since I blogged so I thought I'd bring you up to date.  We are cold but still alive.  We have had constant snow for the last couple of days but it is cold and fluffy so not much buildup on the ground (about 4-5 inches).

My new pickup is in Salt Lake but I don't have time to go get it right now.  I thought I had my old one sold to Steve Berglund but he backed out yesterday.  I have been trying to get them to put the new one on a car carrier and send it up to Moscow.  Now it looks like Mom and I will drive my old one down, make the switch and drive the new one back.  Mom can't get away until the 21st so we will probably do it over the 3 day weekend.  This will be my last new pickup with the church.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Don't know if I told you or not but Mom was called as a Relief Society teacher.  Nope, she's still the ward organist too.  PS - she's deep into Downton Abby so don't bug her at 8:00 on Sunday nights.  I just finished reading Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Rilley.  It was really interesting and I learned a lot about the assassination that I didn't know - like the fact that John Wilkes Booth didn't do it in secret but wanted the whole world to know that it was him.  He kind of mis-read his own degree of self-imprortance.

We hope all is well with everyone.  Have a good week.

Saturday

So Kevin's kids came over while Kevin and Lisa were watching Cirque du Soleil. We watched the Broncos game and here we are eating pizza!!!!!

I had my final competition at state and we got fifth... AGAIN!!! I had fun though.

-Aimee

Lisa's sister, Brenda (and husband Trevor) bought a new house in AZ with many overgrown trees. During Christmas we cut down a 50' palm (not pictured), a couple of 40' trees, and this cluster of 75' cottonwoods.

Trevor and Kevin after felling the main leader of the cottonwood.

 Looking down the trunk. We clipped the fig trees to the right as the tree fell.

The remaining leaders. I couldn't remove the far right leader because it leaned too far over the irrigation ditch, neighbor's shed, and utility lines (plug your ears mom).

Another tree.

Ice Skating

I'll hold your hand!

   

Don't fall

Not having so much fun

  

Look at me!!

- Aimee

Kanyon's Christmas present

 Lisa suggested that we purchase experiences for the kids rather than more toys. 

Kanyon's gift was a one hour horseback ride in Estes Park.

Kanyon in front of his mount, "Doc."

It may look like Kanyon was trotting, but we never exceeded much more than a slow amble.

Dad and Kanyon.

Trip Review in Photos

Warning: This post includes many pictures. Feel free to skip them if you please. 

A beefeater guard at the Tower of London.

 Maybe we could try this on our signs. 

 This street performer was trying to use a bull whip to knock a piece of spaghetti out of his mouth. It wasn't very cool.

 The Royal Observatory at Greenwich. This is where the Prime Meridian passes and they keep track of official time for the world. 

 St. Paul's Cathedral. We went to a Christmas day service here. With lots of Asian tourists.

 Big Ben.

 The Rosetta Stone.

 Tinturn Abbey- an old church and monastery from Medieval times.

 Tower Bridge.

 Westminster Abbey. This is where the Queen/King is crowned. We went to a Christmas concert/service here.

 A London bus. I don't know why this one is grey. All the others are red.

 Stonehenge as it appears from one's car. We didn't go in because it cost 16 pounds to wave at the rocks from an interior fence. 

 The smallest house in Britain.

 A Celtic cross we found on a forlorn peninsula in Northern Wales.

 The castle where Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales. Built by King Edward II in the early 1300s.

 A very windy view of Bardsey Island.