Talent Show

Maren was in the school talent show with a friend of hers. They did a great job, their voices blend real nicely.

Another Teenager in the house!

What a boy! It has been such a pleasure watching this little boy grow and mature into a kind, energetic, happy teenager.

He is growing so fast that I think it is throwing his balance off he has many bumps, scraps and bruises just now.

He is a breath of fresh air in a household of girls! (when Dad isn't home) I'm looking forward to watching him continue to grow and develop his talents, some that I'm sure he has yet to discover.

Proud to be an American!

Today was the annual international day. It's nice to see everyone dressed up like their home country. Here's a picture of the kids getting ready to march in the parade.

We are blessed to have real live American Marines here. I think these guys are all there are here. It was great seeing them carry our flag for the parade. I think Gwen was feeling a bit shy!

Here's our host country proudly wearing their colors.

Jay with his buddy in the hat. This boy is also our next door neighbor and sadly for us they are moving in December to Alaska.

I know it's hard to believe that it is sooooo HOT here right now! Everyone was looking for shade.

Gwen and the Beanstock

I love these pictures that Jay took of our trees in bloom here.

There is such a nice smell when you walk past these beauties.

Such a vibrant color isn't it!

Happily Gwen's bean plant made it to the day of her assembly. Hers was the tallest in her class. Most of the kids' bean plants died and had to start a new one. She measured and watered and took care of it for weeks. She is ready now to plant it outside in hopes of it producing a bean or two.

New Missionmerries and Halloween

We have a 12 elders here now! These are the ones serving in our branch. The guy without a badge is from Houston here on business. 2 from Mozambique, 1 from Portugal, 1 Canadian, 3 American.

Maren went as a Ninja to the school dance. She said it was very successful this year with nearly every one dressing up.

We had torrential rain during our Halloween party. Thankfully it let up before trick or treating.

Gwen went as Sally of course, from Nightmare before Christmas. Jay and his buddy made their costumes they are the ghost bookends.

Summer, Fall and Winter

We had a very restful October break. We took the boat out to the clean beach and had lots of fun playing in the waves and of course digging very large holes.

Gwen loved "surfing". She collected lots of shells and fed the crabs. Summer is here again!

On the other side of the hemisphere Jana and Missy got ready for Aunt Lisa's famous Halloween Party. I tried to upload another picture with Will in it but it didn't work.

Jana and Will have quickly moved into winter. All I can say is "BRRRRRRR"!

Fall didn't last very long!

Somebody's Birthday Shout Hooray!

When I think of you I think of you reading at breakfast just about every morning. Going quickly from Hank the Cow Dog to Harry Potter. And most importantly peeking in on you at night and seeing you reading the scriptures. Making my heart swell with gratitude.

We wouldn't have Feather if it wasn't for you!

Do you remember wanting to be a butterfly when you grew up?

What a beautiful, fun, intelligent, happy, content, witty young women you are! It is pure delight to watch and be a part of your life. I love you!

Hamburgers at the girls home

We had a fun Saturday at the girls home where I teach sewing. Some of the volunteers got together with their families to give the girls a nice treat of hamburgers.
Gwen and her friend Kate went around giving them juice. I don't have a picture of Jay, but the girls were quite taken with him. They called him "the white boy"
Boy do I look pale!! The girl I'm holding is Grace. She was in my english class and very smart. As of this day there are 61 girls in the home. A few of the older girls put on a dance for us before we had to leave. It was a nice day.

The hardest part

I have seen some real growth in Will this summer, he makes us all laugh with his voice imitations which sound like the real deal. He was a great sport when we went camping and all seven of us crammed into a five man tent. He is taking some classes at UVU and is real excited to be back to his routine.
Jana my amazing daughter, who has been ready for this moment for probably 2 years now. It was so fun getting her set up in her dorm. She has wasted no time in making new friends, a group of them hiked to the "Y" their first night there!
BYU is such a beautiful campus. She is going to love it there! And it's great that she can spend time with Will.

TEXAS

Doesn't he look so happy! As always we had a great time in Texas. It was so green and pretty, and there was grasshoppers galore.
So Gwen and Jay caught grasshoppers all day so that we could use them for bait at fishin' time.

They filled up a brown paper sack just full of them. As those critters jumped around it sounded like popcorn popping.
Here's Jay getting a one. John stocked the tank full of cat fish. So there were plenty of them biting. They were still to small to eat so it was catch and release.

Grandma's Luncheon and Program

We had a delicious lunch, with lots of family. Her favorite color is blue so we rounded up all the blue dishes we could find.
Van our faithful big brother was the MC of the program. We had lots of laughs as we watched the preformances.
Here's the clan, all the children but one, he was in our thoughts and always in our prayers.

Lots but not all of the grandkids were there. It was a wonderful day!

Cowboy breakfast

While we were having our tea party the men were having a cowboy breakfast. Hosted by Uncle Mark.
Van brought down a couple of horses for all to enjoy. He always looks like a postcard.
This little cutie loved the pony.

Grandma's Tea Party

We had a "Tea" Party for Grandma and all the girls. She taught us the proper etiquette of how to hold our pinkie finger and how we are not supposed to tip our heads back when we drink.

Summer 2010

What a wonderful, eventful summer. Sadly, the pictures I took early in the summer got deleted. Thank you Cody for your pictures of Grandma's 80th birthday party. And of course I posted them backwards! This photo was supposed to be last after our yoga season.
We started the morning with Mindy our amazing yoga instructor. She made it look so easy.
I promise it's not!

Graduation!!

Jana is officially a High School Graduate! It was a lovely evening with lots of long speeches. The key note speaker was the ambassador of Namibia. But the best speaker hands down was by the Valedictorian! She did a great job, and I'm not just saying that because lots of people told us that she was the best speaker.

One of the speakers used a lot of body language and moved the podium just a bit and knocked the flowers over.

I had been watching this banana tree in my garden for months with this huge bunch of bananas. It got so heavy that the gardener finally had to prop it up. I kept meaning to take a picture of it. I'm glad that I don't have to be the one to decide when to take them down because I thought they were ready weeks ago.

I came home after being out and the gardener had cut them down. Boy, were they delicious! We had banana smoothies, banana bread, bananas all by them self. I froze some because they were ripening so fast.