Christmas Eve & Ice Skating

Christmas came and it's over all ready! We had a wonderful Christmas and here are some of the photos we took to remember 2009. (Hopefully our computer will work right.)

Adjusting to being home

Well, we have been home for a week. I changed my sheets, made dinner, tried to clean up for Thanksgiving. . . . . I wish I were still on the ship! Let's all go on a cruise! Then Matts would have enough to eat - when ever he wants to eat!

The best thing about being home is that I can be with my kids! That means Addie!

Our piano player!

Home Again

We are home from our trip - it was wonderful!
Two weeks of clean sheets every night, no cooking, and spending time with David,
Kim and Alan were the best travel companions, even when Kim cam down with a cold.

Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed so far away in the beautiful tropical weather.
It was so strange to see Christmas trees and light up being put up in the city squares of San Juan,PR.

My favorite places were Huatulco, Mexico, Costa Rica, Aruba and San Juan. I loved having a balcony in our stateroom. And watching the ship come and go from the ports.

The Panama Canal was very interesting. I had forgotton how many locks we would go through, and that there is a huge man-made lake in the middle of the canals.

I have too many memories to write here, but here are a few of the pictures we took along the way.

Grandpa and Addie watch as the kids ice skate in Sun Valley.

We went on many walks from our condo to the Sun Valley Inn. Addie had to hold her flowers as w went down the hill.

Ice Skating in the middle of the summer! The weather was great, not too hot this day. The ice skating rink was out side.
Matts gave Dad a good workout at the tennis court. But Dad was tough player.

Wow! what a spring and summer we have had this year. I told you about our trip to Jonathan's Mission. That seems like years have gone by since then, but in reality it has only been months.

Jonathan is back in summer school and he is busier than he wants to be with all of the homework, but he is doing great.

Matts has not been home much, and he would like to spend more time with his friends, but he has one more week away before he can stay home. Next week he will be in Provo for EFY. But before he is away for a week, he gets to ride on the float our stake made for the 24th of July Parade. He is not thrilled to be on the float, but it will be an experience he'll remember the rest of his life.

We had 2 wonderful weeks with Katie and Addie,( Reed has with us the whole week in Sun Valley.) I have missed hearing Addie's voice early in the morning. I went through withdrawls the last few days. We get to see them today! Yea!!

Studio 5 Family Tree Magnet Board

Studio 5 Family Tree Magnet Board

Hi, I can not get the picture to come up for the Family Tree, so if you log onto the Studio 5 website, you can see it. It is a magnetic board that you glue the paper (you choose what you like) and then a tree with pictures of your family members pictures are made out of glass "marbles" and magnets. It is cute and easy.

I will get the papers, magnetic boards, etc. if you are interested. Let me know by next Wednesday.

Trip Pictures

Jonathan with his Mission President and Sister Seal in front of the Mission Home. The President and His wife come home next week.

We had a fun time visiting them and we were lucky enough to be there when another Missionary and his family happened to come by! The other missionary is from Rupert, ID and they know our cousins very well.

This is along the river in Tulsa. There is a walk way and sculptures of animals along the way. This also the Route 66 sign.

Jonathan visiting a new member's shop for unusual animals.

Visiting Will Rogers' Museum - "I never meet a man I did not like."

" Little House on the Prairie" house.

Oklahoma City Memorial for the bombing of the Federal Building.

Matts and Jonathan checking out the "Snooer Schooner" on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.

June 20th

Hi, I wrote a whole page full of details about our trip to visit the Tulsa, Oklahoma Mission, and hit the wrong button, and lost everything!

I'll start again - the pictures I posted before where of Jonathan coming home and Kellie's Wedding. Since then we went on a wonderful trip to Jonathan's mission. We flew into Oklahoma City and began our 1500 mile drive around the 4 corners of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas.

Jonathan was able to see some of his favorite members, go out with the Missionaries, have dinner with 2 families, pray at a baptism of a family he helped convert, went to Church in Fayetteville, AK and more.

When you see the kids ask them about our dinner in Springfield, MO. We went to dinner at Lambert's, and they throw rolls at the tables while you eat dinner.

Sarah was a good sport, she ended up sleeping on sofabeds or roll out beds in most of the hotels we stayed in - Jonathan did end up sleeping on the floor one night. But all in all we had a wonderful time.

See you later, Laurie

P.S. If I can find the pictures, I'll post them later.

Welcome Home Jonathan!

On the Temple Grounds, waiting for Kellie !

Kellie's dinner at the Johnson's home.

At the Temple Grounds again.

Spring Fling!

Pittsburgh Steelers Statium

Pittsburgh Baseball Statium from the road across the bridge.

My booth at Market

Wow! what a spring we have had at out house. And it will not be over until Sunday. David and I returned from Hawaii on May 6th. We had a wondeful time. of course, we went over to the small island of Lanai, just to see what it was like. David had meetings and pently of spare time to relax.

The next Wednesday, Sarah and I flew to Pittsburgh for Quilt Market. We came home Monday morning and we have been trying to get things ready for Jonathan to come home Saturday.

Pittsburgh was beautiful - very green and trees all over. We saw a wild turkey walking through a field right by our hotel. It was huge, black and colorful tail feathers. Pittsburgh also has many bridges, to accross the rivier from the convention center. One more that was just for trains that rain at least 3 times a day.

The baseball and football statudiums were just across the river also, we saw the baseball games being played as we left each night. Our friend from the booth next to us went to one of the games, they had two people give them tickets, but it rained just as the game started.

The rest of the week is being filled with the wonderful excitment of Kellie's wedding. We are so happy for her and wish her every blessing and happiness she deserves.

Jonathan is speaking at our church on Sunday, 1:00 Sacrament meeting. You are all invitited and we will have food at our house after. See you soon, Laurie

RS Trunks Show is Over

Yea, my Trunk Show is over and it went OK. I took all of the quilts I still have at home, so some of the ladies were a little surprised that I had so many. It did seem funny not to have some of the quilts I sold, but I will get use to that.

Thanks for coming, it was nice to have "family faces" in the room. I was a little scattered brained in my presentation. I had answered so many questions before I began that I did not want to repeat myself too much.

Our house smells wonderful now thanks to Liz's wickless candles. Thanks Liz!

January Snow

Here are some pictures I have forgot to show you before.

Hello again!

Today Sarah and I went to Welfare Square to make applesauce. We arrived on time (!) and told them why we were there, the people in charge gave us blank looks. They had sent out a message that they were doing salsa instead of applesauce over a month ago. OK, we went to wait until they were ready to tell us what to do, about 10 minutes. When the lady came in to tell us what to do, she told us to go home. We gave 10 minutes of service, just sitting around waiting. It was a nice surprise in that we had the whole morning to do what we had to do at home, but we did not have the opportunity help others. I know this is silly to those of you that preform service all the time. But it was the first time for Sarah to go with me, and it did not turn out the way we had expected.

On the way home I complained about the thing I hate the most about driving inbetween snow storms. Dirty windshields!. I hate dirty windshields in good weather. But when the roads are wet and slushly evey car that goes by sends a mist of salt and water/slush on your car. My windshield wiper on the drivers side is not good, so the passenger side can see great, but I can't. What a mess! How silly it sounds when I write it down. Next time I will talk about our wonderful family, etc. I hope!

Change of supject - Tuesday, January 13th I will be giving a trunk show and mini class for my Relief Society. Everyone is invited to come, we will also have lunch after the trunk show.

I am teaching them to make a lap quilt to use during our Sacrament Meetings. We freeze in the summers and sometimes during the winter.

No pressure!

Christmas Photos

The pile of shoes gets bigger every year.

Happy New Year!

It is 2009 and we have a whole year before us to do what ever we want to do. I hope we all have a wonderful year full of love, family and uplifting experiences. Of course we will have our problems, but we can all look for the good in others and in every situation we find ourselves.

OK, now that I have given myself a pep talk, here are some of the pictures we took at Janet's house. Thanks you Janet and Dave for your never ending hospitality.