After Christmas - What a relief!

Salzberg, Austria



Maribel Gardens - Salzberg, Austria ( Sound of Music backdrop)

Small Towns on the cost of Italy

Portovino, Italy along the coast of Italy

David's favorite car from his mission - this car was too small for the missionaries to drive.

Our hotel on Lake Como, Italy

Real cow bells in the Alps.

Addie - Christmas morning

Monday - Christmas is a memory now and I can finally think again. This has been a strange year for me. I lost a few weeks due to the cold and flu that took over my life for 2 1/2 weeks. I'm still not quiet back to normal. I was behind in every thing that I had to do, and Christmas still came and went just as it does every year. I hope I did not miss any thing important, or any one. If so I am deeply sorry, I will do better next year.

I hate New Year Resolutions. I have never been able to keep them and then I feel worse about myself than before I made the resolution. So now I just write down a few goals that I think I remember to keep. Goals like putting my shoes away when I come home. They have a habit of vanishing into the woodwork. I can not find them when I want to go someplace so I have to go and find another pair of shoes that will be lost again. It is a vicious cycle.

I promised to post a few more pictures of our trip and I have a few more from Christmas. I hope you will enjoy them. Good bye for now - Laurie

Rome at night

David just outide of Hyde Park

Florence

Hello Everyone!

How fast time goes by – I did not realize that it had been so long since I wrote on the blog. I have been told that a good blog has a little bit of everything – so – here goes!

First and most important – Addie!
She is he most darling little girl – I can say that because I’m her grandmother and I’m not partial at all. She has grown so much and continues to keep all of us at her beck and call.

When ever we take her places, people stop and want to know about her – how old is she, she is not very big for her age – was she early?

She looks just like a living China Doll – Beautiful light skin, big blue eyes, and dark hair. She is our “Bug”

When ever I see a baby I look, just like everyone does, isn’t funny what watching a baby does for you. They are so sweet and innocent and make us remember how darling our babies were.

2nd – Europe!

Europe was exciting, beautiful, fast, full of history, beauty and the most wonderful 2 ½ weeks I have had in a long time. David and I left on a Saturday and began out adventure in London the next afternoon. The trains that were suppose to be the best way into the city was closed because of a fatal accident. We took the underground and ended up catching a cab finally to get to the hotel. We spent only 12 hours in England and ended the 2nd day in Geneva. The next morning we started our drive through Italy.

I would go back in a minute, now that I’m over the plane ride. Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

Happy Thanksgiving and I’ll try to blog again.
Bye

More pictures!

Summer Fun

Hello Everyone!

Our family reunion is over and it was a lot of fun for everyone! "Thank you" to Robert and Rebecca for all of their hard work to make sure that everything went well. Now it is back to the end of summer for most of us.

Good luck Chris and Shani for your new life together. We wish that we were all able to come to your Open House. We will be there if spirit.

Here are some of our pictures of Chris and Shani's wedding and of the Bird Family Renuion.

Addie

Hi everyone!

It has been a long time since I have posted any news. First of all - Jonathan is doing well. He had is 1 year mark on May 16th. He is now in Oklahoma and he is happy to be so close to Tulsa. His new address is:

14703 East 450 Road

Claremore, OK 74017

He is now in the Tulsa Stake and he will be able to visit Tulsa for exchanges, etc.

And the next most important person - well they are both the most important people!

Addie!

She has been a perfect model for out photo shoot. Here are some of our favorites.

Las Vegas Trip

Hello everyone!

We just got back from our trip to Las Vegas. It was short & sweet! And a lot of fun. We drove down Thursday afternoon and made it to our hotel room by 11:30 that night. Needless to say, we went to bed as soon as we got there.

The next day was busy and action packed! Our first activity was to stop at the Outlet Stores for Matts to pick up some new sunglasses and a shirt. This was his idea, I did not have anything to do with it, I promise. Then we stopped at Kim & Alan's condo to visit family and drove out to Hoover Dam. They are building a road across the canyon just below the dam. They have too many people driving across the dam from Arizona to Nevada. I am uploading some pictures to show you how it looks. Chris has the best pictures, but these will show you the main idea.

After the ride to the dam, we went back to the condo and some of the kids went swimming until we went to dinner at a buffet down the street. There was so much food on the plates of the people sitting there. It was seafood night and the crab legs were everywhere! The food was really good, and we eat way too much. We left the casino about 10:00 pm. Some of us went back to our hotels, the rest of the group went for a walk along the strip. David and Matts were back at the hotel at 2:30 that morning.

The next day we slept in for a little while - at least the boys slept in. Then we went to the go-cart raceway. After the race we said goodby to the Kim & Alan Bird family and we drove home. After we had a long ride around town trying to find an on-ramp, but finally we were on our way home.

It was a quick trip, but it was filled with fun. We look forward to the next trip to Las Vegas - July 7th! We will be there, for a few days next time - I hope.

Deer!

I walked out of my house this morning to walk and this is what I saw! My beautiful rose tree has been eaten!

Almost all of the flowers are gone. There are 2 on the other side of the tree. They also ate the flowers in my pots and pulled some of them out of the pots all together. They are fun to watch, but it is not fun to have them eat the flowers I want.

Oh well, that's life.

P.S. I'm sorry when I spell names wrong, or any word wrong. David tells me of all of my slip ups. But I find most of them after they are posted. I will do better from now on.