Remembering Dad

Every year, around February 12th, my family gets together to celebrate. My Dad wasn't born on February 12th, he died that day. Some may wonder why we choose that day to celebrate on rather than his birthday in October. It may be hard for some to understand, but on that day we celebrate Dad's life, our life as a family, our relationships, our family members....and we do it all playing hard together. This year we "rented" Mike and Jen's church and it turned out to be so much better because Mike has access to all of the toys. We ate dinner, played basketball, soccer, volleyball, tossed the footballs around and timed the kids running around the court. It was very fun and something we look forward to. We missed our Georgia family, Lori, and Ben, who were not in attendance; but we celebrated them as well. I included A LOT of pictures from the evening - I hope you enjoy!

The kids playing

Darrin putting up a shot during a fast-paced game of Lightening

Look at the concentration on Phil's face as he tries to stay in the game.

Kyle brought some very cool helicopters that flew really well; he and Conner and Sammy had a great time playing with them.

Brent playing a rough game of football with Caleb while Carson and Sam look on.

Tia can make the most interesting faces. She was getting mad at me here for taking her picture.

The kids had a great time on the stage. Tate is getting ready to run across the stage as fast as he can.

Mom, Jennifer and Mike watching the scene and taking a break.

Caleb had a great time running around the court with me timing him to see how fast he could run. He is a quick little four-year old.

Conner had a lot of fun with this helicopter; they were way cool!

Mike getting ready to get his shot in for Lightening.

Becca and Aubrie were shotting against each other and neither one could make it. They began to get the giggles and then the shotting got even harder.

Christina made girls everywhere proud when she won a game of Lightening. All that practice with the school basketball team has paid off.

Sammy is showing me what a BIG bite of pizzia looks like.

Kennedy ran hard after the ball that she kept kicking around the gym. She was very proud of herself.

This was loads of fun. We will look forward to it next year as well.

A Weekend Away

I realized as I was getting ready to blog this tonight that it has been a few weeks since my last blog. Life has seemed very busy and I haven't taken the time to journal my life on this blog. This last weekend, for President's Day and a day off of school, my friend Michelle and I decided to have a weekend away. We decided to go all the way to Provo. We know, it is almost too exhotic for us but we thought we would be able to handle it. Saturday we went to the Provo temple. I took some pictures.

I have other pictures just like these I took 12 years ago. They are the same except I was wearing a name tag then.

It was fun to go there. Most of the people working in the temple were young - probably recently returned missionaries going to B.Y.U. It was different but really good to see. What a great opportunity.

Michelle and I spent most of our time in our hotel swimming, reading, watching movies, sewing, writing in journals, and playing games. It was a wonderful weekend of rest and relaxation. Thanks Debbie for inviting us over for dinner on Sunday! It was great!

A Request from Georgia

My Georgia brother, Mark, and his family requested that I include more pictures of the snow we have had this last week. Out of the seven days since my last entry I think it has snowed 4 or 5 of the days. The weather was perfect yesterday for the funeral of President Hinckley - but we have had two major storms in the last week.

Our house doesn't look much different - some of the snow melted yesterday when it was so warm. (It got up to 32 degrees.)

Just a shot of what has accumulated on the roof.

Mark particularly requested a picture of the snow plowed piles of snow. This is the pile in front of the Snow's house (how fitting) just two doors down in our cul-de-sac. I have great memories as a kid playing on these piles. They were fun to climb all over, sit on, play king of the mountain, and sled down when we didn't want to walk all the way to the hollow.

Here is our house with the snow pile in front of it. These are the types of winters I remember as a kid. Lots of snow, enough to build huge snowmen and large winter fortresses from which to have snow wars. Besides the memories, it is beautiful! But I can't help but think that it is going to take a long time for it all to go away.