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.

Remembering Grandma - 1 year later

One year ago, on January 26, 2007, Grandma Larkins passed away. We took the time yesterday to get together and celebrate her life. I stopped at the Farmington cemetery to visit her grave and took some pictures.

I ran into a couple of other people who also had stopped to visit the cemetery - Granpa, Mom, and Debbie. It was a beautiful day.

More Snow!

We woke up this morning, Monday, January 21, 2008, to about 4 inches of new snow and the snow still coming down. It still hasn't stopped and it's noon! This is one of the best days for it to snow...NO SCHOOL for Martin Luther King, Jr. day. I love days like this! These pictures are from our yard. The ones of the dogs and the barn are my favorite.

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinners, as most of you know, have a great deal of tradition in my family. There is usually roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, Yorkshire pudding and a veggie. Grandpa has been the official meet cutter for many years. Here he is doing his work.

Having never had a young sibling of his own to torment, Darrin takes this opportunity to harrass his nephew, Carson. Phil, Peg and Carson are temporarily living with Grandpa while they build their home in South Weber.

Carson was not really in the mood to be teased as he had just been awakened from his nap. He was a pretty good sport about it anyway. (Mean ol' Darrin)

After dinner, and feeling much more awake, Carson found some of Grandma's teddy bears from out patient surgeries she had and showed them all to us. He is hilarious. While Grandpa is in the back sitting room under a blanket watching T.V., Carson will run back and scream at him trying to scare him. Grandpa and Carson are great friends.

Carson loves to play with cars and Cars is his favorite movie. This little mischievous look comes after I tried to touch his Lightening McQueen car shown on the table.

Snow Snow Everywhere

On Wednesday, January 9th, we awoke to about 8 inches of snow. I spent the morning digging out the dogs' houses on the back deck so that they could have somewhere to stand during the day. We thought it was almost enough to have a snow-day from school; but we were not that lucky.

Mom is starting so shovel at the top of the driveway. It is now when we realize just how long our driveway is.....it's really long. We had shoveled about 1/4 of it before our neighbor, Nancy Bell, came over to help us. She is so friendly. She just talked and helped and the work went much faster after that. Then we went to help the woman next door whose husband had hip replacement surgery three days after Christmas.

Here is the gift the snow plow left us. It covers the fire-hydrant and almost our mailbox. At least it can be a shield from any out-of-control cars who come sliding into our cul-de-sac.

Here is the other large snow pack from the snow plow. The neighborhood kids take their sleds out on it to slide down. I remember doing that when I was a kid. We haven't had this much snow all at once in a long time. It is pretty; I like it. It's just cold!