Chelan for Christmas

We loved our trip and our time together with no interruptions, distractions, or schedules. Chilling in the condo...





Free showing of Polar Express in a cute old theater on Christmas Eve...


Decorating cookies for Santa...


Our beautiful tree decorated with our earrings, bracelets candy canes and Hazel's amazing star...


Leavenworth...











After a long day of tubing...


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I Need You To Blog

Adam thinks I'm on Facebook way too much, so I told him I wouldn't get on there for a week just to prove I'm not an addict. But I miss seeing your pictures and reading updates...so help me out here!

Holiday cheer

Jay gave Sierra her first bow and arrow.

Aunt Jane gave Tristan some silly putty. He was the hit of the party with all the silly things he thought to use that silly putty for.

Gifts at Gram&Pop's.

Gram's infamous cinnamon rolls for Christmas Eve breakfast.

Sierra got books from Santa. Some she also has the audio-book to so that she listen and read along. Which she did often by the fire.

Calligraphy books and pens were a big hit.

T, K, & S are all set with backpacking packs and sleeping bags. Can't wait for the next family backpack!

Grandma Judy & Kaia with the chickens.

Feeding the baby calves.

White Christmas.

Adam bought me 4 books on endurance racing and nutrition...and 11 pounds of Nutella...

Christmas Wish List Stuff

Traditional Years Supply on sale at Emergency Essentials for 899.99 thru Dec. It weighs 415 lbs. and is in no. 10 cans, 6 cans to a box, 84 cans total. They will ship for 12.00 anywhere in the continental US. It fits nicely under a bed and saves you having to buy a frame for your bed! Buy 2 and you can skip buying box springs. MOre and you can pretend you are the Princess and the Pea.

Thought you would want to know so you could put it on your Christmas Wish List!

1 800 999 1863 Preparednesspantry.blogspot.com

Love you,
Aunt, G'ma, etc. Le Anne

Quilt of the Year Club

THANK YOU!!! I love this quilt! You guys are the best. A few squares are obvious but I need some help. Please tell me who did which...

Double trouble

This is my Chloe and Hare Bear saying blessing over their tea party...


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The tree

I wish I had more in me to blog but at this point the tree is as good as it gets. It is a symbol of the family working together, loving each other, and loving our Savior. I guess that's all we really need, right. Tell me I'm right, I really NEED this to be right right now!


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Chlo bug

Our Center!!!!

Cole's ten and the leaves keep dropping

Cole wasn't too excited about having his bday on a Sunday this year but he WAS excited about his longboard and new helmet. And sure enough, he's taken to it like a natural would...I'm jealous.
And that night, as most of you know, we went to Colonial Williamsburg's Grand Illumination. It's Williamsburg's biggest night of the year; Colonial era music, wood burning cressets, a HUGE fireworks show, and a finale of a fife and drum marching band. It's the perfect Christmas season tradition. So grateful to have things like this nearby (I know this is a repeat for some of you).

Not a bad birthday, even if it IS on Sunday! ;)

Our master (master but tiny) bathroom should be done with renovation by Monday or Tuesday (fingers crossed). It'll be so nice to have two working bathrooms! In the meantime, our front porch is in quite a state of construction disarray!

We also have a massive amount of leaves in the backyard. We need to make a day of it and rake/play in it. Then the task won't seem so daunting.

Guard Him, Joseph

OK, It's Meagan's fault. She volunteered me to sing at the ward Christmas Party. I hate trying to find music. I spent forever yesterday looking when I had so much I wanted to get done, but now I am glad I did.

I found a song and I love it. If you have a minute look up "Guard Him, Joseph," by Sally DeFord. I think it is beautiful. I am singing in the "very low" key. It goes down to an E flat.....perfect! I sing but I am not really a performer so it is always a stretch for me!

Thanks Meags for making me work! I have been singing it to myself all day long.

Seriously, I don't know how much longer I will be able to sing and I really do want to "use it before I lose it!"

"I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Deadwood..."

We were in a hotel in Deadwood, SD, when Neil Young's song "Heart of Gold" started playing (one of my favorites!). The song mentions Deadwood and I consider myself to be the luckiest girl of all to be here with my man who has "a heart of gold". So our trip to ND has been...great (we are driving home today). It isn't as ugly here as I had imagined, everyone we met was extremely nice, the schools have no budget woes and haven't had to cut art, music, and gym like back home. The ward was amazing, 90% of them are in the same boat as Adam and I. So many women in Relief Society talked about the struggles and financial troubles they faced before moving to Williston, but now they are "happy to be here" (there were 35 ladies in RS and because the ward is growing so quickly they had us all go around and introduce themselves. Almost half of them said "and I'm happy to be here". I was amazed. Most have been in ND between 2 months and 2 years. There was another girl who was considering moving up from St. George who bore her testimony...I sat in front of her and bawled the whole time because she said everything I would have said, has the same challenges and concerns. The sweet bishop's wife talked with us afterwards and really emphasized that as hard as it would be to leave our families, the ward in Williston would quickly become our family and they really wanted us there. Adam had a cool experience in Priesthood. They asked all those local to ND to stand up. He said only 3 70-year-old guys stood. Then he asked all those who had just moved from UT to stand, it was over half. The rest were from other states and they all seemed to have a story like Adam's). On Saturday night, we went to dinner with Adam's high school buddy, Matt, and his wife, Jenni. It was a lot of fun. They showed us their house. They paid $200k for a cute little bungalow (not sure how they got such a great price, but they bought about 9 months ago). They have 4 bedrooms upstairs which they rent out for $4200! There isn't a kitchen up there or anything, but the oil guys don't care. They just need a bed and a place to keep their muddy boots (every truck, every pair of boots, every street, sidewalk and path is covered with mud). So we were going to close on the house in Colorado that we've been living in this month...but now we are considering buying a house in Williston to rent to the oil guys for $1000 a room. There is one right behind Matt & Jenni's and since she does property management, she could take care of it for us. Then if we move out there this summer maybe Adam could build a house for us. We spent a lot of our time driving around looking at new construction. There are some monster big houses I just had to post pics of. Adam says he is impressed with most of the new construction, quality stuff. Food prices are high, though. We were told that the Walmart is so understaffed that they don't have shelves, just pallets full of boxes that they cut open and let the oil guys pic through. It wasn't that bad. They did have shelves and it looked like every other Walmart with most of the same prices as CO. A few shelves were barren, like the water bottle isle, the cheese, meat, and eggs were almost wiped out...and it was crazy crowded on a Sat afternoon.
Well, I'm tired of typing all this on a tiny phone key pad ;). We still don't know if we are going to move, but now we know it would be a place we could handle, even enjoy, for a few years. It is stinking cold, tho, the wind just blows straight through you.