Happy Holi-DAZE

We've survived Thanksgiving and now it's on to Christmas! We are looking forward to having everyone come to the Annual Christmas Party and hope you all enjoyed your DVD of the past 15 years.........give or take a few.........Here are some "stills" from 2008. They didn't make the DVD because it's not a video !





The Brownings are coming up in a few days.............enjoy this photo of them at the Waffle House last season.

I'm Going to Get You, My Pretty

This is what the cub scouts had to face last night!





Here's what we're taking to the "Trunk-or-Treat & Chili-Dessert-Bake-Off" tonight.
I call it "Vomit Volcano Cake"..........it's really a spice cake with caramel pecan frosting............yummy !

California Memories

We had a super time, in spite of the drizzle of rain for 3 days. We met "Freddie Ipson" aka, Brandon, for lunch and he took us out to the Santa Monica Pier, where we tried to embarrass him with our yellow rain slickers. He doesn't embarrass easily, so our efforts were in vain. We had a great time with him and he's doing well.

We have over 200 photos....but I'll let The Brownings put some on their blog! Yeah, that's gonna happen!

Lemerado Days

We only have a few photos of the festivities. The Program was REEEEALY short and suprisingly good! There's a new gal in town who teaches Drill at Delta High School and she had a few groups of her students perform some cute dances. It also appears that there are some new talented people who have moved in to Leamington and they're pretty good singers.
:-)Next year, Nick and Emily are going to sing a duet of love songs from the 8O's. Maybe the theme from Xanadu and they'll perform it while skating on the stage.

Gabe and Zach are playing with "Lenny". The newest "grand-puppy".

Cortanie picked up a new family member. Nick said she's always been known as the "crazy dog lady", so why not add another one? (that black dog is Lenny's mother)

More Summertime Antics

We took the Browning Kids on a hike to "Lisa Falls" which is where we used to take our own 4 kids every once in a while..... we loved it! It was a little sad though to see these, the 2nd generation of "wee ones". It seems that just yesterday, it WAS our four wee ones throwing water at each other and getting the gigles. Where does time go?

After the falls, we drove up to Snowbird and rode the tram up to the very top of the Mountain, hiked down a bit, crossed over a small glacier, and rode the ski lift back down. It was pretty scary if you looked down. We made a point of looking OUT instead of DOWN.

To quote Mataline; "This is the best day of my life! We need to do this every summer ! Let's make it a new tradition." (now you have to scroll over to turn off my music--and look at photos)

Did YOU Forget Something ?

After all the smoke has cleared and the chaos has subsided, I decided to do the dreaded laundry. Imagine my schock and horror at discovering that my clothes were.......... not alone ! Now this is no surprise to anyone, in fact it's quite common place. but this year, I'm taking a different angle on things. Maybe I won't pack things up and send them........maybe........

I'm going to have a super duper Yard Sale...........OR....maybe I'll send them all "Postage DUE" :O ........let me know which ones belong to you so I don't send them to the wrong address. A Chicago Shirt could end up in Puerto Rico. I'm sure the little pink fluffy purse belongs to Ethan ! :)

Love you all and we miss you already ! Yes, even the laundry piles !


I've already talked to Kelsey about her scriptures, so they're "safe", but I don't know about the rest ! There was also some money, but you know the laundry and money rule.

Phoenix High-jinx

I tried to embarrass Kelsey by telling the server that it was her birthday ! She was un moved by my failed attempt and quite enjoyed her FREE desert ! Don't worry, I told the server it wasn't REALLY her birthday.....but she gave it to us GRATIS just because we're such a funny family !

Yes, we know the photos are NOT flattering....you can just deal with it ! We're on VACATION !

Bronsen and Quinny were inseperable ! Everyone could hear them giggling and laughing like they had a private joke they weren't sharing with the rest of us ! Let's see, Bronsen's mom is Quinny's first cousin.......I guess they're far enough "removed" they could be "kissing-cousins".

Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?

We started our summer vacation by heading out to Phoenix for Marin's baptism and to play in the sun with the Brownings ! Grandma was super content to ride between the two "babies". We sang songs and played games like I Spy with my Little Eye. We colored and on the way home we saw a UFO.....talk to Craig about that....

While in Phoenix, you can see that Papa wasted no time in jumping on the "I don't want to walk around Costco" bandwagon ! How spoiled is that? :)

Robert and Becca invited us all to enjoy their time-share condo and pool. We had a couple of BBQs and played a game called "Why are you late for work?" If you want to learn how to play, just call me and I'll give the instructions. It requires excellent acting skills.....NOT !

Upon arriving home, the kids found a new career working for Old Navy. It was a great trick ! The Display was in the front entry and they all stood so incredibly still. It was funny watching the customers do a double-take and then start laughing !

The Super Duper Schmuper Roller Coaster Book

I've had several requests to put this video on the blog and so we're going to try it and see what happens. I've been unable to edit it so I'm afraid it's reeeaaalllllly long. But it's so incredibly funny that I think it's worth it! It was at Christmas Time so it's a few months old, but I'm sure it'll be a family classic. So kill the music over there-------> and sit back and enjoy!

Just as a side note: We went to the grocery store a few days ago, and we were examining the beautiful red strawberries, deciding which ones to buy. We were saying things like "oh, there's a good one","whoa, look at that one", & "that's a big one!" Then we both turned to each other and said in unison "that one makes me hungry"! We started to laugh and noticed that people watching us had some pretty strange faces staring back at us. Which of course, made us laugh even harder.

A Day at Grandma's

The Jacobs Boys were out in "full-force" today. Gabe as Anikan, and Ian as Luke had a blast. However you can see that Simon did NOT enjoy his wookie costume!


Finger Paint Artists at work.

Ian went for "Fire and Sunset" colors, while Gabe made a "Storm at the Ocean". Simon was just happy to be "big". He chose yellow and orange with a little bit of pink. We also made butterfly art....remember the days when you did that in kindergarten?

First we used the usual colorful Crayola Paints. Then we changed mediums. CHOCOLATE PUDDING! !

It was delicious. We told Simon NOT to eat the paint... then suddenly it WAS okay to eat the paint. We really had him confused. I'm sure he thinks we're a wee bit crazy!

Puerto Rico, You Lovely Island

We're Back! Brianna took this video at one of the beaches! It took us ALL week to get Craig to get into the WATER.....he really doesn't like to swim and he's not very fond of the ocean. This is the day we all got sunburned! Actually, we kept the kids pretty well "gooped-up" but the adults looked like lobsters later in the day! We were only there for 2 1/2 hours! We had been to other beaches during the week and didn't even come back with a rosy face or new freckles! Go figure! Oh, well, at least when we got home we looked like we had been somewhere! Now the itchin' and scratchin' and peelin' has begun! Aloe Vera....mmmmmm .............................oh, did we tell you, Kalli and Bronsen were arrested!? The charges are that they were too cute for their own good!

They were released to Grandma and Papa on probation!

Welcome to 2009 !

I can't believe how time flies. Let's take a look at some photos from 30 years ago!

It seems just yesterday that these two hooligans were terrorizing the neighborhood.....oh, wait. I guess that WAS just a few weeks ago.......well, back to the photos!

I Love kids in the bathtub. It never fails to bring a smile to your face. There's nothing like it! There's been at least 13 kids in those tubs! Not counting the neices and nephews who snuck in once in a while! Can you see any family resemblences?

Well look how innocent they used to be! :) Standing on the porch, having one's picture taken was a great past time....We'll be visiting this porch again in some of the future posts, I'm sure!

The year was 1979. and we had two little kids! We never knew just how life was going to unfold.

Enjoy these "blasts from the past"!