Thanksgiving 2010

This year for Thanksgiving we went to St. George to my dad's house to spend the holiday with my side of the family. Michael, David and Caroline playing a game with Nathan and Tanner Saxey, cousins!

Getting it all ready in the kitchen!

I quadrupled the corn recipe this year and still...no leftovers. This is the best recipe, let me know if you need a good one.

More cousins! Terran, Maralee, Nathan, Serenity and Tanner play with David.

Grandpa carving the turkey!

Chillin'

wrestlin'

The 6 of us aren't together in the same place very often anymore so I of course had to take advantage of it.

Hmmm...Christmas card picture? We'll see, so many designs on t-shirts, maybe not, although I don't have much else.

The boys sharing their "see" food.

The girls! Natalie's friend, Natalie, Katie, Caroline, Kadelyn, Maralee and Serenity.

Michael and Makinzie got to sit with the adults. It was so nice to be with everyone.

Did I forget to mention that we had Thanksgiving a day early? Yep, all of those pictures were from Wednesday. The Saxey's went back to Salt Lake Thursday morning to have turkey day with Rob's family so we celebrated early. This is the real Thanksgiving day...taquitos! We had just gone swimming and then on to a nice frozen Mexican meal.

The next day we drove to Circus Circus in Las Vegas. We have been a couple of times before but Caroline insisted it didn't count because we hadn't seen the circus acts. This time we got to see a clown, an African tumbling/amazing strength/flexibility act and then the trapeze act. So fun. Then we spent way too much money on the carnival games and got these fabulous prizes. The kids would argue that it was worth every penny.

snow...men?

Winter seems to have arrived. We hustled to get all of the chestnuts out of the grass and the leaves off the yard before the storm hit. We made it but my hands are sore, hoping I don't have arthritis.

David and Katie were the first out in the yard. They made a HUGE ball and then decided it would be the whole snowman, snowblob, I'm not sure what to call him.

Caroline went out later and made her own creation, a dinosaur! Wow! It is amazing and took her a good hour or two.

I know everyone groans when the snow falls but I love it! Maybe it makes me feel like I'm home.

Guys and Dolls

Grandpa Lorin, Nana Kathy and cousins Makinzie and Natalie came to watch Katie in Guys and Dolls.

Katie was a missionary and a tourist in this fun musical.

Here she is with the mission band.

This isn't a great picture but it's fun because you can see Katie peeking in between her two buddies, Aubree and Nicole.

Katie loves to do these plays!

Afterwards with adoring fans!

Katie and Aubree!

Hello it's me . . . again.

Hello again everyone and welcome to the blog. It's me Caroline and I would just like to remind you that this is NOT my mothers blog! It is the family blog. Deal with it. Now that, that is cleared up I can move onto more pressing issues. Like what am I gonna get my dog for his Birth-day?!? This wonderful day is the best day of my short life and it should be celebrated as such. I freakin' love me dog. "I'm one hundred percent sure he's my soul mate" (those of you cool enough to know what movie that's from. congratz on being awesome like that.) I'm Thinkin' of getting him a blue squeak ball (against my mothers soon to be annoyance for the noise) You see this gift is sorta sentimental in a way because way back in the day my dog had a squeaky blue ball and he absolutely adored it (my mother hated it) But to my poor dogs dismay it was stolen by one of Spencer Levrages 7 horrid cats. He was so sad he layed around for days and just looked terrible. his heart was obviously broken over his precious ball. So I am in search of the perfect replica of this most cherished blue ball so that once again my dog will be happy. I now leave you with this message hoping that you have a new soft spot in your hearts for blue squeaky balls. Bye!

Indoor Soccer

These pictures are pretty bad because I took them on my phone. I need to remember to take the camera when I go to a game. David is playing indoor soccer and loves it. He had to miss a game because of the BYU pow wow for merit badges and I didn't even tell him until after because I knew he'd die if he had to miss a game.

David is out in this picture, just after making a goal. He scored 4 of the 9 goals this game. It was so fun to watch, it was awesome!

Fun night out

Nelson is on the Board of the BYU Management Society and this year the Pioneer in Leadership Award went to Stephen Covey. We got to chat for a moment and then have a picture taken with him and his wife. There are yummy hors d'oeuvres and then dinner with a program. Dr. Covey spoke at the end and it was very impressive. He is an amazing speaker and person.

Strip 1000

An Orem High swim tradition, the strip 1000. You wear 10 articles of clothing over your swimsuit and after each 100 you get to "strip" one off. This is from Katie's phone, thanks for taking the time for a photo op before you got in the pool girls!

Shogo and Halloween

Shogo is the name of the Japanese exchange student we hosted for a week. This is the 3rd time we have hosted a junior high aged boy from Osaka Japan. They come with over 200 students from their school and stay the week. This year it was over Halloween so we had plenty of activities to entertain him with. They do not celebrate Halloween in Japan so you wonder what they think about all of this. At first he appeared to not really be able to speak English but later on I think he gained confidence and spoke much more than we thought he could. I think they are extremely shy and this is a really hard thing for them.

He is in the ping pong club at his school. Here he is playing with David, Caroline and some friends.

Shogo went to school one day and got to follow David around to his classes. Here they are doing homework.

We always carpool with other neighbors that have exchange students as well. I took all of the boys to Walmart to shop one afternoon. Here they are trying on hats.

Here's David all dressed up for school. He doctored his space suit and went as a ghostbuster with his friend Weston. They had fun creating their power packs.

Caroline went as a mime. Can I tell you how hard it is to find the perfect shirt? Well, we did in the end but boy did I visit a lot of stores!

Katie went as Pocahontas. The Sadie Hawkin's dance was over this Halloween weekend so the kids in her group dressed up as Disney couples. I will blog that event as soon as she gets her pictures.

We took Shogo out for pizza before the BYU basketball game.

Wow! check out my sweet parking spot! I still can't believe it myself. You can see the doors of the Marriott center right behind us. nice.

David and Shogo at halftime.

We went bowling the next day at BYU and played arcade games also.

Our friends the Hoyal's came too with their exchange student.

David with a nice one!

Caroline's wind up.

Katie was on her day date for Sadie's so she didn't come. Do you like my Halloween costume this year? Maybe I already commented on this from Lisa's party. Orange trick or treat t-shirt.

After bowling we went to in-and-out burger. You have to take these kids to all of the American haunts to experience it all!

David, Caroline, Shogo(vampire), and friends trick or treating.

Kids crazy for candy!

The next day we took three of the exchange students to the Tabernacle choir broadcast.

They sang "O, Divine Redeemer". Wow. It was amazing. That is my all time favorite MoTab choir song!

The last day or two Shogo was here he really warmed up and was less shy. The kids had so much fun with him!