Happy Holidays

Hi All! We hope that you had a wonderful holiday with family and friends etc. etc. etc.! We had a lot of fun. Derrick and Shayli headed up to Schweitzer on Christmas Eve morning and spent a big chunk of the day there. Last year Shayli was so sure that she wanted to ski, not board. So now that she has her own ski's, boots, etc. She wants to board. "The boards look so much cooler and you can buy cute boots and stuff..." Funny girl. So maybe next weekend we'll let her rent a board to try it out.
Shayli headed to her mom's for Christmas Eve evening, night and Christmas morning. And Derrick, Rad and I headed to my Mom and Bob's. They had quite a few people up! The Elders were there, Linda Edwards was there... she is a fun lady that I'll mention again later in this post. Bob's daughter Antoinette, her husband and son were there. Bob's son Yuri, and his wife and 4 1/2 kid's were there and Bob's daughter Laura with her husband and son were there too. Of course Michael, Shane and Valeri were there as well. We just chilled, ate good food, the grandkid's acted out the nativity while Grandpa Bob read the story. Then Antoinette's son Payton opened his birthday presents and everyone else got to open one present. It was fun, as always to kick back with the family and laugh and just be silly.

Christmas morning we checked out our goods from Santa and then headed back to Mom and Bob's for more presents, then back home to open the presents under our tree with Shayli and then yet again back to Mom and Bob's to end the day. Lots of back and forth but fun all the same.

Derrick received lots of new tools, I received lots of new tools and my very OWN toolbox. That will be fun. Shayli received lots of DVD's and new stuff for her room and Diddles received a cool new dome tent that connects to a tunnel that connects to a TP. Pretty fun for him. However, while opening presents Rad just wanted to sit on one of his big wrapped gifts (a potty chair) and read books. It was cute and I've posted a picture in the post.

Last weekend Shayli and I went to visit some nursing homes around town. We went to the one that Linda Edwards lives in. Linda is someone that my mom has known since she was a child and my mom says that if her mom were still alive that Linda would be living with her. So we include her in on all of the holidays. She's a lot of fun, loves to play board games and every other weekend Shayli and I are going to stop by and play a game or two with her in her home. That'll be a good time. We visited another home that was more of a convelescent home. There was a woman there who put her arms around me and just sobbed. When I finally had to leave they actually had to restrain the poor woman. I felt so much compassion for her. In YW's on Sunday we talked about people with disabilities and how to serve them and I think that lots of elderly people fall into that category at some point toward the end of their lives here at earth. Shayli felt the same compassion so we are going to make it our goal to spread some sunshine for the folks that we do feel so much compassion for.

On the subject of service, we've decided to start a new tradition in our household and "adopt" children from the Giving Tree's around town during the Holiday Season and give them the best Christmas that we can. We did it this year and it just makes you feel so good to do something so good for others.

Derrick and I are both back at work today. Derrick will finish out this week and part of next week building here in town and then it is off to Alaska for 3 weeks to work on the airport that he helped build this summer. I'm actually on campus 4 and maybe 5 days a week starting next week. That will be a change that I wasn't so excited about at first, but I get to bring Rad and Shayli when needed and I am very blessed to have this job... so no complaints. I'll do it with a smile. ☺

I'm doing a musical number this Sunday in church. It'll be a mix of Away in the Manger and The Lord is my Shepard... something that I arranged myself. I haven't done a musical number in so long, but it's something that I need to start doing again. I just pray that the spirit will be felt. Our friend Alex is coming to church for the first time on Sunday too, AND there is a good possiblity that Derrick will join us.

Geez- this has been a long post and I'm leaving lots of stuff out. But I'll post again early next week. Until then, know that we love you all lots and miss you tons.

OH! Jared, Amy and Tavin will be here in early January and we CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM! Yay! ♥

Have a great New Year!

9 days til Christmas

Well we're another week closer to Christmas! I am really looking forward to watching Rad dive into all of his gifts!

Derrick went boarding today and LOVED it! He took an 11 year old and a 15 year old and they were tired and ready to leave hours before Derrick was done. He came home and told me how much the food there costs... holy freaking cow! I'll be packing him lunches from now on. Shayli and Derrick will be hitting up Schweitzer again on Christmas Eve. Derrick has me convinced that next year Rad will be up there with them. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to get my legs strong enough to support my knees better so that I can join in the family fun.

Rad just learns more and more every this week. This week he learned how to open the front door to my office building. Good thing my office window faces out to the front of the building. I'm hoping that the excitement of this something new wears off soon and that he'll keep himself inside the building! We're trying to get him off of his bottles... he starts nursery next month and I really want him drinking out of straight sippy cups by then. He's down to just water out of his bottles now. So we're off to a good start.

Shayli had her Christmas program last week. That was... well, it was neat to see her sing but there were so many people there that it wasn't the coolest thing to spend a Thursday night on. :) This last week I really saw Shayli doing so good at being honest and telling us things that were hard to tell us. She's a very brave and very strong girl and I'm sure proud of her. One of her Christmas presents is Derrick and I giving her a new room. We have a new bed, bedding set, shelves, mirrors and a whiteboard boarder(way cool) to go around the middle of her walls as a boarder. It's a project that will take a little longer the day that she is with her mom during the holiday, so we've decided to get it done tomorrow and Tuesday. Wish us luck! :)

I'm still loving my Beehives. We talked about leadership today and I am every week in awe at how strong some of these girls are. Work is still going good but my hours are about to be cut in half... hopefully temporarily. We got that news and then Derrick was offered another job in Alaska. We took it. He'll be there for 3 weeks in January for sure and then a possibility of 13 weeks total. That will be tough but a blessing all the same. He makes so much more in Alaska and it's a lot more safe and warm then what he does here, we really can't pass it up. Especially since the others guys that he works with have had to claim unemployment. There just isn't enough work here right now.

Here are some pics of Rad on the loveseat. He gets up on the furniture like a pro now and LOVES the loveseat. He gets all snuggled up and just chills. I love my family.

Let it snow!

Hi all! Hope that all is well with you and yours! This past week has been mostly same stuff different days.

Over the weekend we did attend Derrick's work Christmas party. It was nice and at a restaurant on the golf course called "Hooties". No short shorts or tight shirts there. :) We had some excellent prime rib and some SO good shrimp. We didn't stay out very late and headed home for a nice night at home. Rad stayed at Grameri's with Aunt V. so it was just Derrick and I. It was nice to be able to sleep deep. I never do when Rad and Shayli are home. It's like I keep one ear open for them or something.

We woke up Sunday morning to a call from our home teachers telling us that church was cancelled. Yes, cancelled. I have never had that happen before. We got home around 11:30 on Saturday night and had more than 14 inches of new snow by 9am on Sunday morning. It was nuts. As I was shoveling a path to the hot tub on Sunday I thought about taking a picture because it was so pretty and white but I decided to do it in a few hours... which turned into Monday and by Monday it had rained so much that all we had was inches of yucky slush. Not so pretty.

Sunday was my work Christmas party in Hayden but the roads were so horrible that we didn't feel safe enough to make the drive. So we had a relaxing dinner with some friends here in Sandpoint... relaxing that is until a pipe broke. Then Derrick and Al spent a good hour or so fixing that.

Work is getting slow for Derrick which is nice in a way because he stays home and I go to work, but a little tight on the finances. AND we just took out a loan to build a really nice shop here on our property for all of the mechanics stuff that we do. That'll be nice to have and it's something that Derrick has dreamed of for a LONG time. So it's exciting for him.

That's about it for the week. Shayli comes home tomorrow and we'll do some more Christmas wrapping. I sure love that girl and miss her so much when she's gone and LOVE when she comes home.

No new pics of the kidd-o's but here are a few of our Christmas decor.

Love to you all.