Sydnee's Special Day

Today was Sydnee's special day ~ she was baptized by her daddy. What a joyous occassion for the family. We were so blessed to have family and friends join us. I feel especially blessed to have had both my parents and Wayne's parents able to be there with us. Sydnee is so lucky to still have 2 sets of Great-Grandparents here to love her and to spoil her. Not to mention all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Family ~ there really isn't anything else like it and sometimes we take it for granted. I hope Tyler and Karie don't mind that I am posting pictures from the baptism but we are just so proud of our little Sydnee and her decision today and we love her and Savannah so very much!! It was such a great day!

Jocelyn's handmade guitar

Wayne finished Jocelyn's guitar just before Christmas but he had some fine tuning to do on Christmas. It's amazing to have such a talented husband who gives so much time and talent to those around him. Tyler got the first guitar, this is the second guitar and Zach is working on his. Wayne wants to make one more, for himself and maybe he will take guitar lessons. He can make beautiful guitars, but he can't play them so he doesn't get to enjoy all of the benefits. Brandon plays the guitar and he is really enjoying the new guitar. It's such a treat to hear beautiful music coming from something my hubby made and something my kids can play. Life if sweet.

Another Christmas Come and Gone

They come and go so quickly! I love the entire Christmas season and every year it seems to go by faster! I feel like I start decorating earlier and earlier and start preparing for the season and yet in a blink the time comes and goes and somehow leaves that slightly empty feeling inside knowing that it will be another year until we can do it all again. I know some people feel bothered by all the stress of the holidays but I love every bit of it from the smell of the Christmas candles to the lights on the tree. I like the feeling I get when I think of the Savior and what His birth has brought to me. I love setting up the nativity and am always sad when it's time to put it away again. This year was no exception. We were so blessed to have all of our kids and their spouses with us for at least one day during the holidays. Our little grand-daughters bring such a sweet spirit to Christmas. Tyler and Karie gave us exciting news on Christmas - they are adding one more to the family in July! Next Christmas we will have 4 little ones to share the joy! We were also able to share Christmas with both my parents and Wayne's parents and that just made everything complete. Here are just a few pictures from our Christmas season.

Getting ready for Christmas

For our family Christmas party we decided to take the family to Wolf Creek this year for a couple fo days. I think everyone had a good time. It's hard to get everyone's schedules worked out so that everyone could be there the entire time but we did a pretty good job. Zach had to leave a day early to go and pick up Hayan at the airport. Hayan couldn't make it up at all, she was in Korea. Karie and Tyler came up late Friday night after Karie's family party and Jocelyn and Brandon came up mid-day on Friday. Wayne and I were there on Thursday night just to get things settled in before the kids arrived. Pretty eventful weekend actually when it comes right down to it. Someone stole Wayne's snowboard out of Zach's car - discovered that on Sunday morning in the middle of a snow storm as Zach was getting ready to leave for the airport. Zach was pretty bummed and he did his best to let everyone he could find that morning know that his board was missing. That seemed like a hopeless idea but about an hour or so later the front desk called and someone had ditched the board in the snow and some kind sole had found it and turned it in. Blessing!! Count your blessings! Tyler wasn't so lucky when he found out that while he was away relaxing, Brigham City impounded his truck for parking it on the street during a snow storm. It was an expensive life lesson. Other than that things went pretty much as planned. We played games, watched movies and the kids played in the snow. I baked cookies with the girls and we had a great time. I'm so glad most everyone was able to be there. Maybe next time Hayan will be able to join us. Now we are all looking forward to Christmas.. I love this time of year. Jocelyn and Brandon gave us great news, they are having a baby girl. I guess it would have been great if it were a boy too, either way. We are just excited to be grandparents again and we're excited for them to be parents.

Girls Night Out

Tonight we had a girls night out - 18 of us to be exact! 10 of us started the night out with dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. Linda celebrated her "not" birthday with a saddle ride and a yippy-aye from the entire restaurant crowd. How old are you again Linda????
Menopause the Musical finished off the night. It was a blast. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Actually, it mirrored life so closely that we often have very similar laughs in our office on a daily basis. When we told our boss we were going to "Menopause" tonight he said "I didn't know you could go through it in just one night"!

Our last day in Victoria

Today is Sunday and we leave Victoria tomorrow. We will board the ferry for Vancouver in the morning and we will do some sightseeing on on our way. We will stop in Seattle and visit Waynes cousin Cindy and her husband Calvin. We left it up to them as to where we will eat, I'm excited to see what the choose for us. Today we started the day early - or I should say early for us 0900. We picked up Wayne at his conference and we headed to Buchart gardens. We spent nearly 3 hours there. We came back to the condo and walked down to the warf to a place called "Barbs" for what was touted as the best fish and chips. It was super busy so we figured the ads were right. It was good but they failed to add the part that it was way over priced! Wayne and I spent over $40 for 2 baskets of fish and fries and 2 drinks. It was good but $40 good? Seriously. Anyhow. After lunch we walked back home and took the car to the art museum. It was really good and we spent 2 hours there. They had a couple of munks there doing sand art. It was really interesting to watch. We came back home, played some cribbage while we waited until we were ready for dinner. We grilled steaks and had potatos and corn and salad. It's kind of sad we have to leave tomorrow but the vacation has been great and I've enjoyed my time with Wayne.

Day 2 Victoria

Another great day! We started off picking Wayne up at the Marriott downtown - his anesthesia conference ended around 12:30. From there we went out on a walking tour. We did "Old Town" and covered a lot of area, that's all I can say about that. Hayan and I are both stiff and sore. The last stop on our walking tour was the Craigdarroch Castle. It is really beautiful. Afterwards we walked to dinner down by the warf to a place called Nautical Nellies Steak and Seafood. Wayne and Hayan had a plate of oysters to start with. Zach had a steak for dinner and the rest of us had incredible seafood dishes. It was really good. Afterwards we walked a few more blocks to a little shop that sells gelato. $7 for a small cone! Crazy!! I'm telling you this place is not a bargin by any stretch! Tomorrow we are going to Buchart gardens and an art museum. Then we are going to drive around the island before we head home on Monday.