January Events

I must say I have never been a fan of winter time. In fact, I have no use for winter, except that the months of January and February must be endured I suppose so that we can eventually get on to the more pleasant, beautiful and important months of summer time. Nonetheless, life goes on in January, just the same as it does in any other month, and so here are a few of the more notable happenings of that grey, leafless month!

Sterling gets married! It was a beautiful wedding and it was good for 2! trips out of the cold country down to the the land of the warm. Hallelujah!

Also in January our dog had puppies. This was an endless source of delight to the 2 kids left at home, but Dad and Mom? Not so much. Yes, the puppies were adorable, but in January? when you have no choice but to be kind and let them stay indoors? Despite the fact that they don't always smell so delightful? However, we made it through and the puppies are now big enough to go to new homes. Takers anyone? (They really are sooo cute!!)

The kids favorite activity in January is skipping out of school for a day here and there to go up to Sunrise to ski and snowboard. We have taken several groups of kids up there over the last few years, and Marcie and Josh love it and have actually gotten pretty good! These are kind of old photos, I think from the first year we went. We didn't take alot of pictures after the first couple of trips.

State Soccer Champs!

Last Fall was soccer season as usual and St. Johns Girls soccer had an exceptional year. They were undefeated, even beating their arch rival, Blue Ridge High School on Blue Ridge's home field.  That was a sweet victory.  They went on to win the State Championship game in a hard-fought game, on a hot day in the hot valley.  They had been playing for 3 plus hours, and the game was intense right up until the last minute.  The game went into not one, but two overtimes and St. Johns finally won it in the shoot-out. Marcie proudly wore the #7 jersey, just like her big sister before her. 

We are so sad to retire the #7 Big Red Lady Redskin Jersey. This marks the end of a very long string of years watching Redskin soccer. But, we've still got Josh coming up in the ranks!

4th of July, 2010

Canoeing at the lake...

Jason showing off his fine form....

Nicole, Josh, lil' Ed and Edward...

Hanging out in the yard....

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th!

Gila Valley Temple

On May 8, 2010, we attended the Gila Valley Temple open house in Central, Arizona. We are so excited to witness the building of another temple, especially in the good old Gila Valley, where Eileen and her sisters grew up. We were thrilled to hear that it would be built in Central on the same softball fields that we played on when we were young women there. The Gila Valley is a special place and our grandparents and great grandparents and ancestors were among the early settlers there. Grandma Inez and Grandpa Leland Carpenter were cotton farmers in Eden all their lives. We know they are all rejoicing in the heavens above at this temple being built there.

Eileen, Marcie and Nicole, Josh and Ed and kids in front of the temple.

Three handsome, wiggly grandkids!

Water Park Fun!

I am finally getting around to posting some pictures of the fun we had at the water park in August. It was surely fun to see everyone there....unfortunately, I didn't get anyone else on camera except our family, but hopefully this will remind us of the good times we had there, and if anyone else has pic's...put them up! This one above, is of us in the wave pool.

Nicole had her hands full with the three munchkins in the lazy river...

Josh, after a wild ride down the tall, crazy slides!

Getting some shade, on the lazy river.

More lazy river....great way to beat the heat!

24th of July, 2010

Pioneer days is always a good time, and the parade, of course is one of the highlights. This float has some of the church leaders in town throwing candy...who is that guy?

Gotta love the message on the back of the float!

Camron, Sara, and Edward with their loot from the parade.


Bunch of yahoos.

This float was amazing. Honest Abe would actually stand up and sit back down as he went down the road!

Good message..."Stand up for the Constitution!"

The parade was great, and at the end the fire truck hosed everyone down. Yea!, cause it was hot!

Ed thought it was great--Camron wasn't so sure.

Back home after the parade. Eileen taking a picture of the quilt she made in a class last semester.

The kids loved getting the eggs every day from the coop.

Emily tended the fry bread for us, for Navajo Tacos.

After church Sunday, we took family pictures, minus baby Wesley who was napping, and his parents wouldn't wake him up!!

Jason and his dog.

Cute people!

Where's Wesley!!

Cute little family... We're so glad everyone came! It made it funner to have everyone here.

Emily and Daniel Graduate!

In mid-August we went to Provo to see Emily and Daniel graduate from BYU! These sunflower pictures we took on the way outside of Cortez CO. There was a huge beautiful field of them. We had to stop and take a few pictures. (like a hundred.)

Emily and Daniel on their way to graduation ceremonies in their robes.

Inside the Marriot Center before graduation.

All the BYU dignitaries.

Here is some more graduation pics. This is at Emily's nursing graduation program. A smaller program than at the Marriot Center the previous day. Daniel marched with her at her ceremony. That is him behind the dean of nursing. The slide in the background is Emily's scripture choice they put up when they called her name. Each graduate had a slide and scripture or quote.

Em and Daniel

This is a Emily and her classmates. She is in the second row on the end.

Yipee!

Our beautiful girl.

Daniel and Em and his parents. This section of pictures should be the last section of the graduation pictures instead of the first. I may never figure this blog business out. Just keep scrolling down and you'll see the whole trip eventually! We are proud of you Daniel and Emily!

Emily and Joshua riding home after graduation.

Playing on the lake the next day. Em, Daniel and Daniel's dad.

Joshua and Dad on the waterski at the lake.