New Year's Eve

Today was really pretty. There was snow on the mountains and lots of clouds but the sky was so blue. I liked the sunset too. We don't have any big plans for tonight. We are just going to play some games and stay home, I don't have to work until tomorrow night. Not very exciting!

Happy Birthday Judy!!

Night Snowboarding

Colton snowboarding on the rails last night at Brighton. I don't know how they can stand to be out in the cold for 10+ hours a day, but they just can't get enough of it. He is getting really good and is anxious for me to go with him, I am afraid of breaking my leg though! I bought some passes so I will have to go pretty soon.

Christmas Day

I got up early and got ready for work and then woke up the kids at 7. They just hurried and opened presents so I wouldn't miss anything. I told them that they would have all day to play with everything. I worked until 5pm and then we went to dinner at the Taylor's house. We played air hockey and other games. It was a lot of fun. I even made eggnog pie, I think they liked it too! Chris built a stand for the tree last week, YEA!! Thank goodness I have great neighbors here. The Bullmore's were going to come and visit this week from Flagstaff but the forecast shows snow every day for the next week so they decided they better not come. The roads get really bad over the mountains so it is probably a good idea if they don't. We are disappointed though.

Christmas Eve

First thing this morning we went to clean the church with 2 other families. The Taylor's went with us and when we were finished we went to lunch at a new Chinese restaurant close to our house, it was good. We went to watch "National Treasure" and when we came out of the theater it was snowing and the wind was blowing really hard. It did make for a nice white Christmas morning. We came home and the kids each opened a pair of pajamas. You can finally see Colton without braces. These are just snow covered flowers in the front yard, they looked kind of cool.

Colton Snowboarding

Colton has been snowboarding 3 times this season so far. He would go every day if I would let him. He took these pictures last weekend but he resized them so they are kind of hard to see. Colton is wearing the Jazz jersey, Chad is in the green and white, and Dillon is wearing red. I am waiting for the day that he breaks something. I just tell him to make sure he tells the ambulance to take him to my hospital! Oh ya, Colton got his braces off last month but he hasn't let me take any pictures of him showing teeth yet.

All of us at Temple Square

I'm not sure why we don't have any pictures of Corey but she was there! I'll take some better pictures of everyone looking at the camera next time. Those were pictures that the kids took.

1) Chris and Shelbi

2) Courtnie

3) Preston

4) Erika and Colton

5) Keaton

6) Erika and Shelbi

Temple Square

For family night this week we went to downtown Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights at temple square. We went with the Cederholms and went to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. It was really cold but very beautiful, we had a good time.

Christmas Lights

We are getting excited for Christmas. We had our Christmas tree up before we went to Arizona for Thanksgiving. The girls brought all the boxes up from the basement and put it together themselves. The tree has since been knocked down by the dog and the stand broke so we don't have a nice tree now! It is leaning against the wall in hopes that my neighbor Chris has a brilliant plan to build a new stand so we can have a tree for Christmas. The Cederholms (Chris and Courtnie) also put up our lights outside while we were out of town. What great neighbors we have!

Mike's Birthday

December 8th.
Mike's birthday, it is one of those hard days but we try to make it a happy day instead of a sad day. We made a cake and sang happy birthday. We like to do this every year, just a little way to remember him on his special day.

December 1

This is the first real snow that has fallen this year. Erika made a good attempt at shoveling the drive but she didn't get very far. Rico loves the snow too.

Our trip to Arizona

I drove for 10 hours with 3 kids and a dog to Arizona for Thanksgiving. It makes for 2 really long days of driving! We had a great time with our family and friends, but it is always nice to be home. Corey took most of the scenery pictures, she says she wants to be a photographer when she grows up. She did a great job!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. It seems like it is the only time of year that everyone makes the effort to get together. Plus we get to have eggnog pie! YUMMY!!!! We were missing some people though. We had about 46 this year. These are just pictures of people that we saw and that were at our dinner, I am sorry that I didn't get pictures of everyone that was there.

Standin' on the corner

When people ask me where I am from and I say Winslow, AZ most often they will say, 'Hey didn't the Eagles sing a song about Winslow?'
Since we were in Winslow for Thanksgiving we decided to do the touristy thing and stand on the corner!
I was born and raised in Winslow and most of my family lives there. http://www.winslowarizona.org/Visiting.htm

Intermountain Medical Center

Two weeks ago the hospital that I worked at closed its doors and we moved to a brand new hospital. There are a lot of changes involved with this move. We have had to merge our staff with another hospital's staff, new management, new schedule and senority, not to mention all the little things that just aren't the same. Change can be a good thing but I am having a hard time adjusting. Each shift seems to be slightly better than the last but it still isn't great. I love being a nurse but right now I dread going to work. This is a picture of the building I work in, it has 15 stories and the ER is on the lower level. There are 5 different buildings, each with their own specialty, such as the women's center, heart and lung, cancer center, etc.

Hopefully things will improve quickly and I will be happy to go to work again.

Shawn Riley (with the shades) and Jason Kelly
My cousin, Stacie, and her husband Isaac have finally been blessed with not one, but two babies!

Born Oct 27, 2007 about 12 weeks early, they both weighed 2 lbs 14 1/2 oz.

The boys will be in the NICU for quite some time but they are making great progress. Now two weeks old in these pictures, they have been taken off the ventilators.

Congratulations! I can't wait to see them.

I took Colton to Brighton this afternoon to pick up his season pass. He can't wait for the season to start. He thinks the world revolves around snowboarding!

I went to Phoenix this past weekend and met my nephew Caden, born August 17. What a cutie! My sister in law Stacey and her husband Ryan are the proud parents.

Halloween 2007

Erika was a belly dancer this year.

Corey and Katie dressed up for trick or treating.

Colton was mad that he had to stay home and pass out candy.

Just playing around

Halloween

Erika

posing

in her

Halloween

costume.

July 4, 2007

We had a BBQ with the Cederholms, our neighbors, and just played games. We had

our own fireworks show in the street!

The kids loved these pictures because they said they could see their spirits.

Haiti photos

Haiti

I recently went on a humanitarian trip to Haiti. I signed up to go without knowing anyone, pretty out of character for me! I went with 12 total strangers, but everyone was very nice and we had a great time. I can't really explain why but this is just something I have always wanted to do, believe me I had plenty of people try to talk me out of it just because of the dangers.

We flew to Port-Au-Prince and then went to a small village called Timo, on the side of a mountain. We had to hike about 30 minutes down to the village with heavy backpacks and everything we needed for the week. The hike out took an hour! It was very steep and rough terrain. The natives put us to shame, they carried much more than we did, many of them barefoot. When we finally had a bath, it was in a river about shin deep. We bathed in the moonlight, the water was cold but very refreshing. We stayed with the natives in their homes, they gave up their homes and beds for us. It was very humbling. These were my interpreters, Zouty and Marco, what fun guys. They taught us some Creole also.

The main purpose in going was to set up a children's clinic. We had a medical and dental team. I even pulled a tooth! That was awesome. We took as many supplies as we could with us, hygiene kits, school kits, toys, vitamins and several different medications. It was very hot and we worked long hard days but what an experience. I must say this is one of the best things I have ever done in my life.