Water Skiing August 2012 or one more family reunion post from last summer

Am I behind much?  Yes this is a post from last summer and I don't even think it is the last one.  But I am going to persevere and post as much as I can.  Going with the whole better late than never mantra.

So meanwhile back at the ranch, we had a family reunion in Spanish Fork August 2012.

My parents had a boat in Seattle and not many people wanting to use a boat.

There were many people in Spanish Fork wanting to use a boat but not having one.

So the boat moved to Utah and a beautiful relationship was born.

And by beautiful I mean the kind of relationship where you load up the car with

snacks, sunscreen, and a billion kids in swim suits with towels.

Once you get to the lake and go through the lovely process of getting the boat into the water

much of the time, it hasn't started.  This results in complaining from the kids who 

now get to play on the beach and watch the other people with functioning boats

driving past.  But this time apparently the boat read the schedule for the family 

reunion and decided to cooperate.

The kids loved riding in the tubes.  We set up a rotation where different groups with 

different interests and abilities came out at different times.  No one with a camera came

with the older boys who all water skied.

But we did get some great shots of the younger girl groups.

Here are Diana and Raeley

And here they are again.  Uncle Andrew made sure that they all got 

a great turn and then he managed to bounce them off of the tube, which of course was 

their favorite part.

Trent got a turn to drive.  He enjoyed that part as much as being in the water.

Miles was ready for a nap and went ahead and slept through the whole event.

Lizzie, Ali, and Brooklyn

Riding in the front of the boat is almost as fun as being in the tube.

The older girls, Laura, Raeley, Megan, and Diana

Laura taking a turn with the flag.  Way to go on 

a crucial but thankless job!

Christmas 2012

We celebrated  Christmas again this year.  It was strange to think that

Jared will be gone for the next two years and with Trent 

joining the National Gaurd who knows if he will get to

come home next year.  It made me think that this was the LAST 

Christmas and well that was kind of sad.  Not that you don't want your kids

to grow up, but well when it happens it seems kind of shocking.

Here is a shot of Diana posing as if she were sleeping under the tree.

Here I am experimenting with my self timer on the camera of my phone.

I love the view of my tree from the ground.  It seems to go on up forever.

And here is the view from the front. Thanks to Pinterest I used the huge, ginormous metal

star from the front of my house as the top of my tree.  It is kind of amazing.

When you work at a Christmas store, this is the kind of tree you end up having.

Hard to believe that I got the tree for free a few years ago because someone just needed

it out of their showroom.  I never though I would have a such a beautiful tree.

Jared got things for his mission like Rosetta Stone for Spanish and a GPS.  He is 

rather dependent on the GPS on his phone and so I was a bit worried to send 

him off into the world without a GPS.  He also got a few other mission related items.

Diana got her dream camera and a tall tripod to boot.  She was very happy about it.

Last year I got a short tripod which was a fail on my part.  Lucky girl.

Trent got a laptop.  Lucky lucky boy!

We also managed to make some candy and enough treats to keep everyone in

a sugar coma for a few weeks.

All in all it was a very nice time and if it was our last Christmas we can say it was a good one.

Highlights of the past few months

 Much of the time life is hard, but every now and then there
are days that pretty darn near perfect.
I suppose it is set up that way to get us to keep going
through all the hard times.  Not 100% sure how I feel
about that.  But regardless, when those happy,
joyful days come around it does tend to make you
glad that you didn't throw in the towel and give up like
you were so tempted to do.
This is a post about one such day.

But first let's look back at another perfect day, the
day Jared was sealed to us in the San Diego temple
18 years ago.  I am so grateful to have this picture to remind
me what that day looked like.

 December 1994

There have been some pretty difficult days in the past 18 years.
 Some days were so dark, I wondered if there would ever be
sunshine in my life again.  Well last December I was able to
go to the Las Vegas temple with Jared as he prepared to be
a missionary.  Trent was with us also and it was a very special day.

We are still pretty good looking aren't we?

December 2012

An early Christmas gift at the temple.

Me and my boys.

My gratitude to my Father in Heaven for blessing me with these boys and then
allowing them to be sealed to me and then to watch them grow up
and make righteous decisions, well there really aren't words for such feelings.

It just was a really good day that I will remember and cherish always.