Arizona in December

We went down to Arizona to visit our parents and Nathanael came down too with his family, and we also saw several of Jacquelyn's sisters.

 Little baby Hannah with her great-grandmother Swift.  Mom was just delighted to see Nathanael's little children.

 And here is Hannah with her great-grandfather Rucker.  She also met two other great grandparents but I didn't get pictures.

 Baby Hannah with Jacquelyn.

 Hannah with her Mom, Mary-Anne.

 You can see Jacob in this picture.  We went out to see Dad's tree in Leisure World.

 My parent's house in Leisure World.  It's strange to have rocks instead of grass in the yard, but very beautiful there.  And sunny too.

 This is over at Conni's house where we visited with the Ruckers.

 Jacob playing with two of Conni's grandchildren - Eli and Eric.

 One night we went out to the Mesa temple to see the lights.

This is my favorite, four generations from father to son:  Jacob - Nathanael - Doug - Loren.

Christmas in Alaska

We went up to Anchorage to see the new baby Agnes and spend Christmas with Joshua and his family.

 Agnes Ada Swift was born on November 8th, 2013 in Anchorage Alaska.  She is beautiful.

 We got to go to her baby blessing too.  She was fun to hold and Jacquelyn especially loved holding her, especially while she was sleeping.

 Agnes is a very good-natured baby and was usually happy as long as someone held her or paid attention to her and she gets held a lot with help from Julia and Ethan.  And she got really spoiled from Jacquelyn the week we were there.

 There was lots of snow up in Alaska in December.  This is the front of their house in Anchorage.

 Julia getting ready to go out but a little over-dressed with my coat on.

 We did go sledding one day and only had to walk down to the nearby school to find a good sledding hill.  Back home we usually have to drive all the way out to Mt. Rainier to sled.

 Julia, Christian and Elliott at the top of the hill.

 Christian all in warm clothes.  Still the front of our faces froze and we could only stay out a few minutes.

 Julia tried to stay warm but was soon ready to go home.

 So we hurried back home but not soon enough for some cold cold children.

 We got to spend Christmas with the family.  Christian and Elliott were very excited.

 Ethan looking at a new DVD.

 Julia opening a present.

Christian got a spy glass from Julia.

 They really liked the soccer ball but could only play indoors.

 Julia seemed content.

 Agnes slept through it all.

 Jacqeulyn and I went to the temple one day with Joshua.

 One day we went for a drive down to the inlet to see some scenery.  This is frozen ice along the hills on the side of the road was about 50-60 feet tall.

 The water comes out in a waterfall and freezes.

 Mountains in the background and frozen inlet part of the sound.

 The top of the ocean would freeze over but still move in and out with the tide.  It's an awesome sight in motion.

 And on our last full day there Jacquelyn finally got to see her moose.  We were driving out of the neighborhood and he was was walking along in front of some homes.

He retreated into a backyard and was looking about for food.  He was huge but Joshua said he was a young one, not a year old yet.  We had a good time in Alaska.

Early Christmas Celebration

We had an early Christmas celebration this last weekend when several of the children and their family could all get together with us in Puyallup.

 We had Caleb, Doranda, Bob, Tucker, Penelope, Scarlett, Leon, Malachi, Layne, Andrew, Mallory, Talitha, David, Tianna, Jim, Evan, Ashton, and James.

 Everyone was here at the house so we decided to open some Christmas presents.

 We had a good time taking turns giving gifts.  The children especially had so much fun.

 Malachi and Jim and Andrew and Ashton.

 Doranda with her girls and also you can see Malachi's two.

 Talitha and David.

 We had lots of snacks and we had some nice desserts.

 Here's a closeup which looks a little more appetizing.

 Tianna's dog Molly had some new puppies which she brought along because they were too young to leave at home.

 Then we went to a Ward Christmas party at Malachi's ward in Lakewood.

 Layne was in charge of putting it all together and it was really good.  Beautiful decorations, great food, and a nice program.  She worked so hard.

 On Sunday we saw Dallen perform with his choir on a choir trip across the mountains to Lynwood for a Christmas performance.

 There was so much going on this week.  Malachi and Layne have a tradition for Christmas they help the children decorate cookies for Malachi to take into work.

Every cookie is different.  The fun was in making the different designs.