Doranda's visit

We had Doranda and Tucker and Penelope and Scarlett come and visit for a week.

 Baby Scarlett.

 Penelope and Tucker watching TV.

Enjoying one of our special treats.  Here's the secret recipe.  Take a glob of peanut butter.  Add jelly.  Add butter.  Spread on saltine crackers.

Going for a walk even in cold weather.

Snow and ice in Washington

We've had a really hard week in this part of Washington.

 First there was a heavy snow and then ice.  There was no school on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.  This is the front of our house after the first snowfall before the ice hit.

Caleb and Anthony getting ready to shovel the driveway.  Jacquelyn had already shoveled the sidewalk.  All before I got home from work.  It was a good thing they got it done before the ice hit.

 After the snow came in it was followed by the freezing ice.

 Looking out from the front of our house.

 An interesting thing to see was all the animal tracks.  We normally don't notice these animals around but there were tracks all over the day after the first snow.

 Don't know what kind of animal made this track.  You can see how all the snow got turned into ice.

 Poor car.  Everything got covered with about an inch of pure ice.

 This hardy fountain on the side of the house kept the water flowing all through the snow and ice.

 The ice got so bad it was too much for a lot of tree limbs.  The weight caused a lot to crack and break and fall.  This is an example in the backyard after it was all over.

 This is the side of the house.  Saturday I filled up two trash cans and the yard waste container just from limbs out of the front yard and didn't finish.  There were even more on the side and in back.

On a separate subject.  Caleb got notice from BYU-I that he is enrolled in the Spring/Fall Track.  That means he will start in early September, but then have the Winter Track off, and then go in Fall (which includes part of summer).  Anyway, he is all registered now.  For a major he picked Mechanical Engineering.

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Andrew and Mallory Sealing

We were invited by Malachi and Layne to go with them Saturday and watch them take their two children to the temple and be sealed.  It was a wonderful experience and we are so happy for their family.

This is the Seattle Temple where we went to see the Sealing Ordinance.  In the LDS faith their are certain ordinances, like sealings, that are only done in temples because they are so sacred.

 Afterwards we got to take some pictures out on the temple grounds. 

 It was actually rainy and cold.  We were happy though.

 In this picture they are posing in the middle of a set of statues on the temple grounds.

The adoption they had for Andrew and Mallory made the children legally part of their family.  Now with this temple ordinance it is a sealing for eternity.

This is a statue of the Angel Moroni on top of the temple.  He is blowing a trumpet announcing to the world the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting all the world to come unto Christ and join his church and be baptized and be saved.

Desert Hike

We went on a hike in the desert down in Arizona one day during our trip to see our parents.  It was a lot of fun and we got some exercise and sun and had a great time.

                                                       Jacquelyn and I .

My brother Mark and his wife Angela.  We live so far apart we don't get to see each other much and this was a good opportunity to do something together.

This is the Pass Mountain and our trail circled around this mountain, staying mostly in the flat lands around it.  The trail was 7.4 miles and was rocky and strenuous.   We were quite tired by the time we finished and it took us several hours.  Fortunately it wasn't too hot and we had lots of water with us.

There was lots of cactus around, we where in the middle of a real desert.  This is a beautiful Cholla Cactus on the left.

 Some famous Arizona Saguaro Cactus, which get really tall.

 A large Prickly Pear Cactus, which is a very common cactus.

Some colorful lichen on the rocks.  How it could grow on rock formations in the desert, not even in the shade, is a mystery to me?

 The desert floor showing a vast and empty, desolate valley, stretching out from the mountain.

 A close up of the cliffs of Pass Mountain.  On the far side of the loop our trail took us part way up.

 Here we are, the happy hikers, about halfway done with the trail.  We had fun.

Christmas 2011

We had three different Christmas celebrations this year with different groups of relatives.  Here are some picture from each in the reverse order from when they actually happened.

 

The last one was at our house in Puyallup which was actually closer to New Years Eve since we were in Arizona during Christmas day.

We had five of our children here and their families.  In this picture is Tianna, Amery, Layne, Mallory, Malachi, James, Andrew, Tucker, Jim, Evan.

Another group shot, with Bruce, Andrew, Evan, John, Ashton, Talitha, James, Caleb, Jacquelyn.

Mallory brought one of her favorite gifts from home with her, a talking toy dog.

Penelope is modeling some bead necklaces purchased from our traditional trip to the dollar store.  She was really sick and not feeling very good but got better as the days passed.

Talitha gave homemade blankets to several of the kids.  They put them to good use and made a fort to play in.  James is in the front and Tucker in the back.

The computer is always a big attraction, even at meal time.

Foosball is fun.  Evan and Ashton are having a game with Andrew waiting his turn.

 Dallen, Mallory, Tucker and James.

This is a unique picture because everyone likes to play cards so much and here you can see Jacquelyn with all three of her daughters (Tianna, Talitha, and Doranda who was sick too) and three of the five grand-daughters (Amery, Penelope, Scarlett).

 Now we move to Arizona to San Tan Valley.  We had a Christmas celebration there with the Ruckers.

 In this picture is Jacquelyn's dad with Duane's daughter Melissa and her boyfriend and Melissa's son Gabe.

Here is Conni's daughter Elaine with her son Elijah.

 This is a group shot with Jacquelyn's mother, Gabe, Conni, Elijah and Elaine.

 Another picture with Conni, Gen, Elaine, Elijah, Patti and Gabe.

 Jacquelyn with Conni's pet parrot.

For the third part of Christmas visiting we were in Mesa.  The first thing we did was have an Anniversary Celebration with my parents.  We went out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse.  They have been married 64 years.

This is my brother Mark who came up from Tulsa.

 Mark's wife Angela.

 My Dad.

 My Mom.

 Christmas dinner at my parents house.

Mark, Angela, Jacquelyn and I went for a hike at the Usury Mountains Recreation area just to the north.  It was a 7.4 mile hike around a mountain and we had a lot of fun.

 We saw the annual Christmas golf cart parade.

And we had hot dogs and hot chocolate at the Recreation Center at Leisure World after the parade.

 We were also busy one day digging out tree stumps at my parents house.

Buzzards at Leisure World that roost in the trees and keep watch over everything going on.