Ear fun!

We gave Kaile some earrings for her birthday and told her she could get her ears pierced. She was so excited. She had been begging me for some time. I thought we would wait awhile longer, but she is becoming very responsible and so I decided now is as good a time as any.

Here is her last picture without holes!
Here she is outside the mall. It was a big ordeal, but in the end Kaile did get it done. She had shed more tears before getting them pierced then when they actually pierced them. I learned a lot about Kaile from this experience. She is much more like Jan in that she wants to see what is going to happen to her before it happens. I spent so much effort in trying to avoid her seeing other girls getting their ears pierced, etc. that it freaked her out.

Her earrings are a cute white gold stud, with pink crystals in the shape of a daisy. It looks very cute.

Kaile's Birthday

My Kaile turned 8! Here's some pics of the day.

Nothing else as exciting as last week - thank goodness!! Jan's going snowmobiling this weekend with his company. Keep your fingers crossed. J/K Jan!

Fun Visit with the Hasvolds

Our friends that we usually go to the river with came for a visit. We went snowmobiling - which is something Jan and I had never done. We rented some sleds and went just outside of West Yellowstone in Montana. It was beautiful. Here is a place we found to stop and eat a snack. These old, old houses were so fun to look at. It is hard to believe that people once lived here. Talk about beautiful.


The snow was great, and we each fell in above our knees atleast once. I personally had to roll out of several holes. I kept falling in to my waist. This is Rick trying to take some pictures.

This is us all geared up and eating a snack.

*beware* if you read below this point you will see blood. If you don't want to see blood, quickly scroll until you see more snow.

Mara and I were a little slower than Rick, Tanya (their daughter) and Jan. They would all go ahead and play a little waiting for us slow pokes to catch up. While playing, Jan drove down a bowl, hit really hard, felt his face slam into the steering wheel, and thought as he was driving back up the other side "OH NO, I know I just hurt myself really bad." He thought he broke his nose. He put on the brakes and jumped off his snowmobile and started spitting blood into the snow. He flagged Rick down.

Rick quickly realized that Jan had put his bottom teeth completely through his bottom lip. Luckily I had talked Jan into packing a pair of extra socks for me into his back pack. Rick filled it with snow and Jan held it like a compress on his lip down the mountain. This is Jan looking a little better after wiping most of the blood away. Can you see the perfect half circle his teeth left?

Luckily the nurse who runs the urgent care clinic was out shopping and agreed to come in and stitch Jan up so we didn't have to drive two hours to get to a hospital. This is Jan looking good after stitches.

Now he just looks like he has taken up chewing and has a blue goatee. I think he'll have a sexy Indiana Jones scar. As Jan always says "Battle Scar!"
This is the assistant, nurse, and the nurses daughter who took very good care of him. Their little clinic in West Yellowstone reminded me of a cross between a vets office, a dentist office, and a doctors office. Funny.
The next day Jan went out again. He took it easy. These are some pictures from on top of Two top loop.
This is a tree. Can you believe it?
This is where warm water from Yellowstone runs into the lake. It never freezes here.
The second day, Rick had one of Jan's friends from High School (who is a guide in Yellowstone for the winter) take them out. He showed them the sights and they had a GREAT day. Here is a picture of one of the bison they saw.
This is Rick jumping. Josh taught them all sorts of tricks. No one got hurt.

This is Jan. The day was tiring, but a lot of fun. One they will never forget.

Sledding Fun

So we got home to a ton of snow. You know Jan . . . he had to do something with it. I know you have all been asking - so here is the sledding story from the beginning.

Jan and Will piled all of the snow from parts of the roof and the deck into a huge pile.

They then went to a construction site behind our house and explained to the framers what they were doing. They enthusiastically donated all of their leftover lumber towards the project. Jan and Will then came home and started to construct it in the garage.


Construction in the garage was fast. The problem came when trying to lift it over the fence into the back yard. They then fastened it to the roof line.


Starting to pile on snow on the jump.

The kids first trial run in the next door neighbors sled.


Will trying it out on a tube. The tube won over the sled. Much faster.

Claire going down by herself on a tube.

After Jan got tired of catching kids - they decided to build a landing ramp. Then after they kept running into the shed, Jan decided to build a backstop. (The guys didn't want to get splinters in the tubes. You can tell their priorities :)

The kids kept going over the backstop, so a bunny hill was in order to slow them down.

When we first started this project and there was no landing ramp, Kaile went down and hurt her neck a little, so she decided sledding off the roof was not for her. Then she tried it again today when our friends, the Hasvolds, were here to visit. Here is her reaction.

Lots has happened - great playing weekends - and only one trip to Urgent Care. I'll update again soon . . . .

December

We are back in Rexburg! And I finally found some time to post some December pics. I'll post Christmas later. We were able to go to the Wild Animal Park with Nana shortly after returning to California. Highlight: seeing them feed the gorillas (and I don't mean mine.)


Then right after Christmas we were able to go to Legoland with Eric and Sarah. It was their present to our family for Christmas! We had a great day. Here are some of the many pictures we took. Highlight: eating really good BBQ.

Nana Peterson was brave enough to take Kaile and Garrett on this water ride. Luckily they didn't get too wet. :)

The kids enjoyed it, but from my perspective, keep your money and go someplace else. It was kind of boring for the adults, and the lines were pretty long.

A Great Day . . .

I had such a wonderful day - and just had to share with all of you. I got out of the house today! That was a great beginning. Not only that - but it was 45 degrees outside! It was wonderfully warm. Then, I got to go to lunch with Jan and one of his bosses. It was a great lunch meeting with the whole family there. Claire also decided to potty train herself today. She kept going to the potty (completely on her own) and has had a dry diaper for 24 hours! I can't say I was ready for her to do this, but if she is willing to train herself ... all the better for me!

Then tonight, to top it all off . . . I got asked to help clean the Rexburg temple. The construction company is getting ready to turn it over to the church on Monday (the open house starts after Christmas), and they needed some help getting the top layer of dust off of everything. Our ward was one of three selected to help - and only 25 women from each ward. What a humbling experience to be called and asked if I could help. I was so excited, and really hoped that Jan could watch the kids so I could have this unique experience. He could - so I went.



It is BEAUTIFUL inside. We helped clean the hallways, the staircases, and the endowment/sealing rooms. What a neat experience. The endowment rooms were painted by the High Priest Group Leader in our ward. Look at his website, and you can imagine how breathtaking they are. http://www.leonparson.com/ Eric - did you ask him if he was related to Del? I should have thought to ask him tonight. He was there doing touch up paint, and I commented on how beautiful the rooms were. He is so humble, and was only worried about whether they were fitting for the temple and inviting to the spirit. The spirit was there very strong already, so I think he did an amazing job.


During one time of the night, I was working by myself, and everything was so quiet. I started thinking about some of the early church members, and thought about how the women loved the temple. I am sure that they went in and cleaned when all the construction was finished, and how they must have loved cleaning it for the Lord and were probably so excited to have a temple in their midst. I am still choked up now thinking about it. It was such an amazing, awesome, once in a lifetime experience.



After we cleaned, we were taken on a "behind the scenes" tour by the construction company's owner. He and his wife pointed out details that will be probably overlooked, or not talked about in an open house tour. (Including glitches, and things that needed to be worked out, the way the temple's 5th and largest sealing room came to be when the original drawings called for 4, and the differences in color in the paint, rock and wood work from room to room. Oh, and the 8,000 piece crystal chandelier that took 30 people in gloves to put it together.) We were able to see every room - including the beautiful brides room - and also were taken on a tour of the mechanical room on top, and to the roof for a view of Rexburg. When we were just about done with the tour, all of a sudden Jan and Susan were standing there. Susan was soooo elated to be in the temple. Jan and Susan had roamed around trying to find us - and got to see a lot of the temple in the process. Then someone said that Susan needed to see the brides room, so Jan talked me in to sneaking away from the group and we took Susan to the brides room. Jan made her sit on one of the little stools and look at herself. She was embarrassed, but I think really enjoyed the experience.



What an amazing night. I am truly blessed.



p.s. Mom and Dad - thought about you when we went through the children's waiting rooms. I was talking with another of the women who adopted two children after having her own and had the experience of having them sealed to the whole family. I still remember the day Wade was sealed to us - what a special experience that is for me.

After Thanksgiving . . .

We were able to go to temple square the day after Thanksgiving to see it light up. We waited and waited outside . . . and got colder and colder . . . then we finally went in to the visitors center to warm up, and everything turned on. Oh well :) It was beautiful none the less.
The nativity on temple square. They had a recording that goes with the Nativity, and different spotlights shine on different things during the story.




This is Ginny's fiance's father and mother. They loved the kids and were instantly teaching them to say "Abuelo and Abuela." It was fun to watch Santiago play peek-a-boo with Claire. She adored him.
And Abuela just couldn't get enough hugs!
This is Kaile "working" in Ron's smoothie/pretzel shop. We went there to eat dinner, and we were waiting for Ginny to finish closing the store.

This is Ginny in the pretzel shop!
These are just some random pics of my kids painting. (Thanks Nana Roberts for the figurines!)