Christmas in Washington

Christmas came to the Northwest (hard to tell it is always Green and wet) kids were wishing for a white christmas that the weather man had forecasted, but we only saw a few moments of snow flakes, but it was on Christmas!!

Here we are all awaiting for the trip down the staircase to see what Santa has put into our stockings. This is always a difficult pictures as some people cannot wait to get down the stairs and posing for this shot sometimes is just a blurr.

A Christmas tradition for many years now has been to take Dinner to the Ronald McDonald house. It always make us feel good on Christmas morning to make the dinner and drive to Portland and deliver the dinner. This year was special as Santa was there and it started to snow while we were posing for this shot! What a wonderful treat.

Another tradition after opening the presents is to have Dad's game night. Each year dad plans games and events that the family does with each other. This year we play a version of Family Feud and Christmas Scavenger hunt. We also had each team make something with Play Doh, so here is Team A and their creation.

Here is Team B with their fruit creation. I think that they were trying to lick their clay.

We had a wonderful christmas holiday with Cory, Nicole, Easton and Sage. It was a very good time for one and all.

Merry Christmas

Here is a short video that shows what the winning team did to the losing team after each event. It was fun with the silly string. Well maybe not right at the time, but it sure was fun to watch.

The kids decided it is time to make the big jump...

Julie, Shane and Bryce decided it was time to go bungy jumpping here in Washington. The operator said this is one of the highest jumps that you can make on the west coast.

This is the shot before the jump. They look serious, but they are too scared to smile...

This is way too high for any sane person to jump..

The next week Bryce and Josh went bungy jumping too

We have been very poor at updating our website, we will attempt to do better....

Here we are on our annual river running activitiy. This has turned out to be more than just our family, but we enjoy each year and it is fun to bring people that have never been white-water rafting on the river. They are surprised about how much water can get in your raft and still remain floating...

We also had a great trip to pick Bryce up from his Army basic training. It warmed your heart to see all these young men march into the Hall and have them present themselves to their officers for final review. It gives you such a renewed sense of what this country was made from. Those that know Bryce really well, know that it also gives you a new sense of fear, Bryce with real big GUNS !!!

While on the trip we were able to stop at Clay and Laura's to see their family in Oklahoma. While there Clay had arranged for us to spend time in the Air Force simulators. It was really fun and only one person got air sick...

Clay now has a his first assigned location, so they are moving to Spokane, WA. He will be at this location for a few years.

We will enjoy having them much closer to home so that Nancy will be able to visit more often.

Becky was also able to travel to Oklahoma and be with Laura as Clay was away on one of his training missions for several weeks. Becky loves to travel, just look at this picture, it is worth a 1,000 trips or words, I keep getting that wrong, but Becky keeps reminding me with little hints all the time.

Julie is just quitely passing the time until she leaves for her mission at end of November. To show how quite things are, this is what she did on her birthday weekend. She first hikes the Falls up the Gorge.

Then she talks a friend and Shane into going bungie jumping off a 200ft bridge. And all this before lunch.

We had a great time taking Julie to the Temple for the first time and enjoy having her enjoy the spirit of the Temple.

She is going to Brazl at the end of November for her mission. She has been learning how to speak Portuguese. It is going to be a great time for her and Brazl.

Shane was able to graduate from Middle school and is now on his way to High school, driver licenses and all that comes with this new age.

He got his Eagle Scout award and passed his drivers training class. Now if he could only pass Dad driving test he may get to drive....

2006 Christmas Cruise

This year during the Christmas break we took as many of the family that could make it on a cruise to the Caribeann. Here we are trying to pose for a family picture on the main staircase on the ship. It was a great time, one that we will all remember. Everyone had a great time, of course getting there was an experience, but that is another story. You can tell by the tan faces that is not the first day.




A few days later, we were all swimming with the string-rays. This was a very interesting experience... They would swim up to you and rub your legs and the girls would then send out this wild scream!!!

It was lots of fun and there were many, many string rays and even more people.






The next stop was swimming with the Dolphins. Becky and Julie were in the water and the rest of us had a great time watching from the docks. Stan was looking for a pole and a hook.

It was great to see the things that these fish would do with our kids. Oh, and yes, they eat the Dolphins before they get in the water.

Here we are having a great time at Thanksgiving with the Ernst's. We were able to attend Sage's blessing and Corey's Birthday. What fun !!

Here is a shot of most all the guys getting ready for a fun time. Well at least we were having fun in the back of the pickup truck and Nancy thought it would be a qute shot.

Just to have equal time, here is a shot with most of the girls with new baby Sage.