Ice Sculptures

Last night, Brad and I went over to Bryan and Melissa's to hang out and watch a movie. We had some fun things happen on the way. First, we went to get something to eat at Kneader's and ran into Darlene and Dick Gardner, Kelly's parents. We invited them to join us and we had a fun time talking with them over dinner. (Should have taken a picture, but didn't think of it!)

Then, while we were driving through Pleasant Grove, we saw this cool ice sculpture outside of a home in PG. We stopped to take a few pictures and decided it would be a fun project for our front yard. However, there was a sign by the sculpture that took us to their website which describes all the work that went into it, in the cold, and decided maybe we would just enjoy their sculpture each year. These pictures are pretty good, but if you want to see more, follow this link

http://www.flyingwrench.com/index.php?s=gallery&p=icecastle

Sledding

During the Christmas holiday, a few of the family got together to try out some sledding. We didn't have to go far. This hill is just down the street from Rachel's house. Brad and I got to watch the fun from the warmth of our car. I did venture out for a little while to try and capture some of the fun. Katie and Jenny trying to avoid the barrage of snowballs being thrown at them.

Kaycee is trying to decide how brave she is.

Katie and Kaycee pose just before they take off down the hill

Rachel and Kelly

Kaycee's thinking it's sure a long walk to get back up the hill


Katie - sitting in the snow

Jenny - Hey this is fun!

Rachel turned 30

I know it seems hardly possible that my little girl is thirty. But here she is. A beautiful woman both inside and out. I am so proud of her for the great person she is. Having Rachel for a daughter brings such great joy and I love her so much!

With that said, what could be more fun than combining a birthday party and an after Christmas party with the Romney's! That's what we did and it was great fun.


We started the evening with some soup to warm us up.


Let the games begin.

The group was divided into two teams and each team was given a package of spaghetti noodles and a package of marshmallows. The goal? Build the highest and the sturdiest tower. 1 point would be awarded for each inch of height and 5 points would be awarded for each strength test the tower endured.

You can see the great minds planning their attack.

Then the building began. Tia had to have a few marshmallows to help her build.

Carson wondered why anyone would waste a perfectly good marshmallow on a tower, so decided he had to eat one, or two, or three, but who's counting.

This team's tower is looking pretty good, but it will it stand up to the strength test?

Renee's trying to protect the tower from the Tate man!

Shirley's enjoying the grandma duties with Dallin.

Grandpa's watching as the other team starts to plot it's strategy

And the winner is.....are you kidding? This is the winner. After experiencing a falling tower, the winning team determined they could score more points by the strength of the tower. So this is the final creation, and it did hold more than the other tower.

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Morning is always fun, but it was more fun this year because Katie was able to join us. She and Julie are the first to open some presents. Hummm, matching jammies and matching cameras.

Santa left his hat here for Brad.

Love all my girls

And my boy!

It was so good to have Norman here. Jack loved it!

It was a great day! We had a yummy breakfast and the boys had a lot of fun playing with a couple of mini helicopters. A few crashes later, tape had to be found to keep the copters flying.

Means Family Christmas Party 2008

The Means' Family Christmas party was at our house this year and Brad had a great idea of taking a picture of each family as they arrive. Here are some shots of them and some shots of party fun.

Julie, Brad and I
Mark, Cara, Eva and Noah

Sara and Tyson

Dave and Jess

Jenny, Asia, Gavin and Jasmine

Rachel and Kelly

Sue, Jannie, Thomas, Cal and Hayden

Bryan, Melissa and Maddie

The kids are excited to be all together. Look out!

Asia loves posing for me

The Grover's are trying to figure out the right answer.

Noah's not sure if he likes this new headress.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great! Shirley and I had almost our whole families here. Katie was missing from my family and Shirley was missing Mark and Daina. I think everyone else was there. In keeping with tradition, we still had dinner at Grandpa's house. We have really outgrown it, but it's hard to give up those traditions.

Since Shirley and I were organizing in the kitchen, Kaycee took most of these pictures. Lori and new baby, Jack, are enjoying the chaos while Carson is eyeing the pie.

My baby Jack is also enjoying some attention from the cousins.

Rachel and Kyle enjoying catching up on the latest from everyone.

I think Kaycee must have handed someone the camera to get a picture of her.

Darrin looking like he's enjoying the company.

Here's everyone visiting and looking at all the ads to see if there's is anything worth missing sleep over. I think some did venture out in the early hours of "Black Friday". But Shirley and I enjoyed extra sleep and opted not to do our usual shopping spree.

Julie and Sheralyn with a nice pose for the camera.