Christmas 2006

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas this year. We spent a good portion of it with Brent's family. The best part was watching Cami and Taryn enjoy their cousins.

Cami took part in the traditional Christmas story. She got to play the Angel (she was born for the part).



Also, for the first time, she agreed to sit on Santa's lap. She is getting braver every day.

Brent and Amy are very thankful for their portable DVD player. Sure helps everyone be a little less stressed during long drives. Cami particularly likes it.



The kids were very excited to get up on Christmas morning. Too bad their parents were slow in getting up.



We couldn't determine if Taryn liked her gifts or the wrapping paper better. It was fun to watch her try and help everyone open their gifts.






While in Utah, we did get a chance to enjoy the snow. Papa let us ride the snowmobiles around the yard, pulling sleds. All of the kids had a blast. Cami was sure she wanted to go, so Mom got talked into going with her. Dad went really slow at first until he stopped and heard Cami say "Let's go again"




Taryn even got in on the fun by riding with dad on the snowmobile. She didn't scream or cry (which is unusual for her).


The snow finally got wet enough to make a snow man. Cami was super excited to finally get a chance. She has always sung songs about snow men, but last year she was too afraid of the snow and there isn't snow in Vegas.


We also got to spend a great day at Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum and animal park. Cami really loved all the hands on activities. Here, they got to dress up as dinosaurs. They are giving us their meanest roars.....


Taryn found a wall full of puzzles. She was so excited and spent a lot of time playing with them.



The cousins couldn't resist this photo op. Who wouldn't want to sit on a dinosaur!


The entire family had a close encounter with a shark. Luckily Cami let out a great shout and scared it away!



We couldn't figure out why there were no crowds at the animal park until we went out to ride the ponies. BURRRRR!!! Both girls seemed to love the ponies and did really well.


Cami was so excited that once back in the barn (gift store) she went riding again!!

After warming up, we went back out to feed the animals. Cami did a great job feeding the goats. She got a kick out of their tongues licking her hands.



We spend the last portion of our vacation and New Years with Amy's family. It was a fun and relaxing few days.


We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that you all have a wonderful 2007. We would love to see anyone who is passing through Vegas.

Fun Falls In Vegas

Fun times this fall getting to know the Las Vegas area and learning how to play outside in December without fifteen layers of clothes and coats. The desert is definitely growing on us.

Mt Charleston and Hidden Valley

We had great fun camping on Mt Charleston....until we froze to death. Who knew that it could get down to freezing at night on the mountain while being 90 degrees down in the valley. So after a long night, we packed up and went to camp site B, Hidden Valley.

This is a private valley a friend of ours had access to. We camped out and enjoyed some good food, friends, and some good bush wacking hiking through the wetlands. It was a great three day weekend.

Hiking Red Rocks and Zion

We had great fun this past fall hiking with friends and family at Red Rocks State Park and Zions National Park. Cami really surprised us in Zions. On the way back, she ran most of the way "racing" her cousin. She can really go.

Hiking at Red Rock State Park

Brent and Cami hiking at Red Rock State Park

I am not sure who is trying the hardest to to stay warm will at Zions

Cami racing her cousin Luke at Zions

Cami

Cami’s major accomplishment is potty training. In August, in about three days, she was trained day and night. Polly pockets are apparently big motivators for her. She is into dressing up like a princess and for Halloween loved being Cinderella. Her vocabulary is growing so fast but the most frequently used word is WHY (imagine over and over and over again no matter what answer you give). We are glad she is curious and interested in life.

Her favorite books are curious george and bearstein bears and she can sit and read for hours. She has enjoyed going to new parks, even in December, especially to the Butterfly park because the Smoothie King is on the corner right by the park and she “just LOVES smoothies SO SO much!”

One of her favorite games right now is doctor. She of course always gets to be the doctor and mommy or Taryn gets to be sick. Usually we hurt our hips falling off big rocks or having babies (she is pretty good at coming up with real reasons to be sick.) She has you lay down on the toy box and brings you a pillow and blanket. She then sprinkles you with salt from her toy kitchen (no idea where this idea came from but it is consistant), makes you soup and feeds it to you, then gives you a smooch and you are good to go.

She has a very active imagination. She is still scared to death of loud noises (the vaccumm, blow drier, garage door) but she conquered her fear of slides and is very impressive now even sliding laying down.

This is a 3 year old feeding a 1 year old a sucker. Made for a good laugh and a sticky mess.

Taryn

Taryn is a joy to be around now. She has the biggest sparkly smile and though she is still totally a mama’s girl, she is doing a good job of whooping daddy too. She loves Cami and loves to walk in and wake her up from nap time. Yes, she is walking, a truly funny sight with her tiny little legs. She just looks way to small to be walking around. The really funny sight is watching her walk and carry her clothes to the hamper. She gets so proud of herself that she claps.

She also is really good at picking up toys though she still can get them out faster. She is learning a few words like “Daddy”, “yes”, and “done” and is very effecting at communicating with pointing and screams…Why bother with words when a good AHHHHHH will work?

She celebrated her birthday in October and decided to finally sleep through the night. We are all much happier now. At her one year old check up she weighed 16 pounds and one ounce. We are hoping she grows out of her infant car seat before she is too much older because she gets ticked that she can’t see out the windows yet. She is in general a very happy girl now.

We are so thankful that these two girls just love each other.

BBQ Grill

Finally after years of saving, Brent bought his deluxe PRIMO grill. We have been eating good ever since. The stove got awfully lonely the first couple of weeks and we haven't been tempted to eat out once. If we want good food, we just through it on the grill. We have been learning to cook fish, steaks, whole chickens, ribs, brisket, pulled pork, grilled vegtables and fruits and pizza. Now if only we could get our kids to eat something from the grill besides hot dogs.

Santa Run

With “persuasion” Amy convinced Brent that running in a 5 K race the first weekend in December would be sooo much fun. We took the girls in the jogger and Cami got the biggest kick out of running across the finish line by herself. Taryn on the other hand was content to take her morning nap in the stroller and ignore all the excitement of thousands of santa clauses. We did all finish and hopefully we will do it again soon. (No we didn’t check our times-we wanted to be motivated not discouraged)

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2007.

Transition

We now officially feel like the biggest mooches in the world. For the last two months we have been living with friends and family. Life has been really crazy for us.

Since Brent was asked to start his new job right away, the whole family packed what we could in suitcases and took off for Las Vegas to look for housing. Luckily, our truck lease was up, so we turned it in before we left Michigan and got another one once we arrived in Vegas.....tada...instant transportation.

We really couldn't find any housing we wanted to afford while paying a house mortgage in Michigan, so Amy and the kids ended up with Grandma in St. George while Dad lived with some good friends in Vegas and started his new job.

The family was joyfully reunited every Friday night (think of lots of happy little girls, an even happier dad, and a relieved mom). We spent the weekends hanging out and playing, and then tearfully seperate again Sunday evening. This went on for several weeks before dad finally convenciened mom that the whole family could live in the one bedroom room at our friends house. This lasted for another couple of weeks before mom was ready to return to Grandma's house before wearing out her welcome.

At about this time, we received the wonderful news that we had sold our house. It only took 5 weeks to sell which is REALLY good considering Michigan's current economy. We feel that our prayers were answered. While we settled for a lower sell price than we wanted and we ended up having to replace the furnace, we are very thankful that we had a great buyer and that we were able to close on schedule.

Meanwhile, our other prayers were answered as we found a great temporary house through friends in Vegas. The house is perfect for our family and it has a very flexible lease that will allow us time to look for a new permanent house for our family.

So back to Michigan we went to pack and move to Vegas. It is amazing how much stuff one family can collect and not really need. We had successfully lived two months out of 7 suitcases. Who needs another 9000 pounds of household goods (except of course the power tools....can't do without those)?

Brent had the brilliant idea of packing and moving ourselves to save some money. And as usually, he under estimated the amount of time it would take to pack. It was a good thing his boss gave him an extra day to get everything done....which we did thanks to the great friends and neighbors we will miss.

Our trailer arrived late Thursday, and by noon on Saturday, it was loaded and ready to go. We then got back on the plane and headed back to Vegas...our new hometown, where we once again lived with friends until our trailer arrived a week later.

Again, thanks to friends and church members, the trailer was empty in about 4 hours and we had successfully completed our move..... and we even managed not to damage too many things.

The last week has been one of unpacking some boxes and piling others (who wants to unpack old engineering books just so they can be packed again in a few months). Of course the toys, camping gear, computer, and tools all had to be unpacked!

We are now fully enjoying our new home. There are actually 3 bathrooms (yea, no more stepping on toys while showering or stubbing toes on step stools when washing your hands) and our master bedroom is 3 times as big as our last bedroom. I think our new closet is as big as our last bedroom...we simply do not have enough clothes to fill it. (Amy said she would take care of that!) Although the house is nice on the inside we really miss our large yard with grass in Michigan. The new house has a very small yard with shrubs and rock. They call it "Desert Landscaping", we just call it Desert.

We are very thankful for the blessings we have received. While the last few months have been a challenge, we recongnize that they could have been much harder.

We hope everyone is well and would love to hear from you.

The Great Northwest

Since we had been living out of suitcase, we thought we might as well take an extended trip to the Northwest.

After flying into Portland, we meet up with our friends the Burnetts. It was great to see them. We all piled in the cars and went to see some waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge. We had a ton of fun, even Dad who pushed the two kid stroller all the way to the top of the waterfalls.

Our Objective - over 900 Ft tall
So far so good

Are we there yet?

Cami and her...big sister? Just her new friend Maya!

Taryn loves loves loves the water


At the top - hold on tight

Columbia River with Washington on the other side

We had a great time at the Rice family reunion held in beautiful Washington state over the July 4th week. It was a great time for us to see Amy's family and our friends that live in the area.

We spent 5 days on the East side of the cascades. We got to go kayaking and hiking.













We took a beautiful drive to one of the last remaining fire looking stations in the Cascades.














On the 4th of July we went to Leavenworth and watch a lumber jack show, had ice cream and looked at the shops. Of course we ended the day with fireworks back at the cabin. Just for the record if your child is scared of loud noises like lawn mowers and blow driers and blenders she will probably not really enjoy fireworks as much as you do.

After the reunion, we spent a day in Seattle at the Children's Museum. Cami loved it. She got to touch and play with everything. Her favorite activity was a toss up between the painting (yes, real paints were used), the room with all the little balls, the "Tidal Pool" and the instrument room. Funny that most of her favorites involved messes.

Taryn not to be out done

Cami on her first (and hopefully only) joy ride

After Seattle, we traveled back down to Portland and hung out with our friends the Francoms. They took us to downtown Portland where we got to experience a great farmers market. Everything looked great and I had never seen so many different kinds of mushrooms, berries, flowers, etc.

They also took us to "experience" the beautiful Silver Falls.

Behind a waterfall

Amy and Charie

Behind another fall

Due to a lack of planning, Amy and I only brought the kids swimsuits. With much persuasion from the peanut gallery, we took the plunge with our clothes on.


Yes, it was freezing! Thanks for asking. The important thing to remember when swimming in your clothes is to check all your pockets. While I remembered to remove the camera, wallet, and GPS, I forgot the side pocket with the phone. Even thought the swim perminently disabled a few keys on my phone, it was still worth it!!! (Thanks Charie)

All in all, it was a great summer vacation. We mostly just enjoyed being with each other after so much time spent apart.

Changes.....

Well, as much as we love Michigan,and we really honestly do love Michigan, we are officially moving on....

Brent has accepted a job offer in Las Vegas with GES Exposition Services. GES does all the behind the scenes work for trade shows and other corporate events (like CES, etc) He will be working in the Planning and Corporate Development group as a Senior Business Analyst.

While Ford has been a great learning ground, Brent has never really felt utilized in such a large company and the bureaucracy is really frustrating. He is looking forward to being a bigger fish in a smaller pond.

We realize that Vegas has many pros and cons. Amy is excited about very mild winters. Brent is not so excited about very hot summers. We are all excited to be much closer to friends and family.

Things are happening quickly. Brent starts his new job in about 3 weeks. We are trying to get our house sold, but the market is fairly weak right now. Pray that things go quickly. Amy may be staying behind for a few extra weeks or she may go and stay with her mom for a while.

We feel that this is what the Lord would have us do, and while the next few months will be bumpy, we know that in the end, everything will work out. We are excited about the new opportunities that will be coming our way.

Our Funny Girls

So it has been a few months again and during those few months Cami has successfully learned how to stuff hot dogs and rice right up her nose. She also has learned the fear of tweezers and how to blow her nose. Today she told me "Mommy Taryn so cute. I love Taryn." And we all rejoiced! :) She had a funny experience at Taco Bell last week. I ordered her a plain old cheese Quesodilla and she sat in her chair and was eating sooo good. She did start sucking on her fingers and rubbing her tongue in between bites but I just chalked it up to getting two year molars. She then asked for lemonaid and drank nearly the whole cup. BUT she never whined or refused to eat. So after it was 3/4 gone I took a bite of it and to my eye watering surprise it had totally hot spicey sauce on it. Poor kid! When I said, "Oh cami I'm sorry honey!" she said, "Mommy my mouth has sparkles in it!" She has also been a crazy soccer lover lately. Now that it is warm enough she begs to be outside with "my soccer ball." She actually can dribble across the whole yard back and forth. Mommy feels very proud and rarely says no to going out to play. She also is loving singing time in nursery-at least she must be because the other night when we were out for a walk she busted out in "Book of Moron stories my teacher tells for me....about lananites...." Brent and I just looked at each other and cracked up. She could be a ROCK STAR! :)

Taryn has the biggest sunshine smile and sparkly eyes when she wants to and thank goodness for everyone she wants to more and more often. She was up to 13# 3.5 oz two weeks ago and her head is growing but still tiny. Her hair is still pretty dark and coming in more and more each day (though she still could be called bald). She started eating solid foods and we can safely say she hates fruits and loves vegetables....She can drink or atleast accurately slurp from a cup now and she can sit for about thirty seconds before wiping out. Her sleeping habits still leave something to be desired but sometimes soon we hope she is Ferberized....I mean it has only been almost 7 months...She'll catch on soon right? But really we are becoming very fond of her and her funny quirks.

Petting Zoo - Cami loves little lambs















Best Friends















Crazy hair day















Hide and seek















The GIRLS















Yellow and Blue make a mess