Christmas Day

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas morning.

Hope every one is having a great day.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is coming

It seems like this month is just flying by. We finally put our tree up on the 15th. Josh wanted to the first of December but his Mom is a bah- humbug. Here is a picture of our tree and some decorations. I don't do a lot because of that above mentioned syndrome.

We are probably going to have a very quiet, boring Christmas. It will be just John, Josh and I here because Brian & Kristie have to work, and Tom & Ashley are up in Cody with his family. Hopefully they will all get here sometime during the holiday. It is so sad and lonely when kids start to get married and have a life of their own. My goodness I sound like a Mom in transition??

Josh doesn't like being the only kid home. He gets lonely and bored so has to tease his poor Dad and Mom instead of sisters :) He is such a good kid. We are so lucky to have him and each one of our kids. Heavenly Father has certainly blessed us with a great family.

We wish everyone a very merry Christmas.

Wyoming Sunset December 3, 2008

It is amazing how fast a year goes. When I was small it seemed like forever before Christmas came. Now Christmas is almost here again and seems like we just had it 3 months ago. I am trying to get all my sewing done but not so sure that I will. I have so much material and not so much money so I am trying to make everything that I can for Christmas.

We had our ward Christmas party on the 3rd. It was pretty good. Just before I left to go up and help set up I looked out the window at the sunset and was amased so I ran to get my camera. This is the result.

This first one was taken out my back door (please excuse the power lines)

Then I went out the front door to get the second one. I was amased at the orange column from the trees up to the sky. Heavenly Father is an excellent artist!

I love taking pictures. Some day I want to be a photographer (maybe when I grow up)

Hey, I just wanted to give an up date on Dixie. She is 1 1/2 years old and I rode her for the first time today and she only bucked 2 times because she didn't like the whip I had while I was round penning her.I rode her twice today and had a blast!! she still isn't sure what go means and I have to click and kick her alot, but she will get better

Tom and I are doing great and we are living in Rock Springs. I hate it!! he will graduate in December with a degree in instrumentation technology and one more in electricity-electronics-instrumentation hopefully in December to but that one might wait till may. I'm working at Corral West and I'm trying to get assistant manager there. Other than that we are doing great and I'll try to keep everyone updated.

Fun times and horses

I just wanted to put a few funny pictures on and then I will turn this post over to Ashley.

Cruise to Mexican Riviera

Margo and I left Sept. 27th and flew to Los Angeles where we boarded the Sapphire Princess. We had a wonderful time. The reason we went is because Margo was celebrating her 50th birthday and wanted to go do something and didn't want to go alone. Her husband passed away about 15 months ago.
We had such a great time.
We returned on Oct. 4th.

Above is the Sapphire Princess docked at Puerto Vallarta
Below is pictures of the ship


Main Lobby We made sure there was a life preserver just in case we fell over board :)

Open theater in Mazatlan.

Para Sailing in Mazatlan. Me with blue parachute, Margo with pink. We must be really brave!!
Above - It is really amazing how much we look like plastic toy men with parachutes huh!!

:) :) :0 (I had to take pictures of these, they were selling them on the beach)(Not really us, they were toy para-sailers)

It was 94 degrees with 105% humidity. It felt like we were baking in an oven.

Open air taxi that took us back to the ship. That was the scariest ride I have ever taken. I don't think there are any traffic rules in Mexico, Or at least the driver didn't think so. He was passing on the wrong side on a 2 lane road, etc.

Notice in the back ground of this picture what they have even in Mexico!!
The back of our ship and the boat we traveled to Las Caletas on. Quite a difference in size.
Shore line of Puerto Vallarta. We traveled about 1 1/2 hours along the shore line to reach Las Caletas. which is only accessible by boat.

Street in Mazatlan.

Cliff divers in Mazatlan. They dive from about 40-50 feet. The water was high this day but we were told that some days the water is so low that after they dive they just stand up and walk back to shore rather than swim. They dive numerous times each day.





We had to put down anchor about 1 mile out because the harbor wasn't deep enough for a cruise ship. We got on launches to be transported in to Cabo San Lucas. The wake was really bad, the launch was pulled up to the side of the ship and would raise and drop about 5-8 feet with the wake. We had to jump on at just the right time.

These are the helmets we used to dive with. We climbed down the ladder into the water to about our shoulders and then they lowered these helmets down over our head and connected a oxygen hose to it. We went down about 15 feet and walked around with fish swimming all around us. We then went down to about 20 feet. Fed the fish, fed a small octopus, played frisbee. We had a great time.
Flea market in Cabo San Lucas

Iwant to start off by saying I'm sorry for not keeping this blog up. I so much enjoy reading everyone elses blogs, but it seems like I don't have time to sit and type. Well I have been up since 5:00 am, because my internal alarm is still not set for a reasonable hour like 6:00 am, but I guess it is better than the 4:00 setting right? Well anyway we all are doing pretty good for the most part. So here is the run down.

John is doing pretty good, he has been back to work for just over a month and is really glad to be back. It has been kind of hard but good for him. He has been having alot of pain in his eye the last five or six days, so we are going to call the Dr. this morning. He has been keeping very busy with work, scouts, stuff around here and teaching hunter saftey classes.

Josh is enjoying school (NOT) and is helping Grandpa Walker finish up the haying which he LOVES. The hay crop was really good this year. They have been done for about a month but this part they are doing now was cut early and they are doing a second cut which is really amazing for here.

He is doing good in scouts. At the last Court of Honor he recieved his First Class rank and 10 merit badges. Josh only has half day at school today and then no school tomarrow so John and Josh are taking the camper and going hunting for a few days. They will be archery hunting and they are very excited.

I have been staying pretty busy to but nothing really exciting just the same old thing, subbing in Lyman & Mt. View schools, cleaning, sewing, etc. etc. I am going to be doing exciting things next week. Margo and I are going on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the 27th. Her birthday is on the 2nd of Oct and she wants to go on a cruise but doesnt want to go alone. She said I was the only one she would really feel comfortable going with so we are going. Fun huh!! She has had quite a hard time the last 15 months since Gerry passed away, but she is doing OK!

I'm really excited but a little nervous to go. It will be fun.

Well I had better get going, Josh just got up and I need to go make him some breakfast so he can be awake and alert for school!!

I guess it is time to catch up.

We have been doing pretty good. John's eye is finally healed over so that it isn't an open sore so they finally let him go back to work on Aug. 12th. He was glad to be back and is doing his own job but can't go as fast as he could before because of the depth persection problem and all of the stairs. He still can only see light and dark, nothing else.

John and Josh are really enjoying archery. They both have bows now and spend alot of time together shooting. Josh is back in school now, in the 7th grade. He is not very excited about school.

I guess we are just really boring people
I will write more later, and post some pictures.

The Wedding Experience

As plans for the wedding started to come together things started to go not as we planned. Wednesday we were supposed to get the napkins that we had ordered on the Internet. They said it would only take 2-3 day to ship. Wednesday evening I was checking my email and there was an email from them saying they had canceled our order because they couldn't get them to us in time. I called all over trying to find someone that would have them but no one could print them in less than 2 weeks. Thursday morning I was in much pain with my back and so went up to the chiropractor. While there I told the receptionist what had happened and she said that in Orem at Zurchers they had a sign that said they could do it in 24 hours. While I was in the office she got on her cell phone and called them. They said they could try but couldn't guarantee anything. I called and placed the order about 11:30 AM and they said they would call me when they had them finished. We left Thursday afternoon about 12:00 to travel to Manti and about 12:30 pm the lady at Zurchers called and said she had them done. She said she did them right away so I wouldn't have to make a trip back from Manti to get them. It is so refreshing to see people that will go out of their way to make things easier for someone else, even a stranger. I was so impressed.

Tom & Ashley left earlier than we did because they were meeting his parents there earlier in the day. When we arrived the first thing Ashley said was I hope you remembered to get the bouquet. My mouth just dropped open as I realized that I hadn't because I thought she had packed all that stuff. We didn't know what to do and finally decided to run to Ephriam to WalMart and get some flowers. We got 3 vines of flowers and some ribbon and hooked them together the best we could and called it good. Ashley was sad that she didn't have the bouquet that Celinda made for her.

We arrived at the Temple about half an hour earlier than we were supposed to, I guess they were so eager to get married they just couldn't wait. :)

The ceremony was so nice. (The brides mom must have had to much water to drink that morning because when the ceremony started she started to leak water from her eyes.) I was so impressed with the sealer that preformed the ceremony and the sweet spirit that filled the room. It was beautiful.

After the ceremony when we were going out to take pictures Tom and Ashley went out the revolving door and they both stepped into the same section and my Mom (Verla) stepped in the next one right behind them. They stopped right out of the door and she was stuck in the door for quite some time while they took pictures. It was a beautiful sunny day with very little wind.
We went to Nephi to a restaurant for the dinner after and then we stopped in SLC to get the food for the reception.

The reception turned out very nice, except that it was sooooooo hot in the Heritage Barn. We went up about 10:30, to decorate and cut up the food, and turned the air conditioning as low as it would go but it never did cool down much. It was 85 degrees in there most of the night. We served fruit kabobs with 3 kinds of fruit dip and chips with salsa, guacamole, ranch dip and water punch. The punch was in a pretty fountain.

I'm not sure how many trips back home, to get things we forgot, that we made but just when we thought we had it all they decided to cut the cake and do the garter thing. I had forgotten the cake knife and spatula so I had to run home and get it, and Ashley didn't have her garter on and we couldn't find it.

When Tom and Ashley cut the cake it turned into a big messy game. They both pushed cake in each others face. Ashley had to go down to the bathroom and blow the cake plugs out of her nose. What goofy kids!

There car was wrapped in plastic wrap when they were ready to go. It was kind of funny.

Sunday we left to go up to Cody for the open house and had a wonderful couple of days. Toms family is so nice and we really enjoyed getting to know them.
The open house was supposed to be in the back yard but about 30 minutes before it was to start it started to sprinkle, then hail, then flat out poured. There was a river running down the road in front of their home. You couldn't even see the road or gutters because of all the rain rushing down them. It poured for about 30 minutes and then quit. The party turned out very nice all considered.

Brian and Kristie left about 5AM Tuesday morning because he had to work night shift and needed to get some sleep. John, Josh and I went over to the Cooks about 9AM, to load some stuff they needed hauled back down to Rock Springs, and then went home through Yellowstone Park. It was a wonderful trip. We got home about 9:30 PM and then had to get up early this morning to go back down to SLC for Johns Dr appointment.

His eye is doing OK. The Dr said it is no better but it is no worse either. He was glad for that. Last week it was showing signs of improvement this week about the same but he thinks it will continue to heal.

We will miss having Ashley around a lot but Josh and I are already arguing over who gets her room. Josh wants it because it is a little bigger than his and I want to make it into a craft/guest room.

Tom & Ashley Wedding

The Big Day has finally arrived.

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Cook

Ball & Chain





Balcony at Heritage Barn in Lyman

Parents of Bride & Groom

(Burt is the name of the car)

It was a beautiful day at the Temple and the reception was great.

I will write more details later.