Well, the end of another great visit to Elko Nevada and the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. As much as I talk about not coming back as it gets close to time to come out here, getting back to familiar faces, family and friends plants me back at the front desk signing up for our room for next year...and, rejoining the Folklife Center membership for another year. We've had a wonderful time with Dick, Martha and Richard Webb. We've met many wonderful people who have shared with us their work, stories of their life's travels and just genuine hospitality. It is a phenomenon. You may laugh at us for thrusting ourselves into something that is so 180 degrees out from our normal life. But, if I may use the old phrase, "you don't know what you're missin'".

When the trials of raising a young family push you into these decades of your life, I'm most certain you'll reach out to events like this to enhance your understanding of the rest of the world, the cultures out there and what is really the makeup of your inner-self. I'm absolutely convinced that the old family genes continue to affect our image of ourselves. I know that the many, many ancestors that we follow have had something to do with our reaching out to those lifestyles that were important to them.

I'm sure my great great grandfather is jumping up for joy to see one of his descendants take hold of the spirit of what is offered here and inculcating some of these lifestyles and expressions into our lives.

Are Dad and Mom going crazy? Don't believe it for a minute. This experience is giving me a much greater appreciation for the wonderful things the Lord has given all of us to enjoy, to examine and determine for ourselves what is most important to us. Important to me is my wife and family, our extended brothers and sisters and the wonderful grandchildren who will follow in our tracks. We love you all. Be advised that we are not losing our minds. We are just enjoying the sweet breads of life that have been placed in our tracks.

We love you all....just let us "do our thang". KnB

...my room is complete! or at least it is for now. Here are some pics. A little different than Norway, eh? I'll post some of the rest of the apartment eventually but it is not clean enough at this moment for that. Now I'm off to enjoy my weekend.

This is the surveillance camera view of our newly painted walls at the practice. Doesn't do justice, but you can get an idea.

I decided to chop Melia's hair to get it all the same length! We did it today and here it is!

Before...

After!

Another after shot

One much beloved "Robin" of the Batman and Robin duo variety. They do not have him at Target and a very sweet, earnest little two year old asks for him daily.

One Samsung phone charger. Jane is without a phone. She was charging it at her friend's house and then keeping it turned off most of the time. I need to know if it is time to break down and buy her a new one.

If anyone has seen these two items and would be willing to send them my way I would be eternally grateful.

Everyone is growing up around here...well, not everyone.

1.Hayden lost his first tooth!!! (A little late much to the dismay of his dentist/dad but I’m in no hurry for him to grow up!)
2. Danica has spent years watching Hayden turn into a reading machine and the bug has bitten her as well. She is obsessed with learning to read and begs me all day to teach her (no I am NOT complaining!) The other day she woke up and before even saying good morning she stumbled out of her bed and said “Mom, teach me to read!” In the car one afternoon she said, in one long hurried breath “Mom, I want a snack and I want to learn to read!” Needless to say I’ve been working with her and she’s doing great and can read simple words. It’s so fun to watch her excitement as she figures out each new word.
3. Alyssa is actually growing up and talking a ton and figured out how to get on and off the potty by herself (hooray!) but she is obsessed with pretending she is a baby. Her and Dani play all day a game revolving around her being the baby and Dani being the mom. Recently I got out a bassinet for our friends baby to sleep in when they came over and Alyssa insisted on sleeping in it- “I want to sleep baby bed!” Well on Sunday I gave in and let her take a nap in it because she was so insistent... imagine my surprise when I went to check on her and found that she had apparently gotten up and gotten a “toy” and climbed back into her baby bed... I don’t know who she thought was going to sneak up on her in her sleep but she was ready!

You are such a fun boy and we miss you so much! We hope your birthday was fantastic! If we're lucky we will get to see you in a few weeks! We can't wait! Thanks for being such a fantastic cousin!!! We love you!

This morning I decided to take one of those oh-so-quick showers with a 1 year old running amok in my bathroom and bedroom. I had a rough night the night before with 4 hours of intense cramping to awaken feeling weak, sore, and upset to my stomach... so no shower yesterday. I now think it was a GI thing and not uterine but it was scary. I have since felt the baby move a lot and the doctor just said to lay low and rest (I stayed home from work) so I feel better about it now.

I faked the time on this so that I would not push Parker's birthday blog. Hopefully it works. Happy Birthday to you Parker. Thanks for being such a good buddy to Sawyer while we were up there. He adores you.

We are now recovering from a lot of days of rain. I know, "wah wah", from the NW crowd but it really was constant and the wind was 30-40 mph the whole time. Fortunately, the power never went out for longer than a minute.

Last weekend, I finally got our garage cleaned out. This was something we have been wanting to do since the move last summer. Well, we got it done in one day. This was dual purpose: 1. Park my new VW GTI out of the elements and 2. Set up our home gym. For now, our home gym is just a SoloFlex we picked up off Craiglist, a treadmill, and some gymnast rings, but we hope to expand it over the next year. It sure has been nice.

Jane is doing well in school, really well. She is busy with that and saving up her half of the her first EFY with many babysitting jobs. She just got a terrific new haircut from Brooke. I am sure pictures will get posted.

Sadie has started Drama (real, actual Drama) at school. I believe she just memorized her own soliloquy this week. She is still having typical girl issues with other girls but we are coping. She has absolutely flown through the Lightning thief books since Christmas. She got book 2 from Santa and is now already in the middle of book 5!

Ellyn had a rough week. She has started hitting Brooke unexpectedly a lot. But, she has started going to primary with a lady who is assigned as her aide. She has done very well the last few weeks. She is still happy most the time and we love having her.

Sawyer is moving a million miles a minute. Along with the garage, we got a playground set up in the yard which he loves. We were able to trade it for an old extra washing machine we had and it is one of those nice, classy wood ones. So, we (and Sawyer) are delighted. His love for Batman is still in full force and he is playing with his toys from Christmas, his birthday train, and the "batman house" constantly. He does have a lump on his forehead right now from one Sadie Jean and a wildly swinging Wiimote during a Wii Sports Resort swordfighting session.

Brooke is incredible. She is running over 25 miles a week now. We have also, together, started a diet since new years. It is called "Body for Life" and we love it. I have lost 10 pounds in the first 2 weeks already. Brooke has done a masterful job of adjusting the cooking and shopping plans to make sure we get the right stuff. On top of this, she is juggling everything else incredibly well. Just an amazing woman I have got there. On top of that she is starting to fall out of her jeans, literally, and just looks fantastic!

I am focused on this diet and getting my ankle back to shape. Buffy, between your advice and Brent's generosity with the shoes and arches, I think I have finally beat this thing. I ran 4 miles at a 8:00 pace yesterday with no pain during or after. I have not done that without pain since early September. Working with the calf raises and the shoes made huge difference to the way I was running. So thanks! My goal with this diet is to get under 200 lbs for the rest of my life. I am 35 lbs away from 199 and cannot wait to be there. Kind of a mid-life crisis I guess:-) With healthy consequences;-). Anyway, the pics above are from my bike ride around the peninsula this morning when the rain finally stopped for a bit...kind of. 22 miles. Unfortunately, our budget will be pretty tight this year with the car crisis we had but my good old 10 year old Mountain bike with cross country tires fared pretty well. Not as speedy as a road bike, but still the same exercise I guess.

Well, friends just arrived. Love you guys.

Mike

Dubious Quality, a blog I regularly read, has excellent links this weekend for reading. So if you find yourself in front of the computer with nothing to do, don't miss these "Friday links". Very interesting! Link here.

We are moving into a new apartment on February 10th... I know, we move a lot! BUT we decided it was best thing for us given the circumstances. We will be moving to apartments that are right across the street from a hospital, WSU Vancouver (where Treven goes to school), and right around the corner from my parents and only about 2 miles from Treven's parent's house. We will be in the same ward as our parents, but we have been on our own here for a while and now we have our own place so it will be better! We are very excited for the move. We don't have to be out of our old place until the end of February so we are planning to get everything moved over in about a week and then leave the rest of the time to completely deep clean the old place. The new apartment is in a gated apartment complex, and the apartment is about 300 sq ft bigger. It has an actual pantry which is awesome and central heating and air conditioning!

If you want to take a look at them, www.nwluxuryapts.com and it is Highland Hills. We are moving into the Highland 2 apartment. We have been praying about this decision for about a month and decided that it is the best for our family. With Treven's work and school, it will be better and I have been working in the school district up here more than anywhere else so I always had to drive further! That is our big update.

Christmas was great with all the family and Melia asks daily if we can do it again and do the money drop again. It was really nice being home for Christmas and to not have to worry about traveling with the girls. I could just drive home to our own bed every night!

My sister, Anne, and her family will be moving here at the end of February and I couldn't be more excited! They will be living at my parents' house for a little bit and she is due in April and now we will be right around the corner.

Melia is loving being a Sunbeam in Primary and really makes sure that she goes every week. With the move, she will be switching classes so hopefully that will go well. Andrew, Anne's son, will be in the sunbeam class with her so that will be nice. There are 14 sunbeams already in the Ward so we will be adding 2 more! They are not too excited about that! haha! Oh well!

McKenzie is becoming such a little girl! She is talking more saying words no or yes, baby, MO! (Nemo), socks, stuck, where did it go?, drink, up, teeth, and more... She knows most of her body parts. We are teaching her elbow, knee, and chin now, but she has pretty much everything else now. She loves playing with her cousin, Noah and they love to dance around the house together. She loves playing with her baby she got for Christmas and takes it EVERYWHERE with her. She will be 18 months old on the 15th which seems nuts! She is slowly getting switched over to going to Nursery at church. She really doesn't like me leaving, but I hope she likes the new nursery because that is where Melia starting loving nursery so crossing my fingers!

Well I am more of a stay at home mom now since subbing is pretty much non existent right now. They are trying to pass levys for the schools right now and if they don't get passed then teachers most likely will be fired so teachers are trying to not take days off. We will see what happens. Treven's job is going well and we will find out soon what his new position will be. Hopefully very soon! :)

Anyway, that's us for now! I will try and write more since now I am pretty much a stay at home mom!

Kim

I sit here as Andrew plays the Wii and Beck is playing with who knows what, taking a break from the insane task to get this house clean and semi-packed up to be ready to put it on the market to sell. Yep that is right, we have decided to go with the selling of the house. Peter's company is offering to pay a good portion of whatever it comes out to selling for as we are definitely going to be selling it for less that we owe. So being a stay at home mom with a husband who is travelling every week to some place whether it be Bellevue or Oregon, I get to have the wonderful task of getting the house ready to put up next week.

Peter and I have prayed alot and have decided that myself and the boys will be moving out to Mom and Dad's house around the end of February/beginning of March. We will then live there until sometime after the baby is born. We feel that this is the best option for us and will get the boys and me out of the way in case the house hasn't sold by then thus making it easier for agents to drop by anytime with clients, etc. We are very excited but also sad to have to leave Boise so soon. Too much to get done before then :/.

Well the title says it all, we have been going on a lack of sleep since we got back from Christmas vacation. We have yet to have a night that the boys are not waking us up during the night. Andrew I believe has begun to have nightmares and some nights it takes up to 2 hours to get him to go back to sleep because things are too scary for him. It is rough on us especially now with having to some how get the energy to do all the stuff around the house. From what I have heard and read, it is normal and it soon will pass. It just sucks to go through right at the moment.

I leave to Salt Lake for a tourney on Friday and will be gone until late saturday night. Not too excited just for the sheer fact that we have so much to get done. But I am excited to take these girls to their first tourney and be able to have one night of hopefully restful sleep away from the boys(sorry Peter).

I should get back to the list of tasks I have and maybe even do the dishes while I am at it. I love you all and am so excited to live near most of you in the near future.

Love,
Anne

Well, we were briefly shown tonight on the Tonight Show anyway. Conan showed a bit of the rally that was held today in front of his studios on his show tonight but the rest of what happened is below...