Pres. Hinckley

Farewell to you. I hope the reunion with your wife was the sweetest moment ever!

Pres. Hinckley was called during my senior year in Highschool. From his first talk I knew he would change the church forever. I loved to hear him speak. He had a way of including everyone in what he said.

I got to see him a few times. The first was at an area conference. He came when he was a counselor to a previous prophet. I'm not sure how old I was maybe 13. The next was at the Bi-Centennial Celebration down in Provo in '97. It was an outdoor arena. Thousands of people had gathered. As soon as he entered if felt and sounded as though the whole world stopped just for him. Living in Utah I had more opportunities to see him at different conferences as well when I could get tickets.

He was a great man and will be greatly missed world wide. He had this great whit and real person feel. Everyone could relate to him.

Pres. Hinckley you have lead a great life. Till we meet again enjoy your new calling.

Finally caught up

WHEW! That was alot of crazy work! The holidays were insane with all the running we did, family we had come and Taylors final performances in her play. Then to add to it all I had my hysterectomy on the 2nd. It didn't make updating the blog very easy. But now its done. I altered the dates for easier reading. So read through. Look at pics and enjoy the Eames' crazy holidays.

My surgery went well. I am doing better. I am healing well. I am only taking 1 pain killer at night. I hope to soon stop that as it leaves me feeling really weird for half the next day. But without it I am too uncomfortable to sleep. Even with an 800 mg ibuprofen. I am completely down for 2 weeks. I am allowed to walk around my house but not alot, I can sit and lay and sleep. It SUCKS!!!! I have read 5 books/novels and watched an entire tv series. HELP ME!!!!!!!!! After the 2 weeks I can drive again and fold laundry, cook and put away dishes. I can not lift anything over 10 lbs. It helps to have Joe work at home so I don't try to do anything but then he tries to do too much and neglects his work and ends up working til 6am. Soon the ward will start to step in on the house thing. They are bringing meals. Thank goodness! One day lapsed between my mom leaving and meals coming in. It was SCARY!!!! Feel free to call and distract me!

Monster Trucks!!!

Last year Joe and his cousin Darren took the boys Ryan and Kale to the monster truck show. For a YEAR that was all they talked about. It came again on the 4th and they took the boys and my brother Caleb to it. They loved it!!!! Here are a few pics but I will post an album of all of them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

We had a awesome party on New Years. I actually had a theme for this year. New Years Around the World. So many of our family and friends new and old came to enjoy the evening with us. It was alot of fun. Some came early and left early others came late and stayed and some stayed all night. We ate tons of food from all over. We had salsa, italian sodas, Lumpia(Philippines) , Darren brought only who knows what from the Orient then he hid it ALL OVER my kitchen for us to find for the next few days!! We had candy and treats from Japan, England, Germany and Turkey. My kitchen counter was FULL of food!! I wish we had taken more pictures. We played games all over the house. We had the new Rockband game down stairs(Thanks Jim and Joelle!!!) and games in the front room and kitchen. Everywhere else people mingled and talked and ate. I had the best night. Even when Russ stole my seat and I had to play my hand on his shoulders! Sadly these were the only pictures that were taken on New Years...

Christmas after Christmas

My sister Holly and her family came down from Idaho and my mom and brother Caleb came in from Oregon for New Years so we had our own Christmas with them Sunday morning. All the kids had a great time being with all their cousins and of course opening MORE gifts. We had a great few days with them.






That night we went back to my parents house to open even MORE gifts with them. The kids got to play with more of their cousins. My brother Brad and his family were in Arizona for Christmas so we waited for them to get back. We exchange gifts between siblings so we couldn't open them with out him and Janelle. After gifts and ate food and played games. It was a really fun night.

Taylor's Play

We had a HUGE crowd for closing night at Taylors play. She did her best performance. It was hard to get clear pictures with out a flash. Our camera will take action pictures but in the dark w/o a flash anything that moves is all blurry. So there are some shots of Tay that are clear but everyone else around her is blurry. We also got video of her and her lines but Joe hasn't downloaded the video camera yet.

I wish we had video taped the WHOLE thing that night it was AWESOME!!!! I will see if someone recorded that nights performance. It was closing night so I think someone must have. There is a scene where Scrooge (He is Eric Jensen and owner of the theater) is getting ready for bed. He comes out in a red and white striped night gown but his pants are still on. The narrator (Charles Dickens) comes out and has a conversation with him about the fact that he is going to bed in his trousers. Scrooge tells him normally he doesn't but there were allot of people out there watching. Dickens then tells him that they are paying customers and he should give them their moneys worth. We had seen this 4 times already and the last time I made a plan. Joe and I had front row seats. We started calling to him and threw money at him and held up dollar bills. It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! He loved it the audience ate it up. It was a RIOT!!!

Then there is a tinky winky part. Supposed to be about going #1 and then Eric got up on a support stage left behind a side curtain and poked his head out with a giant sun shaped piece of foam!!! He was giggling like a baby it was so funny. The whole night the entire cast stepped it up to give the most hilarious show ever.

After the show Eric and Sandy both said they want Tay to come back for the next 2 shows they will have kids in. She is so excited and I have loved working with them as a parent.

Christmas

WOW! What a day! Let's begin at the beginning. We had a blast! We went to my parents house Christmas Eve. We made treats for their neighbors. Katya and Taylor got to help deliver them with my sisters Sarah and Melissa. We ate treats, sang songs and just enjoyed each others company. It really was a nice evening. My grandparents came over as well later on in the evening. We opened a few gifts. We left to go home around 11pm. When we got home we held to our tradition and opened pjs for everyone!




Before we left to go there I took out the roast that Joe's mom bought for Christmas dinner so it would thaw. When we got home we wrapped the rest of the gifts that didn't get done the day before. Joe and I watched a couple movies and hung out. We came up stairs to find the cat in the fireplace looking up. So I now have proof that Santa exists! We finally went to bed at 3am. I checked on the roast. It was still frozen so I left it.


Christmas morning came. The kids woke us up bright and early. We all ran down to see what Santa brought. We put the dogs out. The kids all got what they had asked Santa for. Katya and Taylor got Barbie girls. They are MP3 players. Katya's was wrapped differently and so she needed a knife. We sent Ryan to go get one. He can reach the butter knives but he decided to open the dishwasher...

Brynn got a new baby. It remembers its name and interacts with you. Ryan asked for a Transformer. It was a great Christmas.




Joe and I both got new jackets from Santa. I LOVE mine!







We moved to the front room to open the gifts from each other. We let the dogs in. Corde lay down on the floor with us the WHOLE time. We made a glorious mess of wrapping paper and boxes and toys.







When we were all done I went to the kitchen to put the roast in the crock pot. It was GONE!!!!!!! I knew where it went but still can't figure out HOW! I went outside and found the wrapper it was in. Stupid dogs!! So I called my neighbor. Wouldn't you know it she had a roast! It ended up not working like I had hoped. I am still grateful. I dug in our freezer and found some pork ribs. BBQd them up and made lots of sides. Joe's mom brought over some ham she had left over. All in all it turned out well. We exchanged gifts after dinner and had treats. It was a nice day.