Presidential Inauguration

I am recording this for historical purposes. I am not an Obama fan. I didn't vote for him. I don't agree with him on alot of things. And the support he is getting from celebrities makes me really worry. But I can appreciate the historical significance of the event. I can hope that he can help make some things better in this country. And if not, we will try again in 4 years, right? That's optimism for you!

Catching up

Okay, so I forgot I had some pictures to post for this week. Kyle has been gone to San Diego for work (he left on Tuesday). He had off work on Monday (MLK Day), and wanted to go on a hike. Now I know I have been posting snow pictures, so it doesn't really make sense to go on a hike. But if you go out of town about 30 minutes, you hit desert. Canyon of the Ancients National Monument is in Utah (or right on the border, I'm not sure) and on a sunny day it is a great hiking spot.


No snow! Some shady parts were still muddy though.

Kyle was so excited to get outside again.

The boys love hiking, even Landon.

Here are my seasoned hikers. It was about 50 degrees outside and sunny. Nice weather for a hike in January.

What a great family outing!

Peace Walk

The reason we were at the park today was to participate in a Peace Walk to celebrate Martin Luther King Day on Monday. This was put on by Landon's preschool, and since he doesn't go to school on Friday's we decided to join them in the park for the walk.

Here are some of the people that came. It was actually a nice day for it. I think it was about 40 degrees, which for my Texas friends might seem cold, but with sun and no wind or humidity it was quite nice (with coats and gloves on of course).

You wouldn't really think about celebrating Martin Luther King Day in a predominately white and native american community, but the kids have been learning about peace and peaceful leaders at school.

Here is one of the teachers and some kids.

One of Landon's teachers.

Landon's teacher with her peace shirt and hat on. The kids made peace signs and sung songs. It was quite fun and I think the kids really liked it.

Playing at the Park in the Snow

Today we took a trip out to the city park. It is still covered with snow, even though we haven't had any new snow in over a week.

Here is a picture of the big pond in the park. It is frozen solid and you can ice skate on it (at your own risk).

Landon had fun jumping on the snow piles the plows had made.

Landon played on the playground equipment for alittle while. It was a little slick, so he had to go slow. He was so happy to be back at the park again!

Here is how the playground looked in the snow. The sun had melted the equipment but the ground was still covered. The park is beautiful when it is covered with snow, just not as user friendly.


Across the street is another park with another pond in it. This one was totally frozen except this one spot that about 100 ducks were trying to share. This is a zoomed in picture, so you can't see them all. I thought ducks flew south for the winter, but apparently they didn't get the memo!

Landon's 1/2 birthday!

At Landon's school we celebrated his half birthday on Tuesday January 13th. I felt bad that he couldn't celebrate with his friends on his birthday because it was in July. So we decided he could have a half birthday instead.

Each birthday kid gets to decorate his own crown and be the center of attention at circle time.

Landon got to hold the earth and walk around the sun 3 1/2 times to show how long he has been on Earth (it's a montessouri thing!).

Then they share pictures and tell their life story.
Afterwards, he sits in the chair while the other kids either give him a hug or shake his hand to congratulate him. This is our family friend Cody who is in his class.
The last part of the celebration is to eat a birthday treat--today it was cupcakes. I think he enjoyed the celebration, although he didn't get any presents.

Its Time For A Revolution!

Ignore the reflection of me and all our junk and just see that there is a television in our house that is turned off for good! Okay, not really turned off but disconnected. As of this morning, we no longer have Direct TV and in this part of the country that means we have no tv. No local channels, no nothing. I have been wanting to do this for awhile, but never got the courage because we always had an excuse: how would Kyle watch his sports? would the kids freak out? how would we watch general conference? could Julie live without CSI or her favorite reruns on Nick-at-Nite?
Well the pros of television are far outnumbered by the cons:
too many commercials make us want what we don't need.
too much time watching tv is bad for kids and adults
we need to spend more quality time together as a family (like playing the wii!)
kids see too much bad stuff and pick up bad words and habits from them

So what was the solution? Get rid of the dish. We can still watch dvds for movies and play Wii. We can get news, sports, conference and even tv shows online. We went all day today and didn't miss it at all. And for the big sports events like the super bowl and final four--we have lots of friends with big screen tvs!

Some of you may think we are crazy, but I am excited because I think this will be good for our family. For those of you that are thinking...what are we going to watch when we visit? You'll get addicted to the Wii really fast and won't care!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! We didn't do anything big last night to celebrate. The kids stayed up late while we played wii, watched Shrek 2 and ate lots of junk food. I have written a whole list of new years resolutions. Check out my scrap blog to see the page I made about them. Some of the big ones are:
1. lose 30 lbs.
2. finish painting all the rooms in the house.
3. grow a bigger garden than last year
4. get 50k more out of debt
5. get a scrapbook page published
6. watch less tv
7. read 12 classic books (one a month)
8. run a 10K (again)

These are the big ones. Our big thing that's going on for us is our 10th wedding anniversary on June 19th. And to celebrate, we booked a 7 night trip to New York City! I am so, so excited! We got tickets to the Lion King on Broadway, and I have a long list of things I want to do and see while we are there. Kyle's dad Chris is going to watch the boys (brave soul) and we are taking a long awaited vacation.

Hope you all are having a great new year!