Time Flies When You're Doing A Lot of Stuff

Well, as it's now been over seven months since anyone has updated our blog, I took it upon myself to do so, that and my mom told me to. It's for surely been a busy seven months.

We spent the summer caring for our puppy Lucy, who decided breaking her growth plate in one of her hind legs would be a good way to spend a summer, and that adventure literally took the whole summer to heal from the break along with the surgery it took to fix it.

We also spent a good part of the summer sending the older kids off to a variety of summer camps- Scout Camp for Spencer, High Adventure and Boys State for Gene, and Girl's Camp, Youth Conference, and EFY for me, Natalee. All of us sure had a fun time, but everyone knows that summer camping can be quite extraneous.

We had the opportunity to visit Utah and Idaho in mid July and had a wonderful time doing so. While there, we had a lot of fun climbing up some of those good old Rocky Mountains and going up to the Jones family cabin in Alpine, Wy.We also had a blast seeing all of our friends and family and participating in activities with them.

School started in August with Gene as a senior, me a freshman, Spencer a 7th grader, and Boston a 4th grader. School definitely added a stress onto all the kids, and you can constantly hear the fights and arguments of the wrongs of homework and projects every school afternoon.It has also been a consistent argument over whether or not the homework given to us should be completed or not before the due date.

We've celebrated a lot of birthdays as well. Mine was in September and I turned the amazing 15, and am half way to thirty now( kind of weird), Spencer turned the lucky thirteen in October, and mom also celebrate her birthday in October, our puppy turned a year in December, and Dad celebrated his birthday on Christmas Day. Yes, we do seem to keep birthday busy this half of the year.

We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas at home this year and enjoyed the family quality time. It's been nice just being able to rest and enjoy the holiday season together, though we did miss seeing the family back out West. We've really enjoyed making up catchy phrases and bothering each other with them at every turn in the day("Just sayin'",:P) and playing games and activities together.

Some major events that have happened for certain people in the family include- Gene finally getting his Eagle Scout, his Court of Honor will be sometime in the new year; I got my driving permit and I think many people will be fearing their lives on the road now because of it; Mom got put into the Stake Young Womens Presidency as the secretary. A big thing for everybody was that over the summer, we had the kitchen redone and the entire main floor, minus the family room, now has beautiful wood floors instead of carpet. We also painted three of the four main rooms on the main level to change the house a little more to the new "modern times". It was, I guess, the ten year later remodel thing occurring with in our house, as we have lived in it for almost nine years this coming spring( time really flies by).

Well I guess I'll move on to the pictures and stop writing so much stuff that no one probably even wants to read it. :D

I hope everyone has a great New Year and have created at least one great resolution to fulfill during this year.

~ Natalee

The family pictures taken in Layton, Utah when we were there during the summer. They turned out pretty cute didn't they?

Did some one say we could dog pile each other for a picture and not get in trouble for it?! Awesome!

Hiking in the Appalachian foothills with the family and dogs.

The dogs on a beautiful "fall" (it was mid-November) Georgia day.