Christmas Vacation

Here are some of the fun things we have done while in Utah for Christmas break. We have had so much fun!


The three cousins, Zina, Ellie, and Kate making gingerbread houses at Marilyn's.


Jade, Josie, Zina, and Jake delivering Grandma's yummy Christmas bread to the neighbors. Lucky for us some of them weren't home. It was sooo yummy.


Wilson getting to know Uncle Luis.


The three little girls, Zina, Kate & Ellie on Christmas Eve in their new matching pajamas from Grandma.


The four (soon to be five with Wells and Emily's little guy in April) little boys in their matching pajamas from Grandma. From left to right Bo, Wade, & Lincoln with Wilson up top.

Same Age

Zina and Wilson at the same age - 4mths.

Graduation Time!

Mark and I graduated on Friday. It was a lot of fun. Mark was coveting the hoods that the faculty were wearing from obtaining Masters or Doctorates...so I guess that is the next goal. Either way we are finished with Rexburg. Who knows what will come next. So far Mark has three interviews with hopefully some more to come. Most of them are in February so we will keep everyone posted.

Surprise Surprise

So yesterday was a particularly trying day. I'm pretty sure Wilson heard me tell Lauri over the phone that he sleeps all the time and decided to prove me wrong. Either that or he really is teething - probably both. He wouldn't sleep longer than 20 minutes and when he was awake he was incredibly needy. Poor Zina got a little neglected. My neighbor called at 5:00 and invited us to dinner. Blessed day!! So when Mark came home at 6 I told him we were going to Suzannas at 6:30. He decided to run to the store for egg nog to take with us.... or so I thought. I told him he had better be back by 6:30 or else! He said we better not leave with out him or else! So at 7:00 I was getting really angry. He had taken a WHOLE hour to go to the store to get eggnog. We had been over to Suzannas for a while (she had seen us out on the frigid sidewalk wondering where our dad was) and she had suggested we go wait at our house so that he wouldn't be angry with us for not waiting for him. While we were at Susanna's I did wonder why it didn't smell like she had made any dinner but I was much to polite to ask. When Mark showed up Susanna laughed and said, "It's about time." Mark apologized and pulled out some take out food for Zee...what the??
He then blindfolded me, drove around in circles in the parking lot and guided me up and down stairs until I heard branches whispering in the breeze (or fans I should say) and waterfalls and smelled moist soil. He had somehow with all of his looming finals found time to smuggle a candle light dinner into the school greenhouses. It was really sweet. All the lights were off and there right between the banana tree and the waterfall was a little wrought iron table and 2 chairs with candles and dinner and a single red rose. Ahh, he can be romantic! It was a fabulous end to a rather hectic day. I don't think the school would have appreciated the real candles or the toque in the doors that were supposed to be locked, but I sure did. Thanks Mark for a great night out. I love you.


So sweet!

Just proving there really was a real banana tree growing real bananas.

Messy Play

Grandma gives us all kinds of fun ideas and Zina loves them all. Talk about a sensory experience!! The first one is shaving cream and as you can tell it usually gets a little out of hand. The second one is mixing colors. Zina likes to dump all of the water into one cup creating a lovely booger green color and then she stacks all the cups. We need to find something else to mix colors in because last time we did this the stack of cups tipped over and one of them broke. Oops.