1-1-2009 Thursday - Happy New Year!

Well, here I am behind two months already on my blogging for the new year! But that's okay, because I am going to do as our Starr Mantra states: Plan my work. Work my plan. I will be trying something new this year and making this blog a little more like a journal. I will still have my photos and slide shows and will let friends and family know of our updates.

12-31-08 New Year's Eve at the Beach!

New Year's Eve morning, we went to
Laguna Beach and took the dogs with us.

Here's my boys - so cute together!

Heidi got wet and sandy and had a great time!

It was quite foggy and damp so we had on
sweats and some of us even had our PJ's on!

Sasha and Heidi ran all over chasing each other.

It was so fun having Drew home for a
few days. We've missed him so much!
It'll be hard for him to go again...

Here's my darling girls :)

12-28-09 The River!

The day after Christmas we headed out
to the river for a nice relaxing time.

It was cool out there so we would
bundle up to take walks with the puppies.

We went to our favorite restaurant, Crossroads Cafe
in Parker, Arizona. This was Noel's request
since it was her 13th birthday!
Chili Cheese Fries!!! Yay!!!

She chose Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake too!
It's her favorite!!!

We went riding in the desert right behind the trailer park.

Our friends, the Penrods, came out and stayed a
few days too. We roasted hot dogs one night.
We love seeing the stars. Sometimes we hear the
coyotes howling too. We lit fireworks another night also.

We did a fun Santa puzzle!

Here's Jeff and I by the river with the dogs.

The kids had a great time just hanging out.

We all did a massage train,
which eventually made a whole circle!

And last but not least - we loved Shera and Luke's
"Magic Show" they put on for us!

12-25-09 Christmas Day

The kids were ready to go down Christmas morning!
Afterward, we had a big deep fried turkey for dinner!

Some of our fun Christmas gifts were:

Santa brought a trampoline!

Drew got gloves and scarfs for BYU

Luke and Shera got blankets for the river.

Jeff loves Cheerios and got an ornament of it.

Santa brought us rice bowls and chopsticks!

The puppies got a Juicy doggie cookie jar.

Luke got a soccer outfit with his name on it.

Holly got her guitar she'd been asking for.

12-24-08 Christmas Eve!

Our Christmas Eve was a fun traditional one as always!

Luke and Shera got potato guns for their table gifts
at the Melting Pot Christmas Eve.

We made a play dough nativity scene.

Jeff read "The Nativity Story" to us afterwards.

Then we went up to the computer to see
where in the world Santa was before bedtime.
He was in Texas!

We put cookies, milk, and carrots
out for Santa and his reindeer!

The kids had their traditional "sleepover"
together in Drew's room and of course
played Risk that night too!

The Holidays Are Here!

A Few Fun Things!

Funny Face!
Noel got a hold of my camera!

Holly's Spotlight Competition at the LA Music Center.

Dean had his 60th birthday party.
Here's the girls!

Here's Dean and the guys!

We went to the St. Regis for the Veteren's Weekend one night
and the fun part was... we took the dogs! Ha! Ha!

This Cinderella Carriage was waiting for a bride to come and take her
to her wedding. We saw it in our park.

They let us take photos inside of it too!
Enchanting!

Our poor plum tree gave up the ghost and it was time to say goodbye...

The kids kept some memorabilia from it. :(

Drew visited last weekend! Yay! It was 90 degrees,
so we hit the beach Saturday afternoon!

Then we got sushi later for dinner!

Check out these fancy rolls!
Thank goodness our kids LOVE SUSHI!!!


Here's Holly singing "Old Maid".
She did this for a drama festival earlier this November.

Noel sings one of my favorite Christmas songs,
"Breath of Heaven".

Carrie Underwood In Concert!

Jeff gave me Carrie Underwood Concert tickets for
Mother's Day and today was the payoff!

We saw her at the Nokia Theater in LA.

The opening act was Little Big Town.
They were awesome - real musicians!

Me and my girls!
We Love Carrie!

She had a great show with her playing
a couple of really pretty songs on guitar too!

Luke fell asleep near the end and missed the finale.
The video below shows the end. Everyone was out of their seats!
Pretty awesome night!

We all had so much fun singing!