January 2007
Stephanie Guymon Family
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The month of December up until Christmas is a blur of shopping, wrapping, concerts, parties, etc. Our ward party was nice, but the Relief Society Christmas party was awesome…very spiritual. Christmas here in Glendale was just lovely. We celebrated with my family on the 21st. We had our traditional Thursday night dinner at my parent’s house (we eat there every Thursday) then the kids opened presents from my parents and sisters family. The kids and I celebrated early too (the 22nd); we watched “The Grinch” (the original) and “Scrooged,” my two favorite Christmas movies. We made treats and took them to many of our friends, then we read some of the Christmas “LDS Gems.” Of course, we read about the first Christmas…then they opened presents from me and from each other. The next morning, they all got on a plane to Seattle to visit Dad and Shannon. Thank goodness, Santa was able to find them there J Hopefully, the Seattle Guymon’s will write in and let us know all about that. Back in Glendale , my parents and sisters family had dinner and played games on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning, we had French toast and eggs (another Welsh tradition). My nieces had been visited by Santa already at their house, but he dropped off their first two-wheeler bikes at Grandpas. The grown ups all reminisced about their first bikes. While the girls played we watched a movie, snacked and just visited. It was very relaxing! The kids are all home and we are looking forward to a quiet New Year’s Eve together. We wish you all a Happy 2007!
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Ruth and Adam Olson Family
December was a lot of fun for our family and a very busy time as it is for just about everyone. We sadly didn’t get to have any extended family over for Christmas and had our first Christmas with just our immediate family since Ruth and Io got married. Something that Ruth has wanted to do for a long time. Then she realized how much more fun it is to be around brothers and sisters, Mom & Dad and cousins too!
Ruth and the baby are coming along nicely (smiles). Ruth is feeling more fatigued than normal and we are both very excited for a new little soul to grace our lives. We have felt a void and that Heavenly Father has someone special waiting to come be with us.
The first of the month Adam was wrapping up school, preparing finals for students and grading papers. During finals week he had a thee day class he taught in Boulder on Logic Audio software and actually had to have other faculty members administer some of his finals, not the coolest thing to have to do your first semester at Shenandoah University.
For Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Olson got us a new digital camera which we are so excited about. Now we can take pictures of our family again!
Probably the most fun thing did was have Jim & Rachael Guymon and girls come over. That was actually on New Years Day but we will call it December. We played Settlers, went and recorded Jim & Ruthanne at Shenandoah University and Rachael the trouper watched all four children! We had pizza and a little birthday celebration for Rachael.
We switched all of our rooms around on Christmas day, and for the first time since we have been in Virginia, actually cleaned almost the entire house because Adam wasn’t working every day.
Life is good and we sure miss you all and can’t wait for the day when we all live in Idaho and can see each other on a regular basis. No more of this all over the country business and yes we are sorry to have to contribute to that.
We love and miss you all!
The Ruth, Adam, Atom & Joshua
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Mel and Shannon Guymon Family
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The
West Coast Guymons have had a pretty busy last few
months. December saw us moving into our new house in
Seattle. Setting this up has been fun, exciting, and
tiring. We sorted out the study first, and are now about
halfway through the kitchen. Lots of empty space right now
so we're slowly starting to fill things up. Had lots of fun
setting up storage for the kitchen. As expected, most of
our things are in still in boxes :) One exciting event was
when the dresser didn't fit up the narrow stairs to the
bedroom... so we now have a large dresser-esque "hutch" in
the living room, and we'll have to get creative on where to
store our clothes! The washer and dryer arrive tomorrow,
and the piano will arrive on Saturday, and we are greatly
looking forward to both.
We had a great
Christmas with the kids. Our new house in
Seattle was
still empty (the furniture was en route from California), so
we stayed in a highrise in downtown
Seattle for
the week. The kids enjoyed having their own condo with a
flatscreen TV and a view. We had a blast. We got a tiny
Christmas tree and decorated it, had brunch at the top of
the
Space Needle,
went to see Happy Feet, checked out the
Pacific Science Center,
and sampled much of the local fare (the crepes downtown were
the big hit). On the way up to the snow, we stopped at the
Washington State
Reptile Zoo. Shannon wasn't quite up for wearing a snake
necklace, but all of the kids did! In addition to
alligators, giant snapping turtles, and roughly 100 speicies
of reptiles ( with some exotic tarantulas, scorpions, and
giant cockroaches thrown in for good measure ) the
zoo included specimens of the ten "Deadliest" snakes on
earth, including vipers, asps, and a 10ft long king cobra.
All the snakes had been devenomed, so they were apparently
safe to handle - with the exception of a 30 foot albino
anaconda; very neat experience.
We're enjoying
Seattle. The
weather is definitely colder and wetter than
CA, but it
makes us appreciate the periods of sunshine more. And it's
still a novelty for now :) This is Shannon's first time out
of Northern
California
since she was four and a half, so it is a new experience to
explore a new place. It's also fun to be in a smaller
Google office (about 300 people), although we miss some of
the perks of the
CA
headquarters, such as restaurant-quality food. We are so
spoiled. Shannon is transitioning to projects in the local
Google office, though Mel will be flying to the San
Francisco area 3 days a week until his product ships in
2007. We're very lucky to work for a company so supportive
of our desire to move up here. The house should be
presentable in a few weeks, and everyone is welcome to come
crash at our place (plenty of room) and take in the
Seattle
sights :) Once we are settled in we are planning on
scheduling a few trips to visit our lovely relatives as
well!
Love, Mel & Shannon |
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Rebecca and Rich Jarvis Family
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Dear Family,
We had a wonderful
holiday season and hope you all did too!! We went to the
annual Cutler Christmas Night, which Mary and the kids came
up to go to also. It was a lot of fun!! Uncle David puts
all our names, even the kids in a hat and then randomly
pulls names out. When your name is pulled, you perform some
kind of musical number, or lead everyone in a favorite
Christmas song, tell a favorite Christmas memory, or pick on
someone else to perform. Mary mailed me a piano duet a few
days before, so when we were picked, that is what we did.
It was fun!!
We celebrated
Richy's b-day with Mary and the kids here on the 23rd, and
did the traditional Christams Carrolling that night also.
Our kids love that!! No one has ever come carrolling to us
since we have been married. I feel it is a lost tradition.
But we do it every year, and our list just keeps getting
bigger!! Sometimes we give out homemade bread, or jam, or
cookie dough balls (we freeze the dough in balls and put a
little note on a bag that says, "here's a little extra
'dough' for the holidays"). Some friends of ours, that we
have carrolled to for the last few years, that have been
innactive for years, are now asking to come with us when we
go, so we better keep it up!!! Rich loved this because he
loves having more male voices to sing with.
We were also able
to go to the temple with all but 2 of Rich's brothers,
thanks to Mary who babysat for us. It was AWESOME!! We did
a sealing session for some of Rich's ancestors. It was
great!! I hope that at our next reunion we can all go to a
session together!! I would
bring
a babysitter just for that reason alone!!
Well, let's see,
Christmas Eve we played out nativity at Grandma's house next
door and had a big dinner. We had our own Christmas at our
house in the morning, then went to Grandmas next door for a
little Christmas from them. Lots of Rich's family was in
town and it was fun to see them.
Probably our
favorite two parts of the holidays was Ice Skating with Mary
and the kids and all of Rich's cousins (a tradition that has
gone on for years to ice skate the day after Christmas), and
the other memorable thing was New Year's Eve. Rich actually
flew the little plane down to AZ with a friend to go to the
Fiesta Bowl.
It took 6 hours to fly there, and 7 and a half to fly back
because of a head wind. He had a blast and a much needed
break. He is not a big sports buff at all, but BSU played
and WOW!! He said it was the most amazing game he's ever
seen. He was also able to spend a day or two with Steph and
the kids and really really enjoyed that!! He said that it
was definitely funner than being with his group of guy
friends that he went down with. The kids and I camped out
in the living room with a fire in the fireplace and had some
fun. We had made up a family quiz about the highlights of
2006.
Brooklynn and Richy
are back in school now and are loving it! We still have 10
puppies that now are running around and starting to chew on
everything! Well, hope you are all doing well!!
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Jim and Rachel Guymon Family
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December J.Guymon Family Mad Lib
Hi, it’s me Bailee. We have had the funnest Christmas and we had fun at that. The best Name adj. thing that happened this month was Christmas and it was my favorite Christmas because I Big Activity got Barbies. We also went to Arizona. Now Olivia and I get to play all we want. I play something fun Barbies and Olivia plays whatever she wants. Her favorite toy is a baby doll. I am 4 and size a half. I go to preschool. This month at preschool we got to go outside but we didn’t go preschool activity outside very long. I only got to slide two times. I was an angel in the Nativity show we part put on for Christmas. My favorite classroom job is having snack and being the snack Big girl job helper. I really like to play dress up. I want to be a princess when I grow up. Olivia said activity occupation she wants to be a ballet dancer when she grows up. She likes to wear my tutu right now.
While I’m at preschool, mom kindof plays with Olivia during the day because she loves verb both of us girls. She also makes lunch for us when I come home. Dad goes to work verb everyday because he wants to help us get more money. Olivia gets into mischief when action verb mom’s not looking. She sometimes messes things up and we still love her. I sometimes verb get into mischief or I don’t when mom’s not looking. Olivia is silly, but she is my sister action verb adj./relationship and even though I do naughty things to her I still love her very much. It was a great
month and we had some great holidays. Adj. Love, Bailee (And Rachel, Jim and Olivia) Name
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Mike and Rachel Guymon Family
Dear Family,
Happy New Year!! We hope you all had a great 2006 and will have an even better 2007.
Highlights from the Guymon’s December:
Rachel turned 33 and enjoyed a great day of shopping and lunch with Mike. He took the day off and arranged for a babysitter for a couple of hours.
Amberly turned 7 on the 20th and wanted a butterfly cake which her mother was able to create. She is excited to be 8 on her next birthday so she can be baptized.
Rachel made approximately 25 loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread for neighbors, home/visiting teaching families, work people, etc. She makes the best bread I have ever tasted. I have personally compared it to the Great Harvest version and still feel it comes out on top. I had a difficult time letting some of those loaves go…it is one of my favorites.
All the Guymon children were quite excited for Santa to come and Talia and Sarah were great helping the little ones sprinkle oats outside for the reindeer and set out milk and cookies for Santa. The boys mostly got Star Wars related items while the girls had a variety of toys, roller blades, posters, movies, clothes, etc. Thanks to Dan and Monique and fam for the marshmallow shooters. We had a great time having a marshmallow war downstairs. When Liz and family came, I had to explain why they might find a stray marshmallow or two in the couch, under desks, etc. We love our calendar of Scotland and Mason was amazed to realize the pictures were of the same place where Grandma and Grandpa Guymon are.
We now have both sets of Grandparents on missions. Scotland and Germany. Thanks for your examples and your love. We think of you often.
Liz and Corky and their fam came over from Chicago to spend a little time with us. It was great to have them here and the little girls loved playing together. It is good to be somewhat close to family out here. We are looking forward to visiting them in Chicago around the Spring Break time slot. Thanks for the tunes, Corky!
We visited downtown Minneapolis, Mall of America, a store called Cabela’s, which has a big aquarium and a slew of animals (stuffed taxidermy style) for display (like the Bean museum at BYU). We also had the opportunity to visit Macey’s in Minneapolis and view their seasonal theme of Mary Poppins. They had the entire story (per the play) divided up into separate scenes with scenery, mannequin-type figures, etc, etc. It was quite the experience. Our family watched Mary Poppins for movie night the eve before. Now that was an experience. It was a little rough. We (I, Mike) spent a considerable amount of time utilizing the fast forward button on the remote.
Life is good here in MN. The weather is mild, days being in the upper 30s / lower 40s. Will the bitter cold come? We shall see. Congrats and best wishes to Wendy (Rachel’s sister) and Ben and their new arrival, a baby girl.
We love you guys…CIAO
The Guymon Clan
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Mary and Mike Ferguson Family
Cold and Windy describes January in
Twin Falls! We hope that y'all had a great Christmas. We enjoyed going back
and forth to
Boise a few times and then to
Salt Lake to see some friends who we knew in
Texas. The kids were only out of
school for a week and a half. it seemed to fly by. We enjoyed sledding on
Christmas day and Mike went skiing at Alta in Salt Lake with his friend from
Texas. The kids and I spent the
day in
Provo and bowling at BYU. I
can't believe we have lived here for 7 months.
We've all made some goals for the New year including lots of together time as a
family. We are still a year away from the temple here in Twin so we get to go
and visit the Jarvis' when we go to the
Boise temple. I am looking into
the guymon reunion for summer 2008 when mom and dad get back. They asked me to
check into a few things. I'll keep ya posted.
Love,
Fergusons
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Liz and Corky Clark Family
December was a very eventful month for the Clarks. We spent the first couple weeks enjoying the snow from inside our warm house. Haley turned 7 and celebrated her birthday with a Scooby-Doo party. Corky enjoys spending time with the kids watching Scooby-Doo movies. We had our first Christmas without any extended family. In the past we would spend Christmas at Corky's parent's house. So after having a "mostly" Scooby-Doo Christmas we headed to the Brookfield Zoo. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals, including a huge lion, bear and giraffe at only a couple feet distance. Mom and Dad enjoyed the lack of crowds on Christmas Day.
After Christmas we headed to Mike and Rachel's for New Years (And brought the stomache flu with us in the process). We had one full day where no one was sick until New Year's eve and Mike's kids started coming down with the flu. Needless to say we left them on New Years day with a family of sick kids. Mike and Rachel are planning to visit Chicago for spring break and we told them to make sure and bring some kind of sickness with them so we can be even. What troopers! Thanks Mike and Rachel! In spite of the sickness (Let's just say we became very familiar with all the rest areas in Wisconsin) we had a great time. We really enjoyed seeing the Mall of America, eating yummy food (mmmm...fondu), hanging out and snow on New Years Eve. (We had an unseasonably and disappointing dry Christmas in Chicago.) The kids are already talking about when their cousins are going to come visit.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
Love, The Clarks
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