Christmas Names

Here are the Christmas names we drew in Hawaii!  Homemade gifts only this year.

Doug- Joslin
Becky- Julia
Danny- Alan
Kaitlin- Mason
Alan- Bryan
Britta- Garrett
Joslin- Kaitlin
Mason- Emily
Julia- Ellie
Bryan- Danny
Emily- Natalie
Garrett- Britta
April- Becky
Natalie- April
Ellie- Doug

Who's excited for another family reunion?!

I'm so excited to be in Hawaii with EVERYBODY!!!  Mason and I can't wait for August!

Beautiful human being.

A letter with a Christmas goodie attached for Dave. What a nice guy he is.

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

I can't wait to see you all in Nevada City in December!!

After a long discussion about what to do for Christmas gifts this year, we (Danny, Kaity, Alan, Gio and Zeke) decided to do a random drawing and here is the list. To simplify things we decided to just draw one name per person. Is this okay with everyone? And what does everyone want for Christmas??? 3 people randomly got the same person who has them. Also, Alf and Jos drew themselves and had to re-draw. :) If you don't like it you can propose an alternate option. Love you all!!! -Kaity

 

1.     Doug- Ellie

2.     Becky- Bryan

3.     Danny- Natalie

4.     Kaity- Emily

5.     Alan- Garrett

6.     Britta- Kaity

7.     Joslin- Doug

8.     Mason- April

9.     Julia- Joslin

10. Bryan- Britta

11. Emily- Becky

12. Garrett- Alan

13. April- Mason

14. Natalie- Danny

15. Ellie- Julia

I can't wait for Blackberry season this year!

Guess it's my turn...

We're also really bad at taking pictures of my growing belly - I guess it's something I'm not that interested in documenting. But I've been getting a lot of requests lately, so I took some pictures with my phone. Here you go.

I don't think I've been as emotional as Emily. You'll have to ask Alan. The craziest thing I've done lately is put some red streaks in my hair (there's a lot more underneath, you can't see it much in this picture). But there's still plenty of time left for me to go nuts...

Emily in Her Birthday Suit

 Garrett and I realized that we dont really have any pictures of my pregnancy, sad. We also realized that no one in our family has seen me with the belly. 
Garrett has been extra supportive of my emotional and physical needs... like craving grapes and random outburst of tears.  I feel bad for him because I am quite emotional and I cry just about everyday.  On Tuesday, I started crying because I couldn't find my favorite shirt.  The best part is, that I wasn't even planning on wearing it any time soon, I just was sad because I couldn't find it.

We still have no names picked out, although Garrett does like Thelma. 
This is a dress mom got me for my birthday, and I love it.  I was trying to hold it tight around my belly, so you guys could see how much it has grown. 

We have a video of Garrett kayaking, and of me snowboarding, but we are still trying to figure out how to load them properly. 
We love you all!! 
PS SOMEONE BETTER POST SOON SO THESE PICTURE OF ME AREN'T THE ONLY THING SHOWING FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS!

Our house is a very fine house...

Confession:  I haven't looked at the blogs in a long time because we don't have internet, but I just looked at them and they are so fun and it makes me miss you all!

Updates:  

#1 Mason and I live in a 4-plex in Clearfield, UT.  Home sweet home has never had more meaning.  We love it!  Notice all of our beautiful appliances thanks to YOU and other wedding guests!

#2 We went on a honeymoon to Puerto Vallarta, rode a bus into the jungle for a Zip-line tour, and picked up parasites!  We had the time of our lives!!

(HIBISCUS JUICE!)

#3 We GOT MARRIED AND we're soooooo happy!   Thanks to EVERYBODY for the VITAMIX!! We make smoothies at least once a day and sometimes twice. We LOVE it!  Mason is getting really good at green smoothies too!  They are like our garbage disposal because we throw whatever we have in their-- they usually taste delicious anyway!!  WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

#4 Visitors!!  Mom, Dad, Em, Garrett, and Ape came for conference and all slept in our living room!  We can't wait for you to come back to visit!

Looking forward:  Thanks for putting the Christmas list together! We're really excited to see people soon over the holidays!

2011 Christmas

Here is the list from last year.

1. Doug- Danny, Britta
2. Becky- Kaity, Joslin
3. Danny- Alan, Julia
4. Kaity- Britta, Bryan
5. Alan- Joslin, Emily
6. Britta- Julia, Garrett
7. Joslin- Bryan, April
8. Julia- Emily, Natalie
9. Bryan- Garrett, Ellie
10. Emily- April, Doug
11. Garrett- Natalie, Becky
12. April- Ellie, Danny
13. Natalie- Doug, Kaity
14. Ellie- Becky, Alan

Christmas Exchange 2012

OK, here we go for Christmas Exchange this year. Does this look right? Last year was 2 down and 5 down so this year we did 3 down and 6 down. Sound good? And remember, homemade is always the best!

1. Doug: Kaity & Joslin
2. Becky: Alan & Mason
3. Danny: Britta & Julia
4. Kaity: Joslin & Bryan
5. Alan: Mason & Emily
6. Britta: Julia & Garrett
7. Joslin: Bryan & April
8. Mason: Emily & Natalie
9. Julia: Garrett & Ellie
10. Bryan: April & Doug
11. Emily: Natalie & Becky
12. Garrett: Ellie & Danny
13. April: Doug & Kaity
14. Natalie: Becky & Alan
15. Ellie: Danny & Britta

Big Tractor

BIG LETTERS FOR A BIG TRACTOR. 
Dad, you should think about getting rid of your old rototiller and plow the garden with one of these.  It took about 5 minutes. Today we spent most the day in the garden pulling up bean plants, tomato plants, beats, onions, potatoes, pepper plants and the corn stalks so we could plow the garden and have it ready for the winter. 
 

These are pumpkins that we grow and sell for 10 cents a pound.  Garrett's mom started the tradition when he was younger to help the boys earn money.  We have sold about 50 pumpkins this year, they used to sell around 200 pumpkins. We didn't plant that many this year, but we are thinking about growing more next year. 


Everyone needs to post more on the family blog please. 

Synchronized Swimming

OK, if you want a good laugh, come look at the synchronized swimming contest from this years family reunion. It's posted on my blog and you can watch it bigger there. Enjoy!!

http://dougnbecky.blogspot.com/2012/10/syncronized-swimming.html

resources

I just want everyone to see how good dad is at using his resources. Look at his new flower pot! Its so perfect!

I forgot to post these two cuties. Tucker's slip-n-slide party is on Saturday. Who wants to come?!

Garden and Memorial Day... oh yea, we got a dog!!!

Garrett and I planted the garden.  It is really big.  We share it with his brother and sister-in-law, we are really excited.  Half of the garden is designated to corn and pumkin growing. We have watermelon, cantelope, cucumbers, squash, zuccini, raddish, carrots, yellow onions, purple onions, and white onions, beets, bush beans, peas, and THE MAGICAL ITALIAN BEANS,  it is still to cold to plant the tomatoes and peppers, but we have 7 tomato plants and 4 pepper plants.  We are so excited!!! The tall bushes on the side are the rasberries  :)

Cooper:  We have been talking about getting a dog for a while. Garrett wanted an Australian Shepherd, and I wanted a husky.   Well,  we happened to find the dog just for us...  It is half Australian Shepherd, 1/4 German shepherd, 1/4 Husky.   He is 7 months old and we love him.  He isn't trained yet, but he is really loyal and understands "Cooper, Come" and he his pretty good about sitting.  We went on a Sunday morning bike ride to the river, half a mile,  and Cooper jumped in and played around. While we were riding the bikes, he never strayed from us, and we never had to call him back or anything.   He is still in the puppy stage, and gets distracted really easily.   When you are sitting on the grass, he comes up to you and sits on your lap, it is really funny.   He really hates getting inside cars though.  We aren't planning on him being an inside dog at all, which is good because he doesn't like coming inside very much.  He was free, the people just didn't have anytime for him.  He requires a lot of energy. As soon as you walk out the door, he expects you to play and run with him.  Oh, and he is really bad at fetch.  He will chase the ball, but he wont put it in his mouth.  We really like him and he makes us laugh.  We are thinking about taking him to CA for Timmy's wedding.   We have to give him a summer hair-cut,  his fur is in layers:  bottom layer is the thick husky fur and sort of brown, then the top layer is the light, whispy, shaggy australian fur.  It is really thick, so we might chop some of it to cool him off. 

Above:  We went camping with Garrett's brothers and their wives and 4 kids, all the same ages as Gio, Zeke, Lilli,and Happy LuLu.  It rained, hailed, and lightening and thundered. It was quite miserable at first.... Then Garrett and his brother decided to build us a fort.  They strung up a large tarp in the trees    (that is garrett climbing the tree to tie twine around it to connect it to the tarp).  They placed the tarp over a large center rope for a tent effect, also.   The rain was still too much weight for the suspended tarp and made it droop down. To fix the drooping, Garrett and his brothers cut down a old poplar tree and put it in the middle of our fort and staked it in.  I love the way Garrett uses his resources!!!!

So nobody can say they were left out of the loop...

Hi family!  Some will say FINALLY, and yes that is true, I have a boyfriend! Haha... can you believe it?!  He is my very best friend and the most amason person I've ever met.  Meet Mason.  Well, you'll meet him someday.  Here are some pics.  It's his birthday on Thursday, May 31st.  Any ideas for me?

Moab trip 2012

Jumping off deck

He's so cute huh!

 

nana and grandad came!

We had so much fun relaxing and playing with Nana and Grandad. Nana had tons of energy the whole time and it was so nice to see after her being so sick last time. Tucker was loving the attention and story time and can finally say 'grandad'. I wish we got it on film because it's so cute. We Went swimming at alligators, jumping the rock at Waimea, read a lot of books and hung around. Nana, looking good and working on her tan. Tucker visiting Grandad hiding in the shade. Tucker was being a crazy swimmer this day, just running and diving and swimming in the waves. It was quite a show. Forgives Grandad quickly for trying to steal his blanket again. We had so much fun. Can't wait for you guys to come back.

Iris's faces

A few weeks ago Al and I stopped in Santa Barbara for a night to see Danny and Kaity and the kids. There's always plenty of entertainment to be had there, but the two things that kept my attention most this time were:
1) Lily is crazy, and
 2) Iris knows it

When she's awake, she makes sure her eyes are wide open, and that she always looks at least a little unsure about things:

As for this one...

...here was MY favorite exchange of the day:


Lily (spinning in a circle): "one two four five six nemenate nine ten!! one two four five six nemenate nine ten!!"
Danny: "Lily, what about three? you forgot to say three."
Lily, with a very severe scowl: "I DON'T NEED THAT NUMBER!! I don't NEEEEED that NUMBER!!"  

 Love my nieces and nephews!

photo by dave

chinaman's hat.