THANKSGIVING

 We went to Utah for Thanksgiving and had a great time. We were able to see the lights at Temple Square which is always fun at this time of year.

CHRISTMAS

We went to Island Park to the Marble's cabin for Christmas this year.  It was a lot of fun and the time flew by. We used the 4-wheeler to get to the cabin and Keith's dad put some tracks on it to make it travel better in the snow

 This was Penny's first Christmas and she loved everything about it! She loved her stocking!

 She loved her candycane!

       

She loved snow shoeing!

 She loved the Christmas Tree!

She loved riding on the 4-wheeler!

She loved the snow!

She didn't love getting her picture taken though.

 Keith couldn't get enough of the 4-wheeler.

Then we celebrated Keith's birthday before we left. It was such a great time and a fun Christmas break.

Penelope

I guess its been about a year since the last posting, so that means its time to post again. It has been a crazy year for us. I am in my 2nd year of hygiene school and I will be finished in May. Keith got a new job at Caterpillar, and he loves it more everyday. I spent most of the year being pregnant and we had Penelope in September. We have been enjoying our time here in Victoria and we dont know how much longer we will be here, with Keith's new job we could be here from 1-5 years and then we can expect a transfer. 

 This is Penny at the hospital

 Keith doing his favorite thing. This is what he does everyday right when he gets home from work.

This is Penny's blessing day.

This year for Christmas we went to College Station with the Cluff parents and Spencer and Trina and their kids. It was a lot of fun! We went to the drive through Christmas lights and this was one of our favorite parts of the whole thing.

We tried to dress festively for the Sunday morning at church....I know you cant see but I am wearing a red skirt!

We went to New Braunfels for a few days and went to San Antonio while we were there for those who hadn't gone before. This is a few of my nephews that were with me at the Alamo. They were filling in for Keith while he wasn't there.

This is all the kids that were there. We took the picture a day late because 4 of the kids already left. It was so much fun and the kids couldn't get enough of each other but the adults definitely got enough of the kids. I'm just kidding!

This is the Texas star at the Texas Museum of History in Austin. We went to Austin for New Years Eve with Nick and Corie and we all stayed at Nelson and Valerie's house. It was fun hanging out and a lot of good food (we were packing it in before our new years resolution slash weight loss competition). Valerie was the one taking all the pictures so I dont have and evidence of the New Years Eve party.

For Thanksgiving this year we went to College Station for the Texas A&M vs University of Texas football game. It was so much fun! Football is religion in Texas! (pictures to come later). On the way there we saw this fantastic little holiday decoration. We loved it so we pulled over to take a picture! We're going to try and make a replica on our front porch!

We drove past this place a few days after we moved to Texas and we said we would go there the next time that we go to College Station. So this was our opportunity, and just like the sign says...Country Fried Bacon! It was actually pretty good!

We put up the Christmas tree and decorated it, we decided to use an artificial tree that we got for free considering we cant just go to the mountains and chop one down this year. We still need to add a few things, like the tree skirt and presents.

We made a trip to the San Antonio Temple last week. We were very excited to go here, a lot of people have been telling us how beautiful it is and that we will love it. We got in the car and made the 2 1/2 hour drive and arrived to an empty parking lot. We were smart enough to check the session schedule before we left be I guess we weren't smart enough to check the maintenance schedule...closed for 2 weeks. At least we still got a nice picture.

Some people have been asking me to post pictures of our place and this is all that I came up with, I'll try to get more soon that actually show something.

These are the curtains that I made instead of studying for my tests. And yes all the walls are blue in our house.... except the bathroom.

This is the most random little nook we have ever seen so naturally we put the most random possession that we own on the shelf. I know we should have disposed of this urn but we just couldn't, and imagine if we did we wouldn't have anything to put on this awesome little shelf.

This is our dining room and that is our awesome dinner table...it's a picnic table because everyday is a picnic for us.

Like I said the bathroom is the only room without blue walls, at they are bright pink. Luckily they re-tiled the floor or that would have been pink too.

This is our "entertainment center" until we can find one that we actually like or until Keith breaks down and makes exactly what he has in mind. Either way this is what we use and it seems to be working just fine until we have to actually get something out of it.

More pictures to come later.

This is what happens on Sunday afternoons after our nap. We get in the car and we drive to the beach...settle down, we don't go to swim or get in the water, we go to observe the creations all around us. On the way down we had some very amazing photo opportunities. First opportunity: That's right, we actually got a picture of a cat! You're right, it is disgusting, but just let it happened.

Ok, moving on. The next amazing photo opportunity that we had was when we passed through Easter Island on our way. We had no idea that we were so close to it considering it is in the Pacific Ocean. But anyway we were able to get a picture of one of the head statues... this was really awesome because Easter Island was part of my mission in Chile.

When we arrived the sun was setting and the moon was rising so we snapped a couple more pictures and just enjoyed the evening in our camp chairs on the pier.

Sea World

For Labor Day weekend we went to New Braunfels for the the night and then to Sea World in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun and a lot of hot. My mom and dad were there slash they are the ones that invited us, Nelson and Valerie and their kids, and Jane and her girls. We played games and snacked all night on Friday. We played a fabulous game called BANG! that Benson and Albree introduced us to over the Christmas holiday and we have fallen in love with it. There were a few that turned in early and the rest of us stayed up playing more games til about 2:00 am. At least we were able to sleep in til about 7:30 so we still got a good nights rest for out long hot day at Sea World. I'm pretty sure that if this was the original Shamu that he would be a million years old so I'm guessing that they are just using the same name for all the whales.

Somehow Ryder ended up in our family picture... at least he kinda looks like he could fit in. He is so fun and such a cute kid that we would take him home with us any day! Don't mind my face, the sun was shining directly in my eyes and don't worry the splash from "Journey to Atlantis" washed my new sunglasses right off my face.