Science Fair, Speeches and Van Servicing!

It has been a busy week!

Monday : Happy Valentines Day! I got a dozen red and white beautiful smelling roses from my sweet heart. We went to the Cobblestone Restaurant the Friday before for a cozy meal with the place to ourselves, a nice dinner in front of a fireplace, with music and great company!

We got our van's back window replaced, after a couple of trips to town with plastic flapping in the wind. Then off to Glenwood for dinner and Family Home Evening/birthday celebration for my neice and sister.

Tuesday: 4H speeches!! Damon and Lindy did well on their prepared speeches, the improvs were a little bit trickier. We were proud of their courage and effort. Lindy did hers on skiing and Damon spoke on the many adventures of his little brother Tyler. Tyler's comment was - "When my turn? I a big boy!" He did keep us on our toes trying to keep him off the stage. It is always a long night, but we are glad to check it off!

Wednesday: Science Fair - always a mad rush, getting things set up, taken in, put together. A few nights of little sleep and stress, but . . . in the end both Damon and Lindy won first with their partners Tanner and Clara,in each of their grades. They were excited!

Thursday: Did I mention that we have had our van in 3 times in the past week for repairs? We've decided to name her old Bessie and think we may need to add her to our daily prayers to keep her going! 2 days of wheel alignments, 1 new back window, oil change and 3 tire repairs in the last month. She should be as good as new!!
It was a good thing that we learned some yoga and meditation techniques at our Relief society meeting( the women's organization at church) that night.

Friday - Yipee, we made it to the weekend! We are looking forward to a week off of school. Family week here we come. Jeff is celebrating by going on a winter scout camp - will he sleep in a homeade lean-to or the leaders cabin? Time will tell.

Rachel's Baptism day

On December 29, 2010, it was a special day in our family. Rachel had turned 8 and that means that she is old enough to be baptized. We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to be baptized means that we make a promise to follow Jesus Christ. We believe in baptism by immersion - we are completely immersed in water and come out of the water - symbolic of leaving our old life behind and having a new life as a follower of Jesus. Rachel was baptized by her Dad.

We love our happy Rachel girl. She is a ray of sunshine in our family. She is cheerful and helpful and full of energy and life.

If you go to www.mormon.org it tells a little more of what we believe. ( Mormon is a nickname that was given to our church because we believe in the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ - a book of scriptures that we have along with the Bible.)

Christmas photo fun

Here is the traditional acting out of the nativity, the kids had fun with their costumes. We had a great time at the Payne cousins house in Magrath, great food and company, highly talented acting skills.

Before Jeff was married, he always had to be the donkey in his family's nativity. Now the mantle or the donkey face is passed to Fraser - his youngest cousin. I so loved the donkey mask this year!

This was a hilarious game that apparently is a Payne tradition. Some lucky person gets to put on the old fashioned red long johns - in our case Rachel - and we had 5 minutes to blow up a stuff as many balloons as we could into the long johns. We did good! Good thing Rachel is so skinny - there was a lot of room for stuffing. We had the expert help of Emily and Cody (Jeff's cousin and her husband) as well.

Here was a pre - Christmas picture - my birthday morning with my most precious gifts. The stereo in the box was a pretty good one too.

New Year Update

It's been a long time. We had a great Christmas, even though I got stuck in the "Why is this so complicated, and who knew as a child all that went into Christmas. We had fun, the kids were excited to get new skis, which they have used quite a few times, thanks to free seasons passes this year from Westcastle. I am still trying to psych myself out of my deeply ingrained family aversion and fear of skiing so I can support this new family tradtion.

We got a new laptop, which we opened early since our desktop crashed. It has been a source of joy and frustration as we have tried to use it and have found that the touch pad has some serious issues.

Highlights of our Christmas season:

Christmas Eve in Magrath with the Peterson cousins: good food, good company, fun games at the church gym, and of course the Nativity, especially Fraser as the Donkey, Mary as the cute little sheep, and the always interesting rendition of the 12 days of Christmas.

Christmas Day feast in Glenwood at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's - fun to catch up with the cousins there.

Getting pedicures with the Torrie girls at Jack and Jills and lunch at Cheesecake cafe.

New years Eve party at Ryan and Tonya Torrie's in Taber -- a grand sleep over of 40 or so people.

Rachel getting baptized on Dec. 29. I love the feeling of watching them take this step.

More pictures to come later. . .

Now we are in the throws of facing the extreme weather of the season and trying to get enough vitamin D to feel happy through it all. It has felt like we have had a lot of bad road issues. As I type this now, both the van and the truck are stuck in the driveway. I got new snow tires on the van and I just love them! What a difference. But apparently I got a little to confindant and decided that sure I could take on that hard drift. We have been keeping the tire store busy by giving them 3 flat tires in 3 weeks to repair - always happy to support local business.

January zoomed by and here we are in February, which around here means intense science fair and 4H speech preparations. Heaven help us all! I have to say that I never thought I'd see the day that I would be grateful for Mr. Erickson's junior high science classes in Viking that taught me the scientific method. It has come in handy for helping with kids projects! Lindy and her friend Clara did one on taste, and Damon and his partner Tanner are doing one on plants and exhaust.

I will breathe a sigh of relief when we are successfully through those events.

Jeff is now the president of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve. This week the board was visited by the president of the Canadian Biosphere Reserve. His name is Marc- Andre and we enjoyed having lunch in our home with him and Nora - the coordinator. They were great lunch guests, right down to the hostess gift of flowers and getting down on the floor with Tyler and playing blocks. Tyler insisted on sitting right by Marc-Andre and being helped by him. When I asked him if he wanted ice cream he said - Is that guy having ice cream? I told him he was and he thought that it would be okay.

One last story- we have enjoyed having a kitten around for the last month or so. We had 4 to start with but fall kittens have a hard time surviving around here. So we let Mittens into the house quite a bit with the weather being so crazy. Tyler was quite enamored with the poor little thing. Poor meaning I felt sorry for him because he was dragged around the house in alarming positions that only a 2 year old can come up with. We were continually trying to get him to be soft with the kitty. One day I was sitting on the floor playing with builders and benders with Ty when the cat wandered in. I showed Ty how to play with the cat by rolling the ball around and having the kitten chase it. Ty thought this was quite hilarious and started rolling it down the hall and having the cat run after it. One time the kitten ran back behind his bedroom door without Ty knowing it. He ran down the hall looking for it. I said, Ty this kitty is playing hide and seek. He ran back and just as he came in the door the kitten jumped out at him, and I yelled peek a boo. He was so surprised and then doubled over he was laughing so hard.

Well, we were actually calling the kitten "Resurrection" because we brought him back from the brink of death a few different times, but finally in the end he succombed to his fate. Poor little thing had had enough loving for all of it's 9 lives and dies. Tyler couldn't quite understand why it wouldn't move anymore. The next morning he woke up and called "Here kitty kitty" . I had to explain again that the cat was dead! Jeff had put it into a cardboard box because the older kids wanted to carry it. After everyone was in school, I walked into the entry and there he was , sitting on the deep freeze cuddling the dead cat. I yelled Tyler!!! and got him out of there and to wash his hands fast!

I thought - great, now I have to put him back in the box. I was feeling squeamish by this time and Jeff was nowhere around. So I found some leather gloves and tried to push it back in the box. Just when I thought I'd done the dirty deed, the other end of the box broke through and the head popped out the other end, causing me to scream again. When Jeff got home I told him that the cat had to be buried - pronto before we had any more incidents!