He's Back!

Last night we headed to Salt Lake International Airport to welcome Elder Andy Andersen home from Germany! A group of us met up at the airport with signs and anxious smiles as we waited for his 10:30pm arrival.

It never gets old watching young elder and sister missionaries return home. We were all crying before we even saw Andy just observing the returning missionaries greeting their families.

We finally spotted him and words can't even describe how awesome it was to see him embrace his family!

Obviously, Dan and I don't have any sons, but we truly love Andy like he is one of our own. It is so great to have him home!

Always the gentleman, Andy pulled out German chocolates for Eva. She talked about those chocolates all the way back to Provo!

Some of us stopped off at Denny's to continue the visiting. We got home around 2:30am and despite the lack of sleep, we loved every minute of it! Thanks Jeanmarie, Jim and family for sharing this with us!

Two More Drivers

Finally, after many weeks of parents procrastinating the inevitable...

we headed to the dreaded DMV and these two walked out with their legal drivers' permits in hand.

While I really dislike the learning part of driving, I am really looking forward to having two more drivers in the house. I am now pretty much guaranteed there will always be a willing driver to run errands on demand.

Congrats you two! And to the rest of you on the road... be warned :)

Family Focus for 2011

A few nights ago, we sat down with the kids and discussed what our family focus should be this year. We have done this the past few years and it has been a positive, fun thing for our family. After much deliberation, we decided to have our family focus be the same as the new mutual theme for 2011.

So here we have it...

The 13th Article of Faith

We believe in being Honest,true,Chaste,

Benevolent, Virtuous, &  in    doing Good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, & hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, Lovely, or of Good Report  or Praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

It's Beginning to Look (and feel) A LOT Like Christmas...

outside and inside.

We woke up this morning to about a foot of new snow! 

It is beautiful but no fun to drive in it.

Inside, we've had the snowflake motif going on for quite awhile.

(It looks like my windows need a good cleaning!)

 Our "Travel Tree" had a couple of new additions...

 Samoan fale

 I LOVE Christmas ornaments and most of them have special meaning...these are two of my favorites given to me by a dear friend.

 We are going to be busy tomorrow delivering baskets of goodies to the widows in our ward. This has become a family tradition and the girls were a great help in preparing them.

 This year all the Christmas cards we get in the mail found a new place to be displayed...the staircase. 

 Can't forget the Samoan nativity set made out of a coconut.

Another favorite tradition...buying the girls a new ornament every Christmas.

I think when they leave home they'll have a pretty good start to their own ornaments.

One Magical Christmas Performance

I cannot believe we are just weeks away from Christmas!

I am soooo behind right now on just about everything.

Julia shared the Christmas spirit this past week with her Youth Theater's presentation of 

"One Magical Christmas" at the Scera Theater.

She has loved attending class each week with two of her friends and her cousin.

The program was a culmination of weeks of practicing their songs and dances.

I was so glad that we all got to attend on one of the evening's performances!

Carl Bloch...Again

Dan and I took the girls last night for FHE to the MOA to see the Carl Bloch exhibit.

The MOA website describes the Danish artist and the special exhibit as:

Carl Bloch: The Master’s Hand will feature five large altar paintings from churches in Denmark and Sweden. Four of these paintings will be taken out of their altar settings for the first time since they were originally installed in the late 1800s. The other painting, “Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesda,” has become the museum’s signature piece since it was acquired in September 2001. Additional religious paintings and etchings along with genre, history, portrait and landscape paintings from Danish museums also will be included in the exhibition.

I can't adequately describe our experience. To say it was amazing would be an understatement. There is an undeniably strong spirit in this exhibit and Bloch's masterpieces testify of the living reality of Jesus Christ. I especially loved the way Bloch incorporates the use of light into his paintings. My favorite was his painting of the daughter of Jarius. I know that the others had their favorites as well. I am excited that this exhibit will be here until May. I plan on going a few more times and would say it is worth a trip to Utah just to experience it!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful, relaxing and practically perfect Thanksgiving this year.

The so-called blizzard really never materialized where we are, but it was really cold!

We were delighted to have Andersen's from Mapleton with us... minus their missionary who will be home in a matter of days now.

Lauren and Chris (with Alison in the middle) also joined us.

We've loved having Alison with us over the break!

 We did the usual... lots of eating, laughing and talking and a few photos.

Dan didn't disappoint with the turkey and then managed to clean up everything while we chatted away!

We ended the evening with the new Harry Potter movie... and loved it!