Newest painting

I finished this right before Christmas, I painted it for Cresta to give to Chris. He works for the railroad, I think he liked it! I thought it turned out pretty good. The mountains are from our ranch and the train is one Cresta found, the rest is pretty much made up from different photos and my mind. Tomorrow I will start a new one, a friend wants me to paint her one, but hasn't told me what she wants, so I guess I'll just think of something. Any ideas out there?

My new missionary

Christmas Eve day will always be extra special at our house! Kari got her mission call in the mail, so we had an exciting day! She waited until later that night at grandpas house to open it. She wanted as many of our family to be with her as possible. It is an exciting and scary time for us all. She will be serving in the Texas -Dallas, Spanish speaking mission! She loves Texas, so this is going to be great. She will be in a huge city, so that will be different for her. She is so excited and happy. A new step in our lives and a wonderful experience for her! What a wonderful gift for us all!

Family Christmas Party

We went to Jackson Hole last weekend for our Christensen Family Christmas Party. It was Kents turn and it is so fun when we get to go there and party! We held it at a condo at the Snow King Resort. Kim works there, so it is great! It snowed on Friday night, so there was a little bit on the ground. Not enough to ski or board, even though they opened then. The family who came on Saturday had a horrible time with the snow, they couldn't even see the car in front of them! I'm glad we went Friday and missed that part.

On the way we stopped to see our friends in Montpelier. We don't see them much, so it was good to visit with them. They are so hospitable and friendly, it was great to take some time just to visit and see how they were.

We only had Jim, Shauntae, Wyatt, Kari, her friend Jake and us. Not too many. I'm glad that the others didn't try to drive it by themselves because it was dangerous. Jim hit a moose... It didn't hurt it or their car, which was soooo lucky. They went a different way than us and a day earlier. We didn't even have wet roads most of the way.

We were in the condo next to Kinos family so it was cool being close to some of the others. Grandpa rode with us but stayed with them. I think he enjoyed himself, but he was so sad during it. I know he misses Bessie so much. We need to try to get to his house more often so he doesn't have time to be too sad. ( Which I guess will never happen, because he DOES miss her so much!)

We had excellant food, good visits, games and excited kids! I think that is what makes it so fun. They are all growing up so fast and we won't have that excitement for too long. I thought it was beautiful up there. I have always liked going there since my sisters family lived there at one time and we would visit whenever we could.

I hope we keep up with the party, even if the family gets larger and we lose some members. It is about the only time we get to just be together. Isn't that what family is about????

Have a great Christmas. I hope you are all ready. I still have a little more to do and some baking to get done, but I am almost there! I love this time of year. It just goes by too fast for me!

Gina Tagged me on this one! It's an easy and fun one, hope you have fun with it, too!

Tag 4:4:4:4 Here is how it works.

1. Open your photos folder

2. Go to your 4th folder and pick the 4th photo

3. Up load it

4. Tag 4 others

I tag Jenny, Diane, Sondra, and Kate! Have fun!!!

Photos of the Thanksgiving Holiday!

Dalan and Kaden at the Canyons Gina and Molly- The Canyons

Wyatt fell asleep like this! He is eating a popscicle!

Thanksgiving Feast!!! We are so thankful for all we have, especially our family and friends!
(The post below tells all about it, The photos wouldn't load on that one, so they have to be done this way!)

Thanksgiving

I am finally going to put something in here about Thanksgiving, since it is almost Christmas! I have not had time to do any blogging, just reading them when I have time! We had 28 for dinner and I had a lot of help getting the dinner ready and with the clean-up, which is great for me, not so good on those who did all the dishes!!! We had our family, Chester and the Knights here for dinner. It was so cool having them all here! Everyone did part of the food, so there wasn't as much stress! It sure is a lot of work for 3o minutes of eating! We did two turkeys and had a little left over, which was great. We got to visit and watch the kids get to know each other. We had a few little arguments, but all in all they were wonderful.

The day after Thanksgiving, we did a little shopping on the way to the Canyons. When we got to the Canyons, there was no snow and they had us in the wrong room. We finally got that settled and Brian was able to get tickets to ski at Park City. Kari got to board for a day and was glad to be able to! It was relaxing and fun to visit. I swear Kino and Brian had 5o friends there! Jason won at Poker, so he had fun, too!
Next year all the family goes to the in-laws. It will be small and quiet. I always look forward to "my" year with the whole family! Kari will be on her mission so it will probably be Curt, me, Cresta and her kids and maybe Doug! We'll have to just be louder and pretend everyone is here! I hope you all had a great one... now on to Christmas, are you ready????
(I can't get the photos to download, sorry... I'll keep trying!)