Christmas Letter 2009

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! What an exciting past year and we feel blessed to reflect on what we have experienced and felt.

One highlight of this year was a family vacation to Yellowstone. The kids had a fantastic time. They liked seeing the bison up close so much, they even said they liked it better than Disneyland (don’t tell Mickey). We also went on a weeklong family reunion with Jason’s family in Afton, Wyoming. We all had fun hanging out with everyone. The highlight of the week was Elisabeth’s and Rebekah’s pyramid at the talent show.

JASON is still working for the church. He is excited that they have now deployed the new family search site everywhere so everyone can use it. If you haven’t been to the site you are missing out (new.familysearch.org). In August, Jason managed a merit badge camp for 3 stakes with 80 twelve year olds. He was busiest he has ever been in his life, but had fun. In October, he finally got a buck after 6 years of trying. He was recently released as 2nd counselor in the stake young men’s presidency and is now the 11-year-old scout leader

KRISTINE is a busy Mom of five kids: making lunches, doing homework, carpooling, wiping fingerprints off the wall and reading bedtime stories. In May, she visited her sister, Kari, in Atlanta, Georgia and helped with her brand new baby Emma. Spending her extra time doing geneology. Her current church calling is managing the RS Blog and RS Chorister.

ELISABETH (8) turned eight this year and was baptized on July 4th. She told everyone that the fireworks were just for her. I don’t think she’ll ever forget the day that she was baptized. She is enjoying life in 3rd grade and loves participating in jazz, ballet and tumbling. This year she donated 11 inches of her hair to Locks of Love. At first she hated her short hair, but now she loves it.

REBEKAH (7) loves life and is having a fantastic time in 1st grade. This summer she lost her first tooth. It was a much-anticipated event. She also loves going to jazz, ballet, and tumbling. She just had her birthday party and we had a blast as a family doing glow in the dark miniature golfing and watching Wipeout to celebrate.

JONATHAN (5) loves dinosaurs. He can tell you many of their names, which ones are plant eaters or carnivores and plays with the all the time. He especially likes to watch Dinosaur Train any chance that he gets. He just started gymnastics and loves it.

JACOB (2) turns everything into a gun and tells you he is going to shoot you (or moths, dinosaurs or monsters). He also plays dinosaur with Jonathan. He is super helpful and independent.

KAYLA (1) has started walking and goes everywhere. She is our happy girl, always smiling and looking super-duper cute! She is 100% girl; she is always carrying a doll around.

We feel very blessed and grateful for this past year and of course for all of our family and friends and how you have each enriched our lives. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and pray that you will all enjoy an even better 2010!

September/October

I am trying to remember what we have been up to in the last couple of months. I know we have been busy... I'm starting to remember.

In September we did the Family Fun Run, Olsen Reunion, Dance, School, Ian's Mission Homecoming, Laci's Baby Blessing, Jason's Muzzleloader Deer Hunt, Rachel's Baby Blessing, Primary Program, and Doctor's visits. After 6 unsuccessful years of hunting Jason got his deer. Elisabeth had a talk for the Primary Program about her baptism and how it made her feel. She did fantastic and wasn't even nervous.


In October we watched General Conference, school pictures, more Doctor Visits, and Halloween Parties. We tried to go on a hike to granite flats, but we were rained out. Jason was released as Second Counselor in the Stake Young Men's Presidency. He loved serving in the young mens. For Halloween Elisabeth was Julliet, Rebekah was a witch, Jonathan was a pirate, Jacob was a cowboy, Kayla was a pumpkin, Jason was a Hawaian tourist and I put on some army camo pants. Jacob did not want to dress up at all. He wouldn't were his costume or keep it on. Only after telling him he could only get candy if he wore it did he tolerate it. The cowboy only worked becuase it was the closest to everyday clothes.



I came downstairs one morning and found Jacob and Jonathan eating ice cream for breakfast. Gotta love 'em.




The family after trick or treating. We pulled out the carpet in the family room and the living room. We are installing the wood floors next week =).

Aren't they cute: Rebekah, Jonathan, Jacob, and Elisabeth
Jason and his deer.

Kayla is happy. Crawling everywhere and almost walking.
Doesn't she make a cute pumpkin. Aiden, her cousin was also a pumkin.

Stuffed August

Rebekah went to Jump On It for a friends birthday party and sprained her foot. She did not like it. It was black and purple. She didn't let it slow her down.

Jason's sister Rachel had a cute little baby girl. Josephine Omeara Goss was born August 2, 2009 at 8:18pm. She was 9 lbs 2 oz and 21 inches.

I had a birthday. I am now 31 years old. I know you all thought I was only 22 =).

Jason went to Zions Camp for 9 days. He must of had fun time.

Alisha had a cute baby boy. Aidan Joesph was born August 16, 2009 at 3:03am. He was 7 lbs 13 oz and 18 inches.

We went fishing with Jason's old scoutmaster, Paul Ricks. Rebekah outfished everyone =). All together we caught 12 trout.

Jason and I had our 10th anniversary. WOW can't believe it has been 10 years. We went to a Lonestar Concert. It was lots of fun.

Rebekah started 1st grade and is super smart.

Elisabeth started 3rd grade and is soo smart and making new friends.

Ian (my cousin) came home from his mission from South Africa. Everyone came over for food and fun.

Kayla turned 1. She is pulling herself up on everthing and crawls wherever she want to go.

July Fun

Wow, it's halfway through August and I'm finally writing about what we did in July. July was lots of fun.

We went to Cris and Tiffany's new baby's blessing. They had a cute baby boy.

We went and visited with the Ostlers at their campsite up American Fork canyon. Jim (Jason's cousin) and Megan and their two kids were visiting from California. We had smores and dutch oven potatoes and desserts (yummy).

We went to lavender days with Alisha and my mom. The fields in Mona were all purple from the lavender. It was pretty. They had a brunch, josting, boat rides, princess tea party, western shoot out, and a climbing wall. Jason and I did the climbing wall. I was pretty impressed with myself for getting to the top. Here is a picture of Kayla eating at the brunch.


So, Jason was out doing yard work at night and came running in the house. He told me there was a skunk running around our yard. I was totally surprised. We haven't seen a skunk ever in the 9 years that we have lived in our house. Here's a picture of the skunk in our yard.


Elisabeth and Rebekah went to BYU Cheer Camp for a week. The had a lot of fun. Rebekah says she wants to be a BYU Cheerleader when she gets big. Total surprise to us. She is soo cute.

We went to Yellowstone for a day with Brian, Trina and Madison. I'm glad we went. The kids loved seeing all the sites: waterfalls, old faithful, painted pots, buffalo, elk... We have one picture with us all looking at the camera (very rare).

We saw lots of wildlife. We went and saw a waterfall and when we came back to our car their was a buffalo eating grass right by it. Wow. Never been that close to a buffalo before. The kids said that I picked the best parking spot.

We went to Afton, WY for a family reunion with Jason's family. We had lots of fun. The kids played together great. We had a talent show. Played soccer games. Went bike riding. Jason went fishing. Played on the playground. We went on a hike to Intermetent Falls. It was super pretty. During late summer it suppose to turn off and on every 15 min.


We are super lame and have no other pictures from the reunion. Send us pictures please =).

June Happenings

This month has been exciting. We started the month out with Elisabeth and Rebekah performing in the Sleeping Beauty ballet. They were bluebirds, sooo cute.

Elisabeth and I both donated our hair for Locks of Love. Elisabeth had 11 inches cut off and I had 13 inches cut off. It's been fun to have short hair. It is alot easier to style and cooler for the summer. They cut more than I wanted them too...

We went camping with Jason's family in American Fork Canyon. It was fun. We had pizza for dinner and did smores. My mom watched Kayla and Jacob. We were worried about Jacob running in the river. It is amazing how much less work it was not having Kayla and Jacob.

Rebekah lost her two front teeth. She is sooooo happy.

Jason's truck was stolen =(. We only had it for 6 months. We were surprised that someone took it. It was a '97 Toyota T100. It looked nice but was older. Now we are working with the insurance company to get what the truck was worth so we can replace it.

Laci (my cousin) gave birth to a baby boy. June 9, 2009 Stede Richard. He is super cute.

June has had some weird weather. Almost the entire month the temperature didn't make it above 80 degrees. It rained lots too. The kids kept asking when they were going to be able to go swimming. I loved the nice cool weather. One day they had fun running around in the rain.

Rachel (Jason's sister) had a baby shower at our house. She is having a girl in the middle of August. It was a fun shower. Played lots of games and had yummy food.

Alisha had her baby shower at our house. She has nice friends. It was a good time.

Kari, Jeff, Bradley and Emma visited from Georgia. They were here for a couple of days. It was tons of fun. We went swimming at the legacy center and at my mom's pool, went fishing, went out to dinner, played Risk, had a baby shower, had a baptism, had a BBQ, and did fireworks.

Elisabeth turned 8 years old this month. She had a friend party. They watched part of High School Musical 3 and had pizza and cake and ice cream. Then they did a pinata. They had a fantastic time dancing to the movie and eating candy.

The most exciting thing that has happened in our lives is Elisabeth's Baptism. She was sooo excited to get baptised. We were grateful for all of the family support. Elisabeth was baptised on the 4th of July. She said that all of the fireworks were for her.

It's a Girl!!

May was lots of busy and fun.

We went and saw the tulips on temple square. They were super pretty.


I went to Atlanta, Georgia for a week (no kids) to see Kari, Jeff and Bradley. We went shopping, to the aquarium, mexican food, Red Robin, Underground Atlanta and to the hospital.

Kari went into labor the night before she was to be induced. She went into labor at 12:15am Monday Night. Got to the hospital at 1:15am and was at 10 cm. Emma Katherine was born at 5:07am and weighed 8 lbs 6 oz, and was 21 inches in length.

Jason did a great job taking care of the kids while I was gone.

Elisabeth and Rebekah had their Jazz dance recital. They did a fantastic job and love dancing.

Elisabeth and Rebekah also had their dance festivals at school. Rebekah did a cute hawiian dance and Elisabeth did a country line dance. Both did fantastic and were super cute. They got straight A's in school and are now out of school for the summer.

For Memorial Day we went fishing with Brian and his crew. We didn't catch anything. The water was too murky from the snow runoff and the rain. It was nice to be in the mountains. It was super pretty.

Easter was a lot of fun. We had my mom, Alisha, Brian, Trina, and Madison over for dinner and an easter egg hunt. Rebekah wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny to hide her eggs and her basket. The Easter Bunny accomadated and hid eggs everywhere: basement, upstairs, downstairs, outside ... They had a great time.

On Saturday we went to an Easter Egg hunt in Highland. It was great. They even had sugar cookies to decorate afterwards. That evening we dyed easter eggs.

For Easter Sunday I got the kids all matching outfits. They looked super cute. Here is a picture. I figured it was time for a family picture.

Basement is Finished!!!

More of the basement =). Yeah it's done. Jason, Brian, my mom and I installed the tile and wood floors.

Basement is Finished!!!

Part of finished basement =), Hi Kari.

Life

We've just been living life over the last couple of months. Since Christmas we've been having our basement finished. We installed the flooring and the cabinets. Wood floors in the living room and hallways and we put tile in the bathroom and laundry room. In the basement there will be 3 bedrooms, a laundry room, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. It's going to be super nice. We added a couple of huge windows along the back. Our basement is a walkout. The view from the back is great. It'll be so nice to have it done. Thanks Brian for your help with the floors. Jacob's contribution to the project was breaking the lamp.

We celebrated Jason's Birthday. He is 34 now and loving life. We watched movies and had some cake.

We also attended the Draper Temple Open House. It was such a priviledge to take our family and be able to tell our kids about all the rooms and explain their purpose.

I've been called to be a Relief Society Specailist. I'm in charge of creating and maintaing a blog for the Relief Society in our ward. Check it out http://eaglecrest2ndreliefsociety.blogspot.com/