Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Phillip! What a great guy I am married to! He will be 37 years old on Sunday and I am so happy I get to grow old with him. This year has been a busy one for him. He finished up with being the Elders Quorum President and became a counselor in the Young Men's presidency and now he is the Young Men's president. In February 08 he took me on a trip to Florida and then on a five day cruise for our 15 year anniversary. He spent 6 weeks in ID helping out the Airman Leadership School at Mountain Home AFB since they needed another instructor. He finished up his 4 years as an instructor at the ALS here at Fairchild AFB in Spokane. Now he is back to being a chaplain assistant and is enjoying it although he found that he loved teaching and will miss it. He received a serious injury to his right knee playing a softball game and had surgery in September and is still receiving physical therapy to get back to normal. He took us on a great trip through Yellowstone this past summer and on to Cody, WY for a family reunion of all the descendants of Buffalo Bill. He finished up one master's degree and is currently in the last class to finish his second. We are so proud of him and love him even more than ever! He works so hard and does so much for his family! I have known him and loved him for 20 years and I feel so lucky to be on this journey with him. Happy birthday babe!

It isn't really Christmas until we do the Nativity

"This is the season, beloved of the year. Sing a rhyme, Christmas-time soon will be here."

Tell the true story of Jesus' birth, when as a baby, he came to the earth

"This is the new star, shining so bright, lighting the world on that first Christmas night."

"This is the angel, proclaiming the birth, singing "Hosanna!" and "Peace on the earth!"

"These are the shepherds, humble and mild, hast'ning to worship the heavenly child.

"These are the wise men, who followed the star, Frankincense, gold and myrrh brought from afar."

" See the sweet Mother, Mary so fair. Joseph, who guided the donkey with care. See the dear baby of Bethlehem, Little Lord Jesus the Savior of men." -THE NATIVITY SONG

This was a wonderful Christmas! We were hoping to see our family over the mountains but the weather was too scary for us! We stayed home and continued to be buried in snow. We (mom)tried to stay inside and we enjoyed our friends and family here. We even had an unexpected house guest one night because the snow was so bad a lot of roads were closed and our good friend Gino Bartmess (who Phil worked with in Korea) couldn't get home. He came and had Family Home Evening with us and the Hoggans who happened to be here also that night for FHE and some games. A wild game of SPOONS and a deadly game of MAFIA!! That was a fun night!

The kids spent a lot of time outdoors in the snow and Phil took them to the sledding hill a few times. We were happy to have our niece Paige with us. We kidnapped her from her parents after her brothers wedding weekend. The kids had a great time with her! Jerika is already missing her (she had to go back yesterday).

We are excited for the New Year! It should be a good one!!