Life goes on.

Here it is January 2009! Life is busy and I'm currently sitting in my car outside of the building where Spencer has piano lessons. Someone in said building has an unlocked wi-fi so I've hitched a ride onto the internet to blog. This building is also next to a municipal airport and 3 private jets have taken off in the 20 minutes that I've been sitting here. I love listening and watching airplanes take off! Ok. So about Christmas. Everything was great. Our telephone call from Collin was great. We recorded it on the mac and I've gone back and listened to it twice. It's just good to hear his voice. He sounds the same. Even the slightly annoyed part when we were all talking at once. He is doing well and did not get transferred on Monday the 5th of January. He told us in his weekly email that when he does get transferred  he will have spent 1/4 of his mission in Quitman. He and his comp had 4 more baptisms over the weekend. They're having success there. He gave Melissa a Texas Longhorn shirt for Christmas. She likes it and it looks good on her. Especially with the old cowboy boots we have. 

Emily is working hard towards everything. She made California All State Honor Choir! Yipee! She will perform in March in Pasadena. Should be fun. Her most notable Christmas present was a bicycle. It is an Electra Alexander Girard Art bike called the "Madonna." It has LOTS of personality and little old ladies roll down their car windows when they see her and say stuff like, "You have a beautiful bike!" It's true too.

Madelyn is playing club volleyball and also got a cool bike for Christmas. Her's is the same make but a different model. It's called the red tulip or something like that. It's bright yellow with red tulips painted all over it. Cool. In volleyball she is the setter. Her coach asked her if she wanted that position and she declined at first. She wanted to be a hitter. They had a conversation about it and she understood that he sees things that she can't. He told her that he thought she had the presence of mind to be a good setter so she happily accepted. Now she practices setting over and over and over and over and over....

Spencer wants to do everything and we're trying to find the time to let him do just that.  I do wish that everything was a bit closer. He received a lego train for Christmas and our ward missionaries helped him put it together on Christmas morning. It has lots of track. He loves playing with his cousins.

Melissa had a blast playing with her cousins over New Years and wishes that she could have brought home one of their puppies. 

Just some other notes. We made a real quick trip to AZ to spend New Years at my sister's house. We stayed up until 2 am, shot off fireworks and ate too much junk food. Rich rode his bike all over the Phoenix metro area and ended up on the new light rail system there. He said it was fun.

I got the bike I had hoped for and it truly is a beautiful bike. I hope to have Emily, Madelyn and I ride our bikes in a local bike event in February. 

We went and saw 2 movies over break. Marley and Me and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Marley and me wasn't what I expected. It's more of an adult movie than a kid movie. Benjamin Button was great!