Neighborhood Christmas Party 2011

For the past several years we have had a neighborhood Christmas party at my house.  Everyone brings cookies or treats to share and each year we choose a different charity to donate to as a neighborhood.  This year it was the Utah Foster Care Foundation.  My friend, Michelle, has fostered and then adopted three boys over the past few years (cute kids!) and so she chose the charity for us.  In the past we have done the Road Home, the Utah Food Bank, and Primary Children's Hospital.  It's a fun way to start the Holidays! 

Michelle, Heidi, Judd and their kiddos

Becca and Jennifer

Riding the bench - Harrison, Judd, Aaron, Colin and Ryan

The cookie grabbing begins!

Everyone having a good time visiting

I had to keep her from inhaling 10 treats

My cute kid

Loree, Michelle and Lou(ri)

Cindy, Rachel and Kristen

Cute girls!

Can you believe there is a two year age difference?  Guess which one is older.

Loree, Lou(ri), Me, Cori and Kristen - the five of us used to all live across the street and next to each other, but Loree and Cori moved.  It was great to be back together for a minute!

September 21, 2010: Fire Part 2

When we got out of church on Sunday, we smelled smoke and saw that there was a fire up on the mountain. No one knew anything about it, but it was on the backside of the mountain, so we guessed that it was coming from Camp Williams. A little while after we got home, I went out on my back deck and this is what it looked like.
I went out to the front yard and took this picture:
We were supposed to go down to Orem for Sunday dinner at my aunt and uncle's house, but decided to wait to see what was going to happen. Around 7:45pm we put the kids down to bed and I went over to my mom's house to see what it looked like from there.


Once I saw flames on top of the mountain, I called Dave and said, "Let's pack it up." If we did end up being evacuated, we didn't want it to be at 4:00am. We took about an hour and a half to go through our house and loaded up both of our cars with pictures, computers, etc. When we were about to leave, it was dark, but we could smell the smoke pretty badly at that point and knew that it was getting a lot worse. The following pictures were taken by friends.


When I pulled out onto the highway and saw the entire mountain on fire I burst into tears. It really looked like entire developments were being burned (I learned later that they were ok) and because it was so dark and there was so much smoke, it was hard to tell where the fire really was. We went down to my aunt and uncle's house and stayed the night there, but I didn't go to sleep until they had lifted the mandatory evacuation for the area around Josh's school. The pictures below were taken yesterday by a friend of mine.


This is from a park down the street.

You can see how close it got to houses. The firefighters did an incredible job of keeping the fire from burning houses. When our governor went home Sunday at 1:30am, he estimated that 25 to 100 hours would be burned. Three were completely burned to the ground. There is damage to other houses, but they should be ok. A few of my friends live in areas that are still evacuated and they can't go back to their houses yet.

Today the fire is 25% contained, but there is a high wind warning at noon. Anyone who has been to my area of the valley knows that the winds we get here can get 40-50mph winds pretty quickly. School was in session today, but I may be picking Josh up early just in case. I'm still processing all of the emotions that went into the past 48 hours.

June 29, 2010: Neighborhood Block Party

Every year for the past about five or so years we have started off the summer with a neighborhood block party. We stick to the same schedule - bike parade followed by a bring-your-own-meat and side something BBQ. We roll out the grills and the guys start grilling while the kids ride their bikes and run all over the place and the women sit in the shade and talk and ooh and ahh over whatever new babies have been born. It's awesome, and a tradition that I hope we are still doing 20 years from now.

This year the food was held at my house and the shade was held at Lou's house across the street. We dragged out our awning and with the help of my fabulous next door neighbor, we set up tables and color coordinated the tablecloths. My kids worked on decorating their bikes and scooters with crepe paper and all was well.

Xanadu....

Josh and the super-decorated bike

Kate

Clara and her bestie, Caitlin

Michelle taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. Her camera is bigger than mine.

Mindy taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

The starting line for the bike parade. The kids ride around our triangle.

Heidi, Judd and Aliyah

The one shot I got of Josh because he was too fast.

Yeah - no shoes. Awesome.

Lou Lou and Keysha

Jennifer stole Sienna for a snuggle

Scott and Jennifer

Jennifer, Sienna, Barbara, Shelley and Marshall

The newest baby on the block!

Dave the grill master - he wasn't being very social. He said it was too hot.

Myka

Light Saber Wars

Greg and Caitlin

One of these days I am going to go through all of my pictures and put together a big book of block parties. Yeah - one of these days. We had a great time, great turnout, and missed those who weren't able to join us this year!

June 5, 2010 - The Amazing Race: Salt Lake City Part One

This is going to come in installments! What a night! Our friends, Natalie and Collin planned a huge Amazing Race. They sent out an email a month or so ago asking who would like to participate so we signed up. Then we got our team assignments about a week ago. Unfortunately at the last minute two of our team members had to back out due to premature labor, but Nat found us alternates and that worked out well because they agreed to drive.

We all met at Collin's parents' house to start the race and get our instructions. Our team was called "Encantado". Below are some of the other teams who joined in. I think there were 10-12 teams in all, and each team had six people.

Marcy and Randall

Jason as "Mr. T."

Rachel

The "P.I." team. All of their last names start with P.

Our fabulous hosts - Natalie and Collin!