ZeeFam

Hello Family and Friends,

We are wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas season of warmth and renewal. May our Savior’s love fill our hearts,    and move us toward good thoughts, good words and good deeds in the coming year.

As for our year’s happenings, pictures seem to say more:

Rachel was Benvolio in Romeo & Juliet (put on by Cedar’s rival high schools — how appropriate.)

Youth conference — What do you do in lava tube caves ?  — spatter glow stick juice everywhere and play tag in the dark, of course.

The oldest, slowest crawdad I’ve ever met.

Congrats to the grad!

I get by with a little help from my cousin.

After some car trouble, we continued our trip to Oregon for uncle Joe’s wedding.  Through Yosemite — much too fast — we’ll need to go back there some day.

Well worth the trip! Very beautiful.

Moj got to visit his oldest sister in March.

The red rocks are fahbulouse, dahling, fahbulouse.

There seems to be an unusual magnetic attraction between this one and the elements.

Mary, and several young women, had a sewing week here in June.  The purse she made seems to have astounding powers.

Actual original footage of our live-in Christmas tree ornament and nativity scene addition.

A year of landmarks for our oldest.  She graduated from seminary and high school, turned 19 and got her first job.  —It was a temporary one, she is just returned from “up north.” (Which means the Salt Lake area, not Santa’s residence.)

With Kolob Canyon in the distance, the yellow shirted helping hands did some major physical labor — planting trees, watering them, spreading bark chips, removing remains of barbed wire fences . . . .

Sometimes we have guests in the evening.

So, I was cleaning piles of papers and books and to do lists and insurance statements and ETC off of surfaces all over the house, and came across the brainstoming paper of what we all wanted on the family website.

So, I see that I forgot several choice tidbits.  So, here they are.

Regarding having student drivers: the required 40 HOURS is way, way, way long!  We could drive to Canada and back to get that many hours!

Also: think of that song/rap “Can’t touch this” dooo do do do.  My mother-of-student-drivers theme: “Don’t hit that! dooo do do do!”  (I think this is identical to the tune, The Commisar’s In Town uh-oh.  But Rachel says not.  I’ll take votes from the general public–put them in the feedback below.)

We got 1 red tomato from our garden last year, and 400 green.  We made relish.  Dan, the ultimate onion-hater, ground up all the stuff — green peppers, green tomatos, ONIONS and everything else.  He thought that grinder thing was pretty cool.  We also got baseball size caneloupes–but sooo good.  And Honeydew.  They were absolutely mouth-watering.

Our favorite at home pastimes are arguing  and teasing.  I really wanted to include several voice clips, but that doesn’t seem to be working.  Just imagine: Awww!  No Fair! that’s so LAME!  and Dan’s famous “PCH!”  I guess I’ll have to get that audio to work.

The black cat looks like she swallowed a bowling ball.  And our calico wants to go in and out 100 times a day.  My real job in life is – doorman.

One evening, I got Rachel to play chess with me (it wasn’t easy).   Not very long into the game she says: “Is your self-esteem high enough yet?”  —meaning, can we quit now?  I’ve helped your ego enough.
Farther into the game, as I was about to take one of her pieces, she said: “Have you ever thought about going to a therapy group — you know, to talk about your problems?  That would work too you know.”  (ie instead of “solve” my inadequacies by beating her at chess)  =)  Teens.  They’re fun.

Common Threat (from Ellen): I’m going to sit on you.

Common joke: You must have arthritis.
History of this: We were talking at the dinner table.  Rachel wanted to tease Moj about forgeting things.  She meant, you must have alshemer’s, but she said, you must have arthritis.

Common Communication :  “The Glare” w/ hands on hips — everyone in the house uses this.  Variations:  “The Look of Distain” “The Haughty / I’m So Sure Look”  & The Scowl.  Also, used for comedy (since it never works): Bambi eyes.  Yes, I’ll work on getting these captured in photo.

So, these were arthritis-ly omitted.  But now they are redeemed.

Hello friends and family!
We hope you enjoy this new format this year. The website has the advantage of not having gone through our less-than-wonderful printer. The photos should be astoundingly better for that. Plus, you’ll get to hear our own voices (if we can figure out how to do that.) –Because, even though Dan is not too talkative –  he does say “That’s so Lame!” at least twenty times a day.  And you should hear it!

And the kids get their own page. That should be good. (Yes, don’t worry, I’ll give them the lecture: None of the 5 D’s. (For the non-initiated, the 5 D’s are: death, debt, disease, distaster, or disgusting.) These are not allowed at the dinner table or at church or fine social settings or . . . .)
So, we hope you’ll like it.
Wishing everyone a peaceful  Christmas, and an year of growth and successes.

The Family’s Favorite Links:

Simon’s Cat: Let Me In

Simon’s Cat: Cat Man Do

and the other Simon’s  Cat videos are OK too.

The Engineer’s Guide to Cats — note especially the “I’m Ignoring You” game

The All-Time Greatest: the Mom Song

Rock Lobster (the B-52’s) — back in fashion in our house because of the Veggie Tales movie The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything —Their “Rock Monster” was hilarious.

Technologic — well, the song is OK, and we sing it to each other now and then, like when some program won’t work—but I didn’t know that its video is so creepy . . . . so if you want, just listen with the screen minimized.

What you’ll hear at our house:

Dan: “That’s So Lame”

(sorry, still can’t get the audio file to play)

The Year’s Photo Highlights: