12 Days of Pictures-Day 12

Emma, in Christmas finery, December 2006 (she'd been home about a month).

12 Days of Pictures-Day 11

We made our annual pilgrimage to see the lights on Temple Square last night, along with thousands of other families for FHE. This is a photo in front of the tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building lobby.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 10

12 Days of Pictures-Day 9

This is an old favorite from Italy in 2001

12 Days of Pictures-Day 8

Christmas Tree 2010. We had a fake tree for several years (which I liked mostly because you can bend the branches around at all sorts of strange angles to meet your ornament-placing needs), but we lost more and more lights every year so we decided to get the genuine article this time. Smells good and fits well in the back corner of the living room. Isn't it funny that we put actual trees in our houses and then string lights on them and hang stuff on the branches?

12 Days of Pictures-Day 7

Here's a nice Spring-like photo for the Winter doldrums. Denny is here with her sisters Barbralicious and Julie-boolie. Ok then.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 6

Emma and I in some airport on one of the legs of our trip home from China.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 5

Here's a photo of our front yard on December 27, 2003, after one of the biggest snowstorms in Utah's history. You can see the broken branches in our yard and across the street in Liberty Park. The day before (Boxing Day!), after more than a foot of snow had fallen, Joe and I decided to hike up to Smith's on 9th and 9th to get some milk to make hot chocolate. We strapped on our snow boots, etc., and trudged up to the store and bought a gallon of milk. On the way back, Joe helped two or three vehicles get unstuck from the snow (it was a baaaad day for driving). We probably spent two hours total out in the snow, trudging and digging. The last car that got unstuck accidentally backed up over our gallon of milk. Kersplash. We were almost home by then and decided not to hike back for more. So no hot chocolate. But it was lots of fun all the same.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 4

This is one that I like. October 14, 2004 at a train station somewhere between London and Edinburgh. It was a great trip filled with many new adventures. My dad has always been a train freak, and loved studying the maps and train schedules. Ok then.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 3

Hmmm....looking through the photo archives for something out of the ordinary. How about March 2005. I accompanied Joe on a work trip to Nashville and we took a side trip to Memphis to visit Graceland. So here's me in Elvis' pristine shrine of a living room.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 2

As part of our Thanksgiving festivities in Phoenix this year, we went for a hike to a tower that overlooked a couple of valleys. At this same time there were single-digit temperatures back home. Thanks to Uncle Mike and family for the fun hike and the following week of screamin' muscles! Ok then.

12 Days of Pictures-Day 1

Our friends over at The Spring Garden are doing 12 Days of Pictures. I like the idea and told Genevieve I was stealing it. So here's our first picture -- Emma in the pool on our recent Thanksgiving trip to Phoenix. It wasn't perfect swimming weather, but it sure beat the temps in Salt Lake that weekend (so we heard), and Emma was undaunted.

Popping with Parental Pleasure over our Pretty Principal's Pride Pupil

So Emma won a major award today! She was nominated by her kindergarten teacher to win a Principal's Pride prize at school (in the category of "Caring"), along with about a dozen other kids from grades K-3. You can view the ceremony below. Do excuse the bragging, but we're awfully proud of our little girl.

Our GymCat Goes to a Wedding

Joe reports: A couple of weeks ago Em and I were cruisin' the back roads headed for the Mav at the Point of the Mountain. I glanced to my right and saw a building with the word "Gymcats" on the side, so we did a little wandering around and found ourselves in the lobby asking permission to look around.

It was a large gym with about 100 kids of all ages jumping, vaulting, stretching, tumbling, and balancing in various classes. Emma was quite impressed. We have wanted to get her into a class to channel her energies and help her concentration, so we went back and had her admitted to a class the next week.

She loves it! It helps that she is a natural (according to her coach, Michelle). She is the most limber person on the floor, as attested to by the following:

Denny reports: Check out the photo below...same group as in the previous post, Joe's parents and siblings decked out in finery for niece Marianne's wedding to handsome Eddie. (Marianne is Robyn and Jeff's daughter.) The proceedings took place last Saturday (oh it was a pretty day for a wedding).

And here is the freshly minted couple in their nuptial splendor:

And Emma looks pretty fetching herself. I love that her dress matches Marianne's perfectly (wasn't planned that way, but looks like they should be in a magazine).

Emma sitting under the Keebler Elf trees by the temple.

And I love these shots of Em and her cousin Josh at the wedding lunch, a five and a seven year old looking like a slightly bored middle-aged couple.

It was a wonderful day. Congratulations to Marianne and Eddie!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and we had a bash for her at Boo's house. All of Emma's aunts and uncles from my side were there, and we actually got a picture with everybody looking at the camera at the same time (a birthday miracle!). Happy birthday to my mom, who raised seven kids and has 24 grandkids (Emma Claire being the youngest and named after her). We love you mom! Ok then.

Wir lieben Oktoberfest

Hasn't the weather been heartrendingly gorgeous the last little while? September is my favorite month (it's so mild, colorful, nostalgic, hazy), but it whizzes by in a nanosecond. Sometimes you have to stop and grab it. On Saturday morning we thought it would be fun to drive up to Snowbird -- quaff some early autumn mountain air and take Emma for a tram ride. Seize September! When we got to the parking lot we saw 50 trillion cars. Oh yeah....Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest!! Well whoop-de-doodley-do, this ought to be fun. And it was -- SO MUCH FUN!

First...behold the stunning vistas.

I mean..really. This is just jaw-droppingly magnificent, worldclass outdoorsiness. And it's only about a half hour away.

So we rode the tram up to the tippy top of whatever mountain it goes to. I'm usually averse to dangling high up in the air in a conveyance. But this tram seems sturdier than most. Plus, I couldn't recall ever hearing about a Snowbird tram plunging accidentally to the ground (and my abject condolences to all those involved if it has), so I rode it (twice!) virtually qualm-free.

I think the last time I rode the Snowbird tram was in 1995, with Joe. We'd been dating about a month. We rode it to the top then thought it might be "fun" to hike down. It took about four hours as I recall...four hours of pleasant chit-chat and increasingly barking dogs. We could hardly move the next day. That's us, 15 years ago this month.

I told Joe (on the second ride up on Saturday) that little did we know in 1995 that in 2010 we'd be riding the tram with our 5-year-old daughter....

After we rode the tram, we went to the big white tent where the Polkatonics were playing and Yo-Yo Man was yo-yo-ing. We stood in line for food. (Mostly Joe stood in line. Emma and I watched a bunch of kids play musical chairs up near the stage, supervised by a no-nonsense fellow in green lederhosen. Emma declined to participate, perhaps freaked out by lederhosen guy.) The food was stick-to-your ribs German fare: Brats (mmmm, with spicy horseradishy mustard), sauerkraut, German potato salad, red cabbage, potato pancakes with sour cream or applesauce, or both. Washed down with Sprite.

After lunch Emma stood in line for a half hour to do bungy trampoline. You had to be at least 30 pounds. I think Emma weighed in at about 38, with clothes.

The nice lady told her that her bungy number was "40" (they round up on the weight) and to be SURE to remember it so she could tell the other nice lady in charge of hooking her up. Don't forget! Your bungy number is 40! So Emma stood and waited and I looked over at her every once in awhile and could see her whispering "Forty....forty....forty" to herself.

Here she is fretting about forgetting "forty."

But then it was her turn and she got strapped in and was on her way.

She even tried a few flips.

Then Emma and Baba decided to ride the Peruvian chair lift, but that particular high-up conveyance is beyond my abilities to enjoy. Call me a fraidy cat. (Emma certainly did..."Fraidy cat! Fraidy cat!") So I sat blissfully in the sun on a bench for half an hour and watched Oktoberfesters go by.

And Baba took a picture of the view from the top:

It was a really really fun day. I want to go to Oktoberfest every year now.

Stuff We Did in August

Ok, this was in September, but still part of summer fun. Here is Emma in the water at the upper Provo River below the falls.

We went camping a couple weekends ago, somewhere round about Payson. A little campground called Maple Bench that we've been to a few times.

This time we discovered a little lake nearby. Maybe it was just a big pond. Whatever it was, we walked all the way around it (and it didn't take long).

On another day Em and I went to the Hogle Zoo with her good pal Cannon and his mom Michelle. Oh, it was a pretty day to be at the zoo. We went to the bird show, saw the baby elephant rolling around in the mud, saw a great big gorilla really up close (it looked like a person in a gorilla suit).

One early evening we drove up to the flight park close by our house and Joe snapped some good photos of the paragliders. There were plenty of them out that night. (Click to enlarge these photos...they're really cool.)

Emma enjoyed scampering on the grass (watch out for landing gliders, young missy).

And the great big August event...Emma started kindergarten. Would have taken the official first-day-of-school picture in the out-of-doors, but it was raining cats and dogs.

But then it cleared up by the time we headed over to the bus stop.

Thar she blows...

And there she goes...

So far so good with kindergarten. Em has 1 week under her belt and is an old hand at it now.

And to wrap things up...Joe's been taking photos of the Draper temple lately. So we'll end with a gloomy shot...
...and a glorious shot.

That's all for now....