Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to Lloyd and Kristi!

They celebrated 26 years today! Congratulations!

It's Christmas Time!

Here is Mom's Christmas village this year. Enjoy!

11

Here you go grandma. The picture you've been asking for.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Leah!

Today is Leah's 2nd birthday! Have a fun day cute girl!

Happy Birthday

We also had two birthdays this last week!

Jason on the 29th!

And Jordan on the 30th!

Jordan turned 22. Weird.

Happy Birthday guys! Hope each of you had a good birthday!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to Amy and Tarquennis!

Congratulations! We hope you had a wonderful day!

Oh. P.S. Their anniversary was on November 27th.

Letters

I'm not sure why Holly didn't post this, becasue I think it's dang cute! So I'll send it in for her.

Holly asked Shannon to write a letter to Spencer, and Shannon took Holly very seriously. She sat down and wrote letters for Spencer. She even made the letter R dance. Read Holly's notes on the letter for more info. What a cute girl!

Family DVD

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A FAMILY DVD THIS YEAR AND YOU ARE HOPING THAT I WILL DO IT..................

GET ME PHOTOS BY NOVEMBER 30, 2010

no photos= no dvd

-Tricia

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Miles!

His birthday was yesterday and he turned 6! Happy birthday Miles! Hope you had a fun day!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Teresa!

She turns 26 today! Happy Birthday! We love you!

He's Here!

Tadd Alan Blair was born 10.29.2010 at 8:44 pm. He was 7 lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long! We're so happy he's here! More pictures to come lately. Right now I'm just really tired!

The Brown Family

The Payne Family

Don't miss the post below!

The Many Faces of Amy (some of them anyway....)

Birthdays

On the 26th two of our family member's celebrated their birthdays!

Happy Birthday to Sara!

And happy birthday to Jose!

We love you both and hope you had great days of birth!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Cassie today!

Today Cassie turned 3! We hope you had a very fun birthday!

Happy Anniversary!

Mindy and Jason celebrated their anniversary yesterday! Congratulations you two! We hope it was a wonderful day!

Birthday and An Anniversary

Teresa and Keith celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary on October 8th!

Emma celebrated her birthday on October 9th!

Happy Birthday Emma!

Baptisms and History

Last week, Grandma and I had a very nice trip to the east coast. Nice because of the time we were privileged to spend with family, and nice because of the chance we had to visit some of the very special historical sites of our great country.

We flew to Baltimore on Saturday, Sep. 18. On Sunday after attending church with the Duncans and Matt and Amanda's family, we had the privilege of participating in the baptism of Katrina and Lydia. I must confess that what makes me feel the oldest is watching other people's children growing up. It seems to happen so fast! Those girls are so grown up and we are so very proud of them.

On Monday (20th) we had a great play day. Matt and his kids took us to a very nice miniature golf course. It was like a regular golf course in miniature. Lots of curves and water traps, bumps and other challenges, but no windmills, clowns, or other gimmicks. Each hole had a net available so that you could fish your ball out of the water, and those nets got a lot of use from us. It was especially fun to watch Miles and his very creative counting of strokes. We then had lunch at Red Robin, spent the afternoon at Deep Run park near the Duncan home where the kids had a blast playing on the playground equipment. And, the day was made complete by attending a movie at a very historic old theater in Richmond. The Byrd theater has been beautifully restored and maintained. Look it up on Google. We watched "Despicable Me" which surprised me because I actually enjoyed it.

The next day, we drove to Philadelphia. I say "drove" but it was more like "creep". There were accidents along the beltway that caused us to literally double the drive time from Richmond to Philadelphia. We did make one fun stop at a diner at Tyson's Corner near D.C. and near where we used to live in Vienna, VA. It was called the Silver Diner and it had a complete 1950s theme including music from that era. It even had an old jukebox control box at each booth.

Our visit in Philadelphia was awe-inspiring and humbling. To see the Liberty Bell. To see the place where the Declaration of Independence was debated and signed, and to feel the presence in that room of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and others..... I was a bit overwhelmed. We owe those men so much -- so very much. Note the chandelier with candles. And, that very hard to see small box on the floor that looks like a kitty litter box was an old time spittoon.

We visited the Betsy Ross house and the picture that I am providing is her workroom where the first American flag was created. We also visited the grave site of Benjamin Franklin and his wife Deborah.

I can't tell you how affected I was by visiting these historically hallowed sites. Where would we be today without those dedicated patriots. And, how far have we strayed as a country from the ideals that were revealed to and exemplified by those great ones.

The following day we drove up to Danville to visit with Heidi's family. We had a great time there including attending church with them and attending a Saturday soccer game starring Rachel. We got a lot of enjoyment from a subsequent phone call from Heidi after we got home. On Monday, while we were on our way home, Rachel's team had another game and Rachel scored a goal. How proud we are of her and of all her sisters. They are beautiful girls.

We returned home on Monday, Sep. 27. As with any trip, the best part is getting home again.

One very sad note. While we were out there, we received an email from Mindy telling us that her father-in-law, Dennis Brown, had very suddenly and very unexpectedly, passed away while he and his wife were on a visit with Jason's brother's family in Illinois. We knew him and admired him. He will be sorely missed by all of his family and friends.

We love you guys and hope that you enjoy the pictorial tour we have provided. I have more. If you will just drop in for a visit, I will be pleased to share them with you.

Dad/Grandpa

Christmas!!!

Hey everyone!
Here is our Christmas list for this year, and the lists from the last two years. It just took me about 45 minutes to find the list from 2008 that would help me make sure I did it the right way, so I'm putting all lists here for next year's research. Happy Christmas Thoughts!

Oh, and EVERYONE is invited to my house this year. Especially if you have little children that make Christmas morning fun. If you want, you can just send any children ages 3-14, but if you chose to do this I will only need them from December 23-25. You get them back on the 26th and they will have eaten nothing but candy and mandarin oranges for 3 days.

This Year - 2010

Lori has Mindy

Kristi has Heidi

Jeny has Holly

Amy has Matt

David has Lori

Mindy has Kristi

Heidi has Jeny

Holly has Amy

Matt has David

Years gone by

2009

Lori has David
Kristi has Mindy
Jeny has Heidi
Amy has Holly
David has Matt
Mindy has Lori
Heidi has Kristi
Holly has Jeny
Matt has Amy

2008

Lori has Amy
Kristi has David
Jeny has Mindy
Amy has Heidi
David has Holly
Mindy has Matt
Heidi has Lori
Holly has Kristi
Matt has Jeny

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love, Jeny :)

Happy Anniversary

Happy 1 year anniversary to JD and Monica!

Hope you had a great day today!

Jeny's post for the blog. Don't say I never post. Even though I rarely do

Do you (without cheating by looking it up) know who was in that movie, and about when it was made?

Mark had a guy from the Bonneville Speedway come to his work yesterday to help with some radios he had purchased for the Speed Races this week. He brought along several tickets and other goodies for the races. Since we are responsible adults with jobs that rely on us to get things done, we took today off and went to the salt flats. I have driven through there, but I have never gone to the state park (woohoo! flat salt land as far as the eye can see.) and certainly never to see the fastest cars in the world zip by.

We did not have much time (it tool 3 hours to get there, and Tara didn't get up until 11) so I didn't get the pictures of everything I wanted to, but here's what I got.

A really fast car. I think this one went about 180 MPH. It was not the fastest car we saw. We saw several that went over 200 MPH, but they were too fast for me and my camera.

Our feet on the salt. All that white all around us is just a big field of salt.

Tara's favorite car.

Jeny's favorite car. We didn't have time to get Mark with his favorite. It looked like a giant red bullet.

Now, don't laugh too hard. I was trying to get a still photo but apparently the camera was in movie mode. But it was the best movie of fastness that I got.