Highlights from 2023: Time together with family and friends. Perks at Sundance such as dinners/Bluebird Cafe/cabin stays/cantatas/film festivals/skiing/harvest markets/theater/etc. Attending theatre plays with friends at Hale Center, Pickleville, Sundance and Tuacahn. Our adventurous travels which include a 9-day Greek cruise with friends (including our favorite stops to Jerusalem and Nazareth/Capernaum/Galilee), several camping trips, 10 days in Hawaii with friends, Logan UT with family complete with a murder mystery dinner party, twice to Escalante one of which included a 12.95 mile hike through Coyote Gulch, Bear Lake for a fun friend trip, our Hall Family Reunion in St George and our Wilkey Family reunion in mid west to visit a bunch of church history sites including Nauvoo, Carthage, Far West, Adam-Ondi-Ahman, Independence and Liberty. We’ve loved attending BYU games: football, volleyball, basketball and soccer. We have the best Neighborhood and fun monthly gatherings (in the warmer months), we love serving with the youth and enjoyed girls camp and youth conference with them.
Blain & Heidi
Blain won a Gozney Roccbox (a pizza oven) at a golf tournament and has perfected the 90 second fire cooked personal sized pizza. Heidi has perfected the sourdough pizza crust to go with that oven as a result of her year long quest to make sourdough as our only source of bread. Blain has cured his heartburn, not by prescription or surgery as the doctors have suggested but by intermittent fasting. Gone. 100%….as long as he continues to intermittent fasting, which isn’t a problem because it also has another positive side effect, weight loss. Upon finding out that our school district canceled Camp Big Springs (a 5 day camp for 5th graders) Heidi put together a backyard camp for Lia and her 10 closest friends called Camp Little Springs. They had a lot of fun with all kinds of adventures - ropes course, a day at Sundance to ride the lift and do a hike and lunch at the restaurant, swimming at my cousins pool. Lots of fun camp songs, and camp food and even a camp store. Camp classes and storytelling and very little sleep for 3 nights.
Christian & Monica
Christian and Monica have big news. They are expecting baby number two in May. Details to come on the gender. Monica has been a trooper because her pregnancies are pretty rough but things are starting to get better. She is the best mommy and loves her time together with Huxton. Huxton is obsessed with cars. Cars in any form are his favorite right now whether that’s the movie Cars, toy cars, cars driving down the street or toy cars he rides on. He has a very extensive vocabulary for a little guy who’s not even two yet. Some of his favorite words are fruit snack - fruip nack, come… - cup, sit, play cars, sticker book - tigger book, binky - minky, Mater - mayner, Drummer boy - dummer boy, Ladybug - Ladid bug And Buddy has the best hair so far (maybe in the whole family). Christian has been training and plans to run a marathon this summer. He’s doing great with his progression and proudly acknowledges that he is now past the below average for his health and age. He is working hard for Rainbow Restoration, and he still does home loans on the side. He and Monica purchased their first home this year. They got a cute condo in American Fork.
Addy (20)
Has served faithfully for the last 16 1/2 months on her mission. She has been serving in the North Dakota Bismarck mission and is currently in Bismarck. She will finish out her mission there and return home on February 17. We could not be more excited to see her. Her love and testimony of our Savior has grown immensely and she will miss being a missionary and special witness of Jesus Christ. She has also discovered about herself that she wants to live in a small town. This works out well for two reasons. She now thinks she’s from the South and speaks with an accent and she is headed to a small town called Rexburg, ID for school in April where she will be majoring in Music with an emphasis in Vocal Performance at BYU-Idaho.
Jack (18)
Finished his senior year at Timpview High and graduated with honors. For his senior trip he and his best buddy headed to Hawaii for a week, he chose that over his Senior Prom, oh well. He has been accepted to both Utah Valley University and BYU. He decided to accept both and wait to decide where he’ll attend until after his mission. He is so excited to serve a two year mission for our church and has worked hard his whole life to save for this. He was called to serve in the Argentina, Neuguen Mission and started his Home MTC on Aug 28th then left for the Provo MTC on Sep 5th. He is now in Argentina and loving it. He worked several jobs to save for his mission including mowing lawns for neighbors, landscaping, Christmas tree lots and BYU events. He left on a high note of finally beating his dad at golf so he holds the current “trophy”.
Lauren (15)
This year Lauren and Lia tried an online school for their core classes. Lauren also goes to THS for her Dance Crew team and her seminary class. It seems to be a good fit for her. She loves to dance and loves her Dcrew team. She has been invited to sing a few times with a fun nondenominational night of worship songs. She’s the youngest one by far and she can hold her weight. She’s enjoyed a great week down at Snow College attending FSY (youth church conference) with a friend. She got her learners permit but doesn’t love driving. And she works hard at 3 different jobs teaching piano lessons, working at the snow cone shack over the summer and her cleaning job she’s had since she was 11.
Lia (11)
Lia finished up 5th at Rock Canyon Elementary where some of the highlights were being Christa McCauliffe in the wax museum, participating in Colonial Days and our last field trip to the State Capitol. She has also been doing an online public charter school for 6th grade, but participates in early morning choir at the grade school. She decided to audition for the school play Lion King Jr and got the role as Sarabi which will be in Feb next year. She is the youngest in our family, but well on her way to being the tallest girl in the family. She checks almost daily! She is finally graduated from Primary and looking forward to being in Young Women’s next year. She loves to play soccer and ski.
