Another Christmas Gone!

Well, we had a busy, but enjoyable Christmas this year! It was so great to be able to see Kim and Mark, Deanna and Dave, and all of our other relatives over the last week and a half. Deanna and Dave's daughter, Lauren, has grown up so much since August! She is so smart, and so fun now, as she is talking all the time, and does the funniest things.

Here is Lauren at Mary's house for the Bennett Family Christmas get together on December 23. This is what she did when we asked her to show us where her gums were. It was too funny. Deanna and her are staying down in Lethbridge at Mom and Dad's house for the rest of the month, as Deanna is on bed rest for now, and there are more of us to help her out down here. I am so excited to see Lauren lots while they are here.

We had a great Christmas and were spoiled beyond belief. Kevin's big gift is a new hunting bow (Ross Cardiac, '08). Unfortunately, it has not made it up from the states yet, but Chad's parents are going to bring it back up for us sometime this week. Our nephew, Austin, also got a hunting bow, so he is excited to go out shooting targets with Kevin as soon as he gets his bow adjusted. My big gift is some house renovations that Kevin is going to start!! I am so excited. He is re-doing our pantry to add more shelves and storage space, and then beginning on our main-floor bathroom, which we hardly use because everything is broken in it in some way. It is going to be great. He is also working on fixing my car radio so that I can get reception out here in Stirling (aparently by antenna is broken).

For Boxing day, Kevin was asked to play in a Stirling School Alumni Basketball tournament. Here are some pictures of my amazingly talented husband.

Kevin's team won 3rd place out of 6 teams. It turned out to be a lot of fun. The fundraiser was a huge success, and we are pretty sure that this tournament will be an annual event now.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We have been enjoying our Christmas tree for over a month already (I put it up the week after Remembrance Day)! Our living room isn't quite big enough for our tree, so we had to do some major furniture rearranging. It's a little tight now, but at least we got it to fit - and even in front of the window! My piano students have been quite thrilled about our tree, as it has a remote for the lights. With the flick of a switch, all of the white lights turn off, and the colored lights come on!! It got to the point where I would have to hide my tree light remote because they would be more interested in changing the colors of my tree lights each week rather than play the piano!


On that note, I've really enjoyed teaching piano to a few of the kids around Stirling. I don't have too many students, but I think that I have the best ones. They did such a good job at our Christmas recital last week! I took them to the Raymond Hospital Extended Care, and we were able to entertain the residents that are currently staying there. They even got a chance to visit with a few of them after the recital! Piano lessons will start up again in January.


The best news of the week is that I have completed all of my final exams for the semester. Even better than that is the fact that I will never have to take a University exam again if I choose not to! I only have one semester left, and I will be doing a practicum for that semester at Magrath Elementary School, teaching grade 5 social studies. Mrs. Lorna Dorner will be my teacher mentor there for the next four months. Kevin is especially excited about this change, because now I will be home to help make dinner when he is working late! No more long nights studying for me!

Here is a picture of the desk that I have been living at for many, many days over the last four years.... a little messy right now, but it will be clean soon, now that I my studying days are over!!!!!!!

Actually, I didn't mind being stuck inside studying for the last few days. Doing anything INSIDE looked like a much better idea than working OUTSIDE! I feel bad for Kevin every morning as he puts on his five layers of clothing to go work at the feedlot! Brrr! We had a huge dump of snow a few days ago, and it keeps snowing off and on since then, with North winds to boot! Time to bust out the hot chocolate! I wasn't even able to get my car out of the driveway until Monday, and the wind has gone and blown a snow drift right behind it again last night, so it looks like I might not be going anywhere today either.

Here is a look at our cold-looking house.

We are re-painting the outside this Spring.

So much snow!!!!! The best thing is when the snow-plower piles the snow from the road right at the end of our driveway. Jimmy had to come clear the snow away with the skid steer this week so that I could get my car out.

My Church Calling

Since September 2007, I have been having a lot of fun working with the young women in our ward. At the moment, I am the 1st counsellor in the YW's, and get to be mainly involved with the Miamaid girls, age 14-16. Right now there are only three Miamaids in our ward - Sarah and Jacquie Miller, and Allana Davison. We have a TON of fun.

Last week all of the YW leaders in the Stake were asked to submit a photo of the leaders from their ward at Stake leadership training. It was the first time I had gotten a picture with all of the ladies that I work with in the Ward. These women have become some of my best friends in Stirling, and I couldn't ask for better examples to look up to. Here is the picture of us at our YW in Excellence night this year.

Moroni's Quest Fireside

Last Night we were able to go to the Moroni's Quest Fireside put on by the Lethbridge East Stake. We were Moroni's Quest 'tribe leaders' last July, and were able to join in on this great experience for the youth in our Stake. Although we were too busy to take many photos while we were there, the Stake leaders planned well, and had a great committee there just for the purpose of catching each moment on camera. As we watched the video last night at the fireside, so many great memories came back to the surface. It was great to see most of our tribe members last night as well. It was too bad that not everyone could make it. We hope to be able to keep in touch with all of our tribe members as they graduate and move on with their lives. We also hope that the Moroni's Quest experience helped to strengthen their testimonies of the Book of Mormon, as it did ours.

Halloween!!!

We couldn't help but put some pictures up of our cute nieces and nephews that came trick-or-treating to our house on Halloween! Even though Lou was up in Edmonton for it, we'll put one of her on here too.

Here is one of Deanna and Dave's girl Lauren. I love how she goes for the carrot instead of the candy!!! We sure miss seeing them as often, now that they moved up north for Dave's schooling. Lou is growing up way to fast. We can't wait to see them over Christmas.Here is one of our nephew, Gunner. We loved his skunk costume! He was sure excited to get the candy from us!

Amy, Elena, Ty, and Jay also came to get some candy from us. Jay was so excited about his costume!

I was excited to have Gracie and Sadie show up to piano lessons earlier in the day in full costume!!! They made a great scary witch and fairy princess! Sadie assured us that she wanted to be a witch, but that it didn't work out, so she is going to be a really scary witch next year!

After all the trick-or-treaters had headed home to eat all of their goodies, we were able to have some friends out to go to Stirling's Haunted House with us. Robyn (who was my roommate before we got married) and her husband Jance hadn't been to Stirling before, so we hope they enjoyed their visit! At one point, the Haunted House workers began dragging us girls away into a dark hallway with a dirt floor. Even though we knew nothing too bad would happen, it still gets your heart racing to feel like something is going to jump out at you at any moment. They really did a good job of it this year! Well worth the money.

Welcome

We finally decided that it was time to stay in touch with all of our family and friends using a blog! I'm sure there is a lot more I can do to improve it yet, but so far I've actually found it a lot easier to set up than I had guessed it would be. We will try to update the site with photos and information as often as we can!

Feel free to comment on any of our posts, and let us know if there is anything you think we can do to improve the site!