Christmas letter 2008

Dear Family and Friends, 12/18/2008

Merry Christmas! We have come to the end of another year, we hope we’re wiser too. We have much to be grateful for. It’s snowing outside this morning here in Snowflake. It makes Christmas feel so much more like the real thing when it’s snowing. I guess it just puts me in the Christmas spirit. With the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives we feel at peace even when the world is very much in turmoil. We feel gratitude to live in a small community with wonderful friends and family. We are so grateful for our family who are struggling students working their way to a better life for themselves and their families. Keep up the good work Chauncy and Shar in Pima finishing nursing school and Spencer and Valerie in Socorro, NM finishing his degree in Petroleum Engineering, both will finish up in May. We are excited for Jay and Brittany living here in Snowflake and starting school at NPC. We are so grateful for our business and those who work with us. What a blessing it has been to have this Propane business. This is our 10 year anniversary for our business. We are thankful for our good customers.

We look forward to a phone call on Christmas day from our missionary in Russia. Trevor has just 5-6 months left, could be more if he renews his visa at the end of May and stays for another 3 month visa term. He is having great success and loves everything. He has never complained about anything the whole time he has been out, he even likes the freezing weather.

We have had a wonderful year full of fun activities. Mike and I were the fireside chairmen for the Youth Trek, we enjoyed getting to know other people in our stake and watching the youth learn and grow during the trek experience. We are so glad that Gavin and Bo were able to participate in that. We are thankful to all the hard work by the wonderful leaders of our youth. Mike and Gavin and Bo went to Moab and went jeeping and 4-wheeler riding and river rafting on the Colorado River. They took Uncle Keith and met Uncle Ed McMullin and friends there. They had a great time. I got to go to Oklahoma City in July to be with Val as her and Spencer welcomed a new little boy into their family. We were grateful to have a great Doctor there who took good care of her. Dallin was born on 7/7/08. What a cute little bundle he is, now McKay has someone to play with. I was once again the parade chairman in July and we survived another parade. It went well. During this time we were making wedding plans for Jay. He married Brittany Noble on 8/8/08. As soon as we got home from our camp week at the PSR (Paul Shumway Rogers Reunion) we had the wedding in Mesa and then the reception in Snowflake. All went well and we are thrilled to know Brittany, she is so perfect for Jay. Gavin and Bo stayed busy this summer mowing lawns and working a little for Mike at the Propane yard and painting tanks and doing cement curb in our yard. We remodeled a motor home for us to camp in. We call it “Nutsy”. It was fun to have a good place to stay in this year. Our gardens did well this summer we grew pinto beans and we had a day of separating the hull from the bean. It took a group of us to do it but we got 112 pounds of pinto beans off our little garden. We also had a bumper crop of cucumbers. We made relish and dill pickles and Mike mad some delicious bread and butter pickles. We have one jar left. Next year we’ll definitely have to grow more cucumbers. Gavin played football and did really well, his best game was the Blue Ridge game. He caught 5 passes and scored once. He was fun to watch. He is now playing basketball, his true love and he really does a good job. He is a team captain and he is smooth and fun to watch. He will be 19 next month and we will be putting papers in for him about March.

Bo is a Sophomore and he also played football. He had a good time doing that. During fall break we quickly got approval to do his eagle project. We gave the Social Hall a face lift. It took 3 days and a lot of hard work but we got it done.

Life is good. We feel gratitude for all these blessings. We hope and pray for our Nation for our Military and for our freedom to be preserved and prospered. We are wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Love,

Mike and Kristi, Trevor, Gavin and Bo

Touchdown!

Gavin had a touchdown! That's two on the season, one in Round Valley and

this one in the Blue Ridge game. Gavin is #86 Robbie Martindell is #10. I e-mailed a set of 4 awesome pictures taken by Terel Nichols brother Torel. He has a nice camera and has a bunch more that I can't wait for him to share with us. The Lobos travel to Safford for the first round of playoffs. Go Lobos.

Bo's Eagle Project

Fall Break! What a great time to do the Eagle Project! We had Jay's reception in the Social in August (although it was planned outside) The wall paper in there is over 30 years old and they had painted over the back wall over wall paper a color that is the same color as the blue painters tape. It did not match the decor. It was horrible! We thought then, "That would be a good eagle project" so we did some checking around and we got approval from the Holbrook facilities maintenance group. ( a church entity) anyways we met with the guy and gave him our proposal and it was approved. That was on Thursday and on Saturday we started. It took us all day to tear off the wallpaper and clean up for a missionary luncheon scheduled in there on Sunday. Then on Monday we started early and taped off to paint. It was such a process, Mike had to repair some drywall, in one place there was a hole in the wall. Some of it is plaster.... the back wall and the entry way had to be textured to be able to paint them. We waited for the drywall mud to dry to be able to paint. We finished the paint on Tuesday. I was glad the boys had Mon & Tues off. It was a little bigger job than we bargained for but it turned out beautifully! Thanks to all who came and helped! We would still be working there if you hadn't come to help. Thank you, Thank you!

My kids are growing old

I just had to giggle at Gavin for dressing up this morning as a Senior Citizen. It helps to have G Russell downstairs to supply the walker and Grandpa's old sweater.

Trevor's Mission to Russia

Our Son Trevor is in Krasnoyarsk Russia in the Novosibirsk Mission. He left on June 20, 2007. We are thrilled with the things he has been doing. Learning a new language - especially one where the N's and R's are backwards, traveling long distances - sometimes alone. He recently traveled to Madrid, Spain to renew his visa (not alone but with a group). He was able to go to Red Square and eat at McDonalds but he said the highlight of the trip was to attend the Madrid temple. He serves as a Zone leader and is doing well. He mentioned that it is starting to get cold. AHHH Siberia! I love you Trevor! I love having a missionary out. It's so.....rewarding, scary, spiritual, stressful, emotional, fulfilling, lovely, gratifying, it's lots of things all lumped into one. The other picture Was taken in Madrid. They were able to go on a little tour of the city. This is Peter the apostle holding the "keys". Trev looks great! Don't you think?

Celebrity Day

Can you guess which celebrities Gavin and Bo are?

Ok they are probably supposed to be real people - real celebrities not characters from movies - but this is who they wanted to be for today ( Woody from Toy Story and Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. It's Homecoming week at Snowflake High School and for those who attended HS here you know it's quite a big week. Gavin is a Senior and is in Madrigals and tonight (Monday) is the ice cream social. Gavin is so funny! He is really good on stage. The last Madrigal concert he played the part of a 'nerd'. It was hillarious. Bo is a Sophomore and is a little more reserved. I was glad that they were both brave enough to go to school "dressed up".

Gavin's Touchdown!

We played Round Valley on Friday the 3rd. Sorry this picture isn't that great. I was so nervous, RV is a tough place to play and historically we have had some injuries over in the Dome. Gavin caught a pass and ran for about 60 yards in the 3rd quarter making the score 19 to 17. We were winning. From there the game went downhill and the final score: 19 to 40. But we were happy for Gavin and his first touchdown of the season. When we asked him about the play he said this, "The pass wasn't intended for me, it hit Terel and I thought well it's down. The next thing I knew it was in my hands so I turned and ran. The ball just stays in my hands over there" Gavin had a really GOOD JV game last year in the dome. The Lobos will hopefully put some offense together and see some good things happen in the next weeks. They play this Friday for homecoming VS Alchesay. The best is yet to come from the Lobos!

Welcome to our home - I love fall!