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
