Best Friends

Thomas: So what do you think on the work that Scott has done on his layout?

Percy:  I think it's neat-O!

I had a pretty good birthday.  I took my train layout to the Primary get-to-know-your-teacher breakfast and had the kids mesmerized.  I had a bunch of kids around my layout that weren't even in my class. 

Later we went to Taylor's last basketball game.  When we came home, they had a birthday party ready for me.

We went out to lunch at Fazzoli's and then came home to open presents.  The girls bought me three shirts and I got money from Grandmas.  Roger and Pam gave me a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.

Jordan Olsen came over and gave me a plant and we ran trains for several hours.  I plastered and painted more stuff on my HO layout.  I am almost done with about 45% of my layout ;-)  I hope to have most of the nature side done in the next couple of weeks before the train club meets at my house.

The night work of January 24th

Just wanted to show you last night's progress, I am really excited with how it is looking

Train Layout Progress

Well, I wanted to let everyone see what I have been doing lately on the layout.  As you can see, I have added the water and grass and dirt and trees.  Still going to add more rocks to try and make it look at little more something.  Also I have to add the bears, the people camping are having to easy of a time.  Hopefully in the next day or two I will get grass on the mountain and then I will put the trees on it and then the Shaylie Lake area will start looking completed.

All Better Again...

Happy days....we are all pretty well back to normal.  This was not a fun illness to have and I do not recommend it.  Please avoid it at all costs.  BTW, while Airborne works great to stave off the everyday ickies, it did not seem to have any effect on this particular gem.

In Activity News....Girl Scout cookie sales begin on Saturday, so you may be getting a call from either Taylor or Shaylie since they are both selling this year.  Taylor has set a pretty lofty goal...600 boxes...so every little bit helps.  I think if they each sell 1000 boxes they can go to Disneyland or something.  Shaylie wants to sell 1003 boxes. Wish us luck!  Taylor has a basketball game this Saturday...maybe we can lurk around and sell some cookies at the gathering too. 

In School News, Tomorrow is the 100th day of school! Also, a major celebration (not necessarily warranting a cake, Chad) but still a big deal.  There will be a party and everyone brings their 100 collections.  Shaylie wants to bring 100 puppies.  We'll see how that goes...Taylor got one of three 100's in the class on her vocabulary test and an A on her big Hatchet project.

In Blackberry News, we are taking BB in for his final round of vaccinations this week and next month the Big Fix.  He is doing very well with housebreaking...he rings the bell on the door when he wants to go out and for the most part, he goes while he's out. Once in a while, he has an accident..usually if we're not paying attention or if it is too cold out.  But I think we're through the worst of it!  Yay!  Everything else we have to work on is peanuts....hopefully..... knock on wood....Nevermind, I take it back.  He is a good puppy!  The girls are loving him and he definitely adds a lot of excitement to our lives.

In Other News...hmmm, wait...there is no other news.  That's everything.  Post again when we have more...Love to all!

Sick as dogs...

No offense to Blackberry...but we've had a pretty hellacious weekend.  Taylor started it all on Friday night, up all night, sleeping all day the next day...then me, Scott and now Shaylie seems to be getting a lighter version of it.  We've been holed up with no food in the house (not that we could keep it down anyway) and according to my kids, I completely ruined MLKJ Day by being sick in bed all day.  We didn't even get to make a cake! What can you do?  Taylor is back at school today, her whole bout only lasted about 24 hours.  It's being a little harder on Scott and me...he went in to set up one computer this morning and now he's asleep on the couch.  We're trying preventative measures with Shaylie, so hopefully she'll not suffer as badly.  I'm just trying to keep up with dishes and laundry, etc. that have piled up as  a result...but when my energy goes, I'm done.

Hopefully, we'll be well again in a day or two and we'll post happy thoughts then.  We did have one accident free day (Yay!) on Sunday!  Good things to come!

So, so close!!!

Two days ago, Blackberry only had one accident and yesterday, none all day.  At 9:00 last night, I was declaring how proud I was of my sweet little boy for having his first Accident Free Day to my friends (who were here for a meeting), when Shaylie heard me and told me he had an accident only moments before.  I was so disappointed!!!   I was so ready for a breakthrough....oh well, it is progress and that's great.  Today's already a loss, since I found a pile this morning after Taylor was watching him. (Hmmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern there.)  But at least they are getting fewer, I'm happy to report.

Shaylie was happy today too, since Miss Lee let her bring Blackberry to school for Show and Tell.  I took him in his crate and then let him sniff and wag his way around the circle on his leash.  We showed off his Sit and Shake skills and fed him a few Cheerios.  The kids all loved him and wanted to pet and hug him.  Shaylie was in Puppy Heaven!

Tay is enjoying basketball...a neighbor of ours has a hoop in her backyard and Tay has been visiting pretty regularly.  Last night, she even went to watch the Young Women team from our church play.  She thought it was pretty funny...I took that to  mean that she thought they were pretty uncoordinated and not very enthusiastic.  It won't be long until she will be playing on that team....only a year and four months until she is 12!!! Yikes.  Until then, she will continue playing city ball.  She is improving every day...we're very proud of her, as usual :-)

Both our girls are pretty amazing!  It's hard to keep up with all their many activities and fun times.  They sure keep us hopping...thank goodness!  We'll post again soon to let you know the latest and greatest....TTFN

BB Progress...

No, Blackberry's not housebroken yet (and it's driving me mad), but we did go on quite a long walk today.  I'm very pleased.  He only pulled on the leash a little on the way home, especially on our circle, and the rest of the time he just walked along side me.  He got a little nervous around some big dogs that were barking along our route, but other than that it was vast improvement. 

He's still got one more round of vacs and then we're getting him fixed...I don't exactly know what to expect with that...but then he'll be a fit and ready to face the world.  If only we could get him housetrained....all things in time, I suppose.

He's a very good little guy.  I'm going to have to post some pictures soon.  He's more doubled in size since we brought him home.  Still cute as ever!

The rest of us are great!  We tried to go letterboxing yesterday, but the first site we went to had been completely razed due to new construction and the second had horrible instructions.  We were pretty disappointed but we'll try it again.  Shaylie especially raked me over the coals for it not working out right.  She didn't really get that it wasn't my fault.  I'll have to make sure to redeem myself on the next trip out.

Hope 2007 is treating everyone well so far.  For anyone interested, I'm speaking in church on the 28th as Primary president on the new theme.  Taylor also has basketball games every Saturday.  Everyone is invited to either, both or for no reason at all!  Love ya! PAS

Happy New Year!

We had such an awesome time on our trip up to Orem!  It was so terrific to see everyone. I especially enjoyed seeing all the little cousins playing together.  Chancie is the cutest little guy!  Just like the rest of them...

Blackberry behaved himself very well while we were visiting. He and Odin were cautiously tolerant of each other and provided a couple fun moments of entertainment, but I think they were both happy to be shed of one another.

Now we are back in the swim of things.  Shaylie finally began Girl Scouts this week!  She's been waiting so patiently for a year and a half until they found someone to be their leader.  Taylor has decided to drop choir, which is okay with me...they haven't been very organized this year and it's only causing frustration to me.  She'll find some other activity to fill the void, I'm sure.  In fact, we are still doing basketball for several more weeks.  She is enjoying that a lot too. 

All in all, we had a terrific 2006!  I love this time of year though.  Everything is new and you get  chance to begin again, set goals, and improve on the past....what more could we want?  Good luck to all of you with your resolutions!  PAS