Feeling Grateful

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Johnsons. It was a good day together with all of us. We set up three big craft tables at Ben and Steph's house and enjoyed lots of food and good conversation. Grandma Johnson (Darrells mom) got to spend the day with us. It was especially fun to have her there. Emma is such a sweet heart. She spent some good one on one time with her Great Grandma and almost brought me to tears as I snapped pictures of the two of them together. The kids were all so good, other than a few potty training accidents between the 3 little ones. We are up to eight grandkids now and 4 of them are at that stage. It's been exciting. At the end of the day, we all sat on the couch for a family picture. That was the most interesting 15 minutes of the day. It turned out okay, with the exception of Josh wearing only one sock due to holes in the other one. But, nothing a little cropping can't fix. I think we were home by 7 for a special Thanksgiving Survivor (which was nothing more than a season recap :) and by 7:05 two out of the three kids were asleep for the night. It was a nice day off from the normal hustle and bustle. No school, no work, no homework, no laundry. Just food, family and fun.

Starting Over

I guess the title starting over has more meaning to it than I realized initially. It seems to be our family motto as of late. A few months back, I created a family blog named Bullfrogs Bulletin. Since creating it, I have been so busy that updating it seemed to be pushed to the back burner. So, today, I sat down to get to it and I couldn't remember our blog address. So, I started over with "Giggles Gang." And of course, as soon as I created a new blog, I found the old blog. I guess I need to be a little more on top of things.

As I mentioned, starting over has become our new family motto. In March of this year, Jer and I decided to sell our Magna home of seven wonderful years. I would like to say that we were lucky in that our home sold within two weeks of listing it. But, I am not sure "luck" is the right word. We have truly been blessed in the last year. Selling our home was a big move and brought with it lots of sacrifice not only for Jer and I, but for the kids and our families. It has been a rocky road at times, but time and time again I have been reminded that what we did was the right thing. We closed on the sell of our house at the end of March and moved in with mom and dad Conference Weekend. At that same time, Jer started a new career with Verizon Wireless. Two months later, he started school at the University of Phoenix. In September, on Josh's birthday, we moved into a home in West Valley. And, just this last Sunday, Jer and I were sustained and set apart as Primary Teachers. Wow. We have officially "started over."

Summer 2007

My how time flies! The kids are already back in school and summer is winding down. There are still many things on our list of summer "to do's" but I thought I would post some of the pictures from the things we were able to do before school started. The kids spent most of their time with their cousins. They all took swimming lessons at the Magna Pool, played at the splash pool at Daybreak, went crazy in the play land at the new Draper Ikea, ate lots of chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers from "Mickey Donalds" (as Erin calls it), turboed through Hogle Zoo on a hot summer day, and wore all the moms out. It was all lots of fun and made for many great memories (or scrapbook layouts).

Bathing Beauties

Erin and Baby Gauge at the Magna Pool

Magna Fourth of July Parade

Fireworks at the University of Utah