The Joys of Going to School in McCall

Here's some things that I never got to enjoy going to school in the good old Phoenix Valley...

1. This is how Brock looks going to school every day from about November to March.
2. They plow a monstrous snow hill on the playground for recess. They have tons of school sleds for recess equipment.
3. Brock wears his snowpants and boots all day (except for P.E.) because you have to have them on to play on the snowhill at recess.
4. He keeps his only pair of tennis shoes at school because he only wears them for P.E. (he wears his snow boots everywhere else).
5. For P.E., they go snow-shoeing.
6. They have buses from the school to the ski hills after school. Hopefully Brock can take lessons next year. He gets to go sometimes with Russ and has his own pair of skis and LOVES it! The high school has ski days occasionally where they actually take roll, load the buses and ski for the day. How come we never got "lake days" in AZ!?
7. If it's 10 degrees or less, they have to have indoor recess. Lots of indoor recess a few months of the winter. Last year taking Brock to school he looked at the degrees in our car-25 degrees. He said, knowing he could play outside for recess, "25 degrees! That's totally warm!" What?!

ARE WE CURSED?

Here's a list of some things that have recently broken in our household (Most are still broken)

• Video camera
• Camera
• Dryer
• Stereo
• Dee's cell phone
• Dee's watch
• Vacuum
• DVD player

Not life threatening...just annoying.
"And the hits just keep on comin..."

BRETT-UMS & MOM

The First Presidency and Thomas Trains...

So...Russ told me I needed to blog the cuteness of our little Cody. Before President Faust passed away, we were teaching our kids the names of the First Presidency with the pictures in a Family Home Evening. As we were talking about the names, Cody got giddy and excited that "they were named after trains!" I never thought about it before, but since Cody's life right now is based around the Thomas trains, we finally understood what he meant. As we talked about Gordon B. Hinckley, Thomas S. Monson, and James E. Faust, he got so excited they were named after his toy trains Gordon, Thomas, and James! Well, after Pres. Faust passed away and Henry B. Eyring was put in...Yes, once again total excitement to have one of them named after his train Henry! Pretty funny, but good that he totally remembers who they are. He used to just look at the picture and call them Gordon, Thomas, James, and Henry, but now he is actually putting last names with them, too. He had a little confusion when Elder Uchtdorf was put in, because there are no trains named Dieter! But, hopefully somehow he'll make it through...

Well, a lot has happened since I have last posted. I will refrain for saying that I will do better about posting because I obviously dont... I just post in large amounts all at once. So, sorry.

Anyway, we have more snow than we know what to do with. The snow was pretty and fun till about two weeks ago when it just wouldn't stop. We love it, but would love to see mother earth again and not six feet of white stuff.




The window below is about 8.5 feet off the ground... lots of snow....

You cant tell me that this is not one of the coolest things you've seen. Snow blows down my deck and into my doorway... That is cool, but not cool to shovel.

My oldest sister turned and undisclosed age (per her request) and my parents and siblings flew to her house in Seymour Indana (of which I would love to see more). Anyway, it was a blast. I have not had that much fun in a long time. This was the first time we all got togther without our families, well, since we have all had families.
We all flew in togther and rented a minivan (see below post) and drove to her house. We called her on the phone and started to sing to her. As we started to sing, we rang her doorbell and she came while we were singing. She had no idea and it was awesome. She screamed, cried, we cried....We had so much fun. Great memories.

This is the progress of my brother's sanity while we were in Indiana. He went against all which he believed and rented a minivan for us. The first pic is his excitement to ride in it as I drove, but he soon had to drive and things went down hill quickly thereafter.






To bring him back, we put on some Pink Floyd and dressed him in his coaching attire and things were almost normal...which is basically normal.

Here is a funny pic of our oldest. He is a computer junkie. He has basically taken over one of our old laptops. He is loading some racecar game. He would be on it all day if we let him. Thanks goodness Dana is around to make him a well rounded young man. (notice the well organized desk. My office has become the junk drawer of the house.)

This is one of the winning ice sculptures for winter carnival here in McCall. I thing there were about 11 total sculptures throughout town. This one is the favorite of out little two year old. He loves trains, so we had to stop and get a picture.

These are the festivities of winter carnival. Seriously, this is so much fun. The City of McCall puts together a huge party. It is like Mardi Gras, but less the nudity and in freezing tempitures. They put on a parade, have fireworks, ice sculpture contest, live bands, ect. It is a lot of fun. The city goes from about 7000 people to about 50,000 in one night. You cant even really drive through town during the weekend.

Just so you know, we would get a ton of candy, but the kids would have to dig it out of the snow and it gets all wet. So, when we get home we have a whole bag full of soggy, nasty candy. Any ideas for next year? They work so hard to get the candy, but dont get to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Poor Brett, he was exhausted from the whole "flashing for beads" thing. But, as you can see, he did quite well.

This is the night before the actual parade. The community puts together a parade for the kids. It is the light parade, and they have the kids get all dressed up and put glow stick on and any other lights they can bring and we all walk through town. Well, I ended dragging all the kids on a sled which was fun till I I had to drag them back up hill. We put Brett in a little carrier and zipped him up in my coat. He seemed to like it.

Here are a few pics of the snow here. This first one is from the snow burm looking back at the house. The amount of snow we received this year is absolutuly insane. People who have lived here their whole lives were blown away by the amount of snow. You have to realise that all this snow fell in about three weeks.

This picture is our little sledding hill in our driveway.