MERRY CHRISTMAS

Some of the crowd.
Ava & Nikaylee

More of the crowd with Savannah doing a dive over Grandpa.

More of our wonderful family!

We had a great Christmas and were able to be with all our kids in Utah. We really missed you out-of-staters!

We invited everyone to come see the Tale of Despereaux on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Everyone came including Grandma and Grandpa Lyon except Kristin and her family. They were sick. Those that didn't have other Christmas Eve plans came back to our house for Corn Chowder, Clam Chowder, salad, etc.

I had to wake Laura and Lindsey up at 8am Christmas morning. They would have slept til noon. Santa gave them both digital cameras and some clothes. Santa also brought me a digital camera to replace mine that broke in Seattle last July.

Dad helping Ava.

We had a wonderful day and loved being with everyone!

On Saturday we got to go to a very special baptism. A young women named Margoth in our ward who is about 16 has been waiting 3 years to be baptized. Her parents are catholic and would not give her permission to be baptized. She had decided she would when she turns 18. She has the strongest testimony I have ever seen in a Young Women and comes every Sunday and to all the activities by herself.

Finally, after lots of prayers and fasting on her behalf, her parents allowed her to be baptized. They gave her a letter on Christmas day giving her permission. They had previously told the Young Women's president and the missionaries that they were going to give her persmission for Christmas so everything was set to baptize her on Saturday.

The family is from Guatamala. They came and prepared a Guatamla dinner for everyone afterwards. It was a very spiritual and amazing baptism. laura and Lindsey were so excited for her they could hardly stand it. It's been hard when the Young Women would to baptisms for the dead and Margoth couldn't go. Not anymore!

Lindsey with Margoth after her baptism.

Red Neck Snow Plow!!!

YOU KNOW YOU'RE A REDNECK WHEN .... you build your own snow plow and embarrass your wife and daughters where they will never leave the house again.

Dad getting snow plow ready. Dad testing snow plow. Dad snow plowing

Dad carrying snowplow back for next swipe of the driveway.

Dad's 64 years of age is taking a toll on his being able to shovel the snow. He's too cheap to buy a snow blower and thinks he has invented the coolest thing in the world.

HELP!!! Someone talk some sense into him. This invention is pulled by the Suburban (yes, I drive the suburban only to keep peace in the home). It pushes all the snow from the driveway to the circle. We then go out in the circle and shovel that snow out of the way. Doesn't make sense to me but dad won't listen to reason.

Very embarrassing when a neighbor on one side is using a 4-wheeler with a real snow shovel in front. The neighbor on the other side is using a snowblower and then there is dad riding his redneck snowplow!!

Laura as Mrs Potifer's wife. The camera I was using would do the whole thing all at once so there are 4 separate clips. Yes this is a 17 year old innocent girl playing a very seductive role - what a good actress!

Laura and Lindsey's Cannan Days Dance. Thanks to a guy at work who came and recorded it!

Lindsey in Cannon Days


Lindsey & Laura (not sure where that guy is looking!)
Cannon Days scene



Laura as Potifer's wife

Lindsey as Little Bo Peep. She's crying because the brothers killed her sheep!

Laura as a wife if one of the brothers!

It's been a while since we posted. I'm not sure dad even knows how to access this anymore - even though he

is the one that set it up!

We had a great Thanksgiving with a total of 17 people. Reminded me that I want a bigger room so we fit more comfortably. Maybe in my next life!

I have finals over the next week and will be glad for the break. The biggest event has been watching Laura and Lindsey in their school play of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. They didn't tell us how many parts they were in. They were both wives of the brothers so were in all scenes that included wifes. Lindsey also danced a solo during the corn dream. She also came out as Little Bo Peep (with her sheep) when the brothers killed the goat. Laura was Potifer's wife and dad a wonderful job. Both Laura and Lindsey were the dancers in the Cannon Days scene. We got to watch it 4 times and I was sad when it ended.

Laura and Lindsey were glad it was over. It was a huge time commitment for them 6am practice then straight to school then afterschool practice til 5-6pm. Home for food, homework, sleep or work.

I'm posting pictures - Enjoy. Wish you all could have come.

Miscellaneous Updates!!! I can't ever get the pictures to go where I want them and don't have a lot of time. I should be studying but don't feel like it. Here is a pictures of dad on his brithday. Something was very funny because he has a huge smile.


Here is Grandpa Lyon. Not the best picture because his eyes are closed but he is happy. He had his last chemo treatment this last week. The tumor has shrunk and his collapsed lung has re-inflated so he doesn't have to be on the oxygen all the time anymore. He has handled it pretty well. He gets very tired and can't do much. He's a little wobbly but will hopefully be able to get some of his strength back. He will be going to the doctor reguarly to monitor the cancer. Hopefully, it won't come back too fast. We will be planning a yard cleanup party in the next few weeks so anyone that wants to help will be great.

Here is Savannah carrying dad's french apple birthday pie. She looks like she's not real happy that I'm following so close but I didn't want her to trip and fall and light the house on fire. If you saw everything on the floor (babys and toys) and all the feet she had to weave through, you would understand why I was hovering so close.

Laura and Lindsey are back in school and going full force. They are both in their school's play - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dreamcoat. They are wifes of the brothers and Laura is also playing Potiphers wife.
They leave home at 5:50am to go to school for either dance or play practice. They come home around 4pm and either go to work, fall asleep or do homework. I'm afraid they are gong to burn themselves out. They take the ACT test again this coming Saturday (10/25). Everyone pray for them. This will be the last test before the early applications are due to colleges. They have to get those sent in before December 1st. The play is November 20, 21 and 24. Let me know if you are interested in going so we can get tickets. Laura and Lindsey volunteered me to help make costumes. Luckily some other lady is in charge. There are over 200 costumes that need to be done. I will be making the base dress for the 10 wifes. Then they will have other outfits that go with these dresses.


Lindsey was asked to homecoming by Brennon. The poor guy decorated the wrong house when he tried to ask her the first time. The address he got was wrong but they had a white jeep that had been in an accident so he thought he had the right house. He finally found our house a day or two later and gave her a roll of toilet paper with a note inside that said "I was so wrapped up in asking you to Homecoming, I decorated the wrong house."

Laura wasn't asked but she does have a boyfriend, Eric, who doesn't go to our school. He knew that she had never been asked to a school dance before so he arranged with some of their friends (that they both work with) to plan a dance at a park. He asked her to it by a scavenger hunt. It was the same day as our homecoming so they did a day activity, got all dressed up and went to dinner and then were going to dance at the park but it was pouring rain. They were able to use one of their friends ward houses to dance in. Eric also just received his mission call this week. He has been called to Edmonton, Canada and leaves December 10th.

Teri and Mitch are engaged. They are planning their wedding the end of May or first part of June. We have to finalize a date pretty soon before everything is booked since that is the busiest time of year. I told her it had to be after finals week (for both our sakes). She will be applying for nursing school after this semester and will continue to take classes towards a bachelors while waiting to get into the RN program.

Erin and Nick have their hearing to have Aiden Adopted by Nick on November 6th. We don't anticipate there being any problem - just have to have a judge sign the papers.

Not much else going on. We love all of you and wish those out of state weren't so darn far away - or that we were rich and retired so we could come see you a lot more often.

NEW CARS!!!

You wouldn't think the damage on our Camry would have cost about $7,000 to repair. According to the insurance, that was more than the value of the car so they wouldn't fix it and paid us what they thought the value was (not what we thought it should be). We knew we wanted another Camry so went shopping. Nobody sells used camrys that 10 years old. We couldn't even find a 2008 used car for sale. We did find a few 2007's and ended up with this black one. I wanted leather seats (which it doesn't have) but it does have a moon roof.


After finally getting insurance money for the Jeep, we bought a Pontiac Grand Prix from Becky and Aaron. They were given it by Jonathan when he received a car from his mom. Becky and Aaron ended up with more cars than drivers and were looking to sell. We had more drivers than cars (only the gas hog Suburban) so we bought it.

Now we will see how long it will be before someone decides to total one of these cars! I think we have had our fair share of car totals. We've had the Ford Taurus (that was a blessing), our Toyota Corolla, the Mitsubishi Galant, the Jeep and our camry. Not all were our fault however. Several were other bad drivers on the road.

We are not meant to have cars

We have the worst luck with cars. Everytime we put an expensive repair into a car it gets crashed. While dad and Nancy were in Arizona, Laura ran a stop sign and crashed the Jeep that she and Lindsey drive. Of course the repairs are a lot more than the value of the Jeep so it is totalled. We are waiting for the insurance money buy them another beater car. Thanks to Teri who went to rescue Laura that night.

Saturday, while Nancy was innocently driving to take the dogs to the groomers, a car pulled out of a side street and side swiped her. It knocked her into oncoming traffic so she swerved back to her lane, crossed two lanes of traffic, jumped a curb and landed in someones front yard. Nobody was hurt (including the two white puffs of fur that Nancy saw flying in the car) but the camry was towed away - hopefully it will be fixable. We just spent over $500 fixing brakes. However, the curb jumping did damage to the tires and rims.

That left the suburban as the only available car which it decided to die later in the day. Thanks

to Teri who picked up Dad to go rescue Laura and Lindsey who were in the Burb when it died. Thanks to Erin who was going camping over the weekend and loaned us her car. Although the check engine light is on in the Burb we really think it ran out of gas because adding a gallon made it start again. We just have the fuel pump replaced (another $700 repair) and we don't think the guage was put on correctly because it didn't show empty.

We will pick up a rental on Tuesday and drop the Burb off at the dealership to see why the check enginge light is on and hopefully find replacement cars in the near future. Wish us luck in the future - we really seem to need it!!

Texas

Michelle, Calvin, Brig & Dad

Mom with gun and hit pop cans Dad and Brig on an old tractor

Adam trying to shoot himself in the head

Dad showing off his shot up pop cans.

Dad about being hit in the head with a propeller at the airbase

Calvin - isn't he cute!

A day after we returned from Arizona, dad and I jumped a plane to Abilene, Texas to visit Adam, Michelle, Brig and Calvin. We had a great time hanging out, watching the Olympics, touring the airbase and shooting guns. Calvin was a lot of fun to hold and play with. He smiles everytime you look at him. Brig was fun to watch play "tackle football" with his dad. They have sure brainwashed him to like BYU. Adam took us to a shooting range. Dad and Adam spent some time working on their upstairs room. They would have got more done if they didn't keep putting nails in electrical lines and shutting off power.

We are now back to work and I've started school again. Laura and Lindsey started their Senior year and are very busy.

We love all our kids and really miss those that aren't close by.

Arizona

Dad and I drove to Kingmen, Arizona with Galima, Max and Sophie and spent a couple days with them. Aaron arranged to be working in Phoenix so he wouldn't have to be with us. JK. We really had a great time with Galima and kids. It was great spending time one on one with the kids. Here are some pictures of our time there. Galima was great in letting us have her bed after her being gone for 3 weeks.

Trip to Seattle

Mom and dad at the beach in Seattle



Laura and Lindsey zonked out in car.

Laura and Lindsey being bored in car

Laura and Lindsey at beach

Laura and Lindsey still bored in car

In July, Dad and I with Laura and Lindsey drove to Oregon to see Todd and Lara and then on to Seattle to see Jen, Robby, Asher and little Hazen. In Oregon we went to a cool restaurant called Montage. They specialize in Macaroni and Cheese. You name it and you can have it in Macaroni & Cheese. We mainly hung out in Seattle and played with the grandkids. We did make a trip to Pikes market.

After Seattle, we drove to Forks, Washington where the Twilight series is based. Looking into the deep, dark forests, you can nearly imagine the vampires and wearwolfes. My camera broke in Seattle so I don't have many pictures.

Girls Camp

Laura, Lindsey and I went to girls camp. We had a blast. The theme was "Camp Survivor". We did some surviving since the generator that pumps the water broke so we had very little water (no hair washing). Also whoever was supposed to arrange the outhouses to be pumped didn't. 3 of the 4 outhouses were very full (a bit of splashing when using them). Therefore, 200 girls used one outhouse.

Laura and Lindsey were junior leaders. They did a great job. They were on the campfire committee so they had to get everyone to sing camp songs while waiting for devotionals to begin. They did a great job with lots of enthusiasm as you will see in the slide show.

We have a guy in our Stake who loves to be the Priesthood leader at girls camp. He has a trailer full of pranks he uses on the girls and let's the girls use on eachother. He created these "Lost" posters of some of the girls. Here are Laura and Lindsey. When found they had to be brought to the Stake camp site and received a candy. If they were kicking and screaming they got 2 candies. Laura and Lindsey were brought numerous times - the kicking and screaming was a show just to get the candy. Be sure to read the sign.

Glasgow Reunion

Where dad lived on the base

Furniture made by Dave from old barn wood. He tears down the barns and builds furniture.

Standing by Dad's first car. Just kidding. They had a car show and dad liked this one. Probably because it is yellow.

The Glasgow LDS Church. They are building a new one that will open next week. We took a tour through it. Don't know what they will do with this old one.

Dad with Gene and Connie at their cabin in Island Park

Dad really wanted to go to Glasgow, Montana for his 45 year reunion. So as a good sport I took a very long drive (15 hours) to the top northeast corner of Montana to mingled with a bunch of old folks. The reunion was celebrating 100 years of the high school so anyone who every graduated from there from 1908 until 2008 were invited.

We stayed with a high school buddy of dads. His name is Dave Bailey. He and his wife Marion were excellent hosts and drove dad down all the memory lanes. We spent hours talking about this person or that person. Dave has stayed in touch with many. It was Dave that tracked dad down about 9 years ago when they planned the one we went to in 2000.

We drove out to the airbase which closed around 1970. It is amazing that the military just closed down and walked away from hundreds of homes, two elementary schools, bowling allies, officers clubs, etc. The buildings had 38+ years of weathering and many had sunk roofs, peeled siding, etc. People are buying them for dirt cheap and fixing them up pretty nice. However, the house across the street is in shambles so not a real good view. The house that Dad lived in had been purchased and fixed up which was nice. In 2000 it was pretty run down.

On the way to Glasgow, dad's new GPS took us through Island Park. We stopped and surprised Michelle's parents and saw their beautiful cabin. What a beautiful area.

Check out my Slide Show!