Elf On The Shelf - Day 6

I guess Sammy is really into extreme sports! It's quite the fall from there with a huge risk of burning to death. If he lives until tomorrow I'll be very impressed.

Elf On The Shelf - Day 5

I am a little angry with Sammy this morning. He snuck into our secret chip stash and started eating all of my favourite chips! Who does that? Someone asking for trouble, that's who!

Elf On The Shelf - Day 4

It took us a while this morning to find Sammy. We searched the house but no Sammy. Finally we decided to have breakfast and opened the cupboards to get some cereal and BAM there he was ... Looking at us with that unchanging mischievous look in his eyes:

Elf On The Shelf - Day 3

I'm thinking that maybe Sammy isn't so smart. This morning he was hiding in our glasses, does he not realize these are see through?

Elf On The Shelf - Day 2

Another early morning to search for Sammy and although the kids were excited about Sammy becoming our messenger for Santa, it seems that other members of the household weren't too pleased. Apparently they are a wee bit jealous of all the attention Sammy is getting and wanted him to leave. Poor little elf. I hope he decides to stick out his mission. I'm also going to have to talk to those LEGO figurines about this stock pile of weapons they seem to have. Hardly behaviour I would encourage from my children, this is kind of a wake up call about the types of toys we allow in our home and if in fact these LEGO people are alive, will they ever retaliate against us? Here's hoping this 'situation' we have on our hands resolves itself peacefully tonight.

Elf On The Shelf - Day 1

Well it looks like Sammy had no troubles breaking out of his box and made it to higher grounds. The kids were so excited that they got up way to early to find him. Welcome to them family Sammy!

Ho Ho Ho

Today we took the kids to Santa's Wonderland at Bass Pro Shops because they were advertising free pictures with Santa. We love free and apparently so does the rest of the city because they were having 2 hour wait times! They give you a fast pass so you can just come back at that time instead of having to wait in the line the entire time which was a bonus. Thankfully the area where Santa is in has so many fun things for children to do that our kids didn't complain once about the wait. There was a mini set up of their gun range for the kids to shoot, child bow and arrows to aim at ducks, remote control 4x4's, a car race track, a room full with huge white pom-poms for snowball fights and picnic tables covered with colouring sheets and markers. When we got to see Santa he took about 10 minutes chatting with the kids and filling their heads with crazy little facts. When Brayden told him he'd like some LEGO for Christmas Santa taught him that in Swiss LEGO translates to "Let's Play" and then continued teaching the kids a couple different words in different languages. He was the best Santa ever and totally reminded me of the Santa from the old black and white classic "Miracle on 34th Street" which I love.

The kids picture this year is hilarious with Santa caught in the middle of a big jolly "HO HO HO" which only completed the experience.

V.I.P.

Today at the kids sharing time assembly I got to see Brayden receive his V.I.P. award because he’s so awesome. Also I got to see a video presentation made by Sydney’s teacher showing some artwork they made with the kids voices dubbed in using their descriptive words to explain the monsters they had made. It was so cute to watch Madison as she recognized Sydney’s voice fill the auditorium and see the tell tale cat to prove it was indeed Sydney’s monster. She really is the cat fan.

Temple Square

What an exciting day. One thing that was a must see for Marytle was temple square in Salt Lake City. It was so fun as we started driving into the city and you could see the tops of the temple in the distance, slowly getting larger and larger. Finally we drove by the temple as Marytle looked from her pamphlet showing a picture of the temple, up the real thing and then back to the picture. The realization of its size and reality that dawned on her face was exciting to watch and made me even more anxious to get out and show her up close.

Once we got out of the van we were non stop for hours! We made sure to walk around temple, watching the show at the tabernacle, getting a tour of the Conference Center, walking through the museum, the Visitors Center, and ending with the movie showing about Joseph Smith. By the time we were finished my feet were ready to fall off and I have no idea how the kids lasted the entire day without complaining. It was awesome.

Rest and Play

This morning I was so excited for Marytle to wake up. For 5 years we were on her turf exploring and soaking up her culture and I was pumped to finally be able to share this North American part of life with one of our closest Filipino friends. It's a side of me that our family over there never got to see but we desperately wanted to show. She started of her morning with her first ever pancake breakfast! No rice and egg this morning. The kids were all over and begging for her attention. Ryan had gone into Focus to visit and so we had a nice relaxing morning to ourselves. That afternoon we played outside in the snow, making snowmen, throwing a few snowballs, climbing hay bales and checking out the horses and cows. It was a day of many firsts for her and it made me so happy to watch her experience a few things I knew she'd never done before. It almost made me like snow ... almost. I still prefer white beaches to white snow and palm trees to pine trees (well in the winter months at least).

Meeting in the Middle

Focus, the company Ryan worked for in the Philippines, sponsers young adults and gives them scholarships so they can go to University and have a chance at a real job when they probably wouldn't have been able to have that opportunity otherwise. I was grateful for the opportunity to find these young adults and get them set up and enrolled in school for Focus. How awesome it is to see how this can not only better their lives but the lives of their entire family. One of these scholarships went to one of our dear friends, a very dedicated, very hard working, motivated young lady who is the oldest of 6. She rocked the scholarship, never taking it for granted, getting some of the highest grades in her class, and loved every thing she learned. She would always come over and be very excited to share with Ryan and I all the different things she was learning in her classes and how much she enjoyed learning it. This year she had this amazing opportunity to do work experience in her field abroad. Abroad could be anywhere from Singapore, New Zealand, Canada or the US. She ended up being placed in a Golf Resort in New York City! She passed her embassy interview and was on a plane not more then 2 weeks later for adventure. As she's been working, supporting her family and trying to save for herself, she was able to come up with enough money for a round trip to Utah so she could see the Salt Lake City Latter-day Saint Temple and meet the man who is responsible for her scholarship and thank him. We told her that whenever that ticket was booked we would 100% make that drive down to Utah and be her tour guides. Well that finally happened. Tonight at 10:30pm Marytle landed in Salt Lake City where Ryan and I picked her up, took her home and went straight to bed. Yes, we are totally party poopers! But in our defence we had just drove 15 hours to get there to meet her, with our 3 kids. I think that's exhausting.

We made it to Ry's Aunts house early in the afternoon and spent the afternoon letting the kids burn off some major pent up energy and chatting with Ryan's family. That evening we took the kids to Ry's youngest cousins musical which he was in; Cinderella. The kids were hyper excited to see and spend some time with Ryan's cousins and wasted no time getting friendly. We raced home from the play, put the kids to bed and sped to the airport to greet Martyle. Listening to her chat away about all her different experiences so far after we moved back to Canada, her excitement as she related stories from when she found out she passed her embassy exam and would be headed to New York and how many hugs I was getting from her made that 15 hour drive completely worth it!! Here's to a great weekend.

Our Little Missionary

We’ve been so fortunate with our ward at church. We were quite worried at first about getting lost since 450 people attend every week. How do you make your presence known in a sea of people? Well they have been fantastic. Every week more and more people introduce themselves to us and we’ve been getting to know a few families and it makes a huge difference. The kids seem to love the Primary where they go for Sunday School and Madison for the first time EVER is willingly going to nursery and loves it. This week the kids came home a book with activities in it and ways for them to write down and draw about their feelings being so close to the newly dedicated temple (it shares the same lot as our chapel and is an 8 minute drive from our home). In this little kit of goodies the kids got their own missionary tags and Sydney loves wearing hers. She reminds us very much of a dear dear friend in the Philippines very much: Jane Anne who was serving her mission when we left Bacolod and just returned home not too long ago.

I.O.U.

Tonight I came home to this:

A bathroom full of balloons blown up by my family and filled with I.O.U. from Ryan. Why? Because they love me. How fabulous is that!? Yes, I’m spoiled, jealous?