My Farewell to my Childhood Home

For those of you who are new to my blog, my parents have sold their home that they lived in for 28 years. Before then, my grandparents had lived there for 12 years so the home was in our family for over 40 years! My brother Randy, my Sister Kristi my son Dallin and I flew back to Oregon from Utah in order to help my parents pack up the house and to say good-bye to it. My brother Rob and his wife Kendra and their two children Alyssa and Lance flew in the next day from Texas. We were able to have their new little boy blessed in Church on Sunday. On Sunday afternoon my parents hosted a going away party/baby blessing luncheon for our relatives. We had over 20 people come. We used some boxes for a buffet table. After everyone left, they did more packing until late in the night. A big snow storm hit and left a couple inches of snow in the yard and then the roads turned to ice in the middle of the night.

This video is the last shots of the house as I saw it. I wasn't sad. It really hasn't hit me yet about not being able to go into "our" house anymore. Just don't laugh at my funny recording voice. I still need to stop jabbering while I record videos. Enjoy!

My World On Digital Video!

I was at Blockbuster on Saturday and spotted this Flip video digital camcorder for $49! I just had to have it since I have been wanting one for months. I called Ryan and he suggested coming home and doing a google search on it to see how people have rated it.

Well, I followed his advice and found it has excellent ratings for being a cheap, easy to use camcorder with built-in software so you can use it with any computer. It has a flip out USB port on the side- hense the name "Flip". I went back later that night and have been very impressed with this little gadget! The newer versions cost about $129 but the one I bought was last years model. It has 60 minutes of recording time and there were ones that had 30 minutes of recording time for only $39. It runs on two "AA" batteries. I'm so excited to have this when I go to Oregon later this week! I can record and share the home I grew up in before my parents finish moving out!

The House My Parents Have Bought

This is the house my parents have bought in Utah. It is located in West Point which is about 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City. My Dad found it while searching utahrealestate.com which has listing for most of the houses for sale in Utah. I went to check it out for them and was really impressed with what I saw. I took pictures that night when I saw it for the first time. Then I went back the next day to see it in the light and took outdoor pictures. This house interested my parents so much that the day after Thandgiving they drove out to look at it. After a couple of days of looking at other properties, they realized this house is the one they wanted. Coincidently, the owners are almost finished with their other house they are building and so the timing is perfect. My parents are scheduled to move in on the 22nd of December!

As you can see it is a very well kept house and the man who currently lives there with his family built it. He put in a lot of extras since he is a contractor. He also has an ongoing christmas light duel with a neighbor so the outside is well stocked with outlets. The landscaping is well done with drip lines going to all of the plants.

The parking area is huge with room for both my parents boat and RV. The huge storage shed at the back has two lofts for storage and will hold the riding lawnmower.

You can fit four cars across this parking area. Good thing since my parents have three cars and they expect family to visit often!

The gorgeous master bath! My parents have never had a bathroom just to themselves off the master bedroom. Unless you count when us kids moved away and they had no one to share with! The entire upstairs has been professionally painted within the last year and there is a completely finished basement. There are 4 huge bedrooms, a family room, a big living room, a dining area and main floor laundry. It has two and 3/4ths bathrooms with each of them being large but the basement bath has only a walk-in shower, not a tub. There is a big office space and room for an exercise area or game area in the basement and tons of storage! The basement even has a wet bar (sink with counter space).

The house backs up to a horse pasture that is sectioned off in 1 acre parcels. This is the backyard view looking south-east across several parcels of horse property. From the front of the house, it looks residential and is a typical suburban neighborhood.

While my parents backyard is actually sort-of small, they have this view in the back. The pony and horse live behind them and come up to the back fence to be petted. They are very sweet and I am looking forward to visiting them. The current owners 4-year-old daughter feeds the horses apples. The gate opens up to the horse property and doesn't have barbed wire on the second fence.

The backyard! The enormous play structure is staying and it has a sand pit at the bottom of the slide! The trampoline will not be staying.

There is also a well made fire pit that Sydney is looking forward to roasting marshmallows in. This house will be the favorite place for the grandkids to visit! If my Mom chooses to do daycare again, it will work well for that too! I can post inside pictures after my parents move in. I just didn't want to show someone elses furnature and things for safety purposes.

News Release

For those of you like me who are not so happy with their less than "hourglass" shape, here is some good news. This is a study that was just released from the University of Utah. Enjoy!

The Friday After Thanksgiving- Pineview Reservoir

My Husband Ryan decided to ask the kids if they wanted to go fishing on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Sydney and Tyler decided they wanted to go and since Dallin was sick with Roseolla, I stayed home with him after taking him to the doctor. When they all came back late in the afternoon, they were all excited and full of stories to tell of this cold, but memorable fishing trip.

The kids ended up catching their limit and these were not small trout! The smallest was approx. 16 inches long and the biggest was approx. 21 inches! The fish were good fighters and they limited out in less than 2 hours! Ryan said he could only bait the hooks, cast them out and then one of the kids would have a fish on. Then he would take care of the fish and start the process all over again. He said it was one of the best fishing trips he's been on. Enjoy the pictures- they pretty much speak for themselves!

Our Thanksgiving 2008

Our "Tom" turkey

My pumpkin pie using pumpkin from our garden! It turned out well, but I think I prefer the taste of Libby's pumpkin better.

Our feast! Thanks to Kathrine, Ryan's sister who brought the sweet potatoes and some yummy cream cheese filled ham slices for snacking on and Kristi, my sister who brought the rolls and cooked some broccoli and cauliflower. I provided the turkey, potatoes, greenbeans, carrots, olives, pie, salad and deviled eggs! We had a great time visiting. Tyler showed Katherine his new Cello and she played for him on her guitar. We watched the new Indiana Jones movie and Kristi played games with Tyler and Sydney. Dallin spent the day being sick with a fever and the nasty "D" word. I wasn't feeling very well either since I had been up at night with Dallin and I was fighting off something. I slept on the couch after the late lunch was done. It was a great holiday for us and the food was divine! We had much to be greatful for with our family, food and a roof over our heads. What a great day to focus on our blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our house to yours, we wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I am busy these next few days preparing for my sister and my sister-in-law to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my place. I am also house-hunting for my parents as they are moving in only 2 1/2 weeks! I must admit, I love looking at houses and they didn't have to twist my arm very much to get me to look around. I pretty much volunteered for the opportunity! There is at least one house that is a real possibility. I will post pictures after they actually get moved in.

My parents are flying me, Dallin, Randy and Kristi as well as Rob and his family to help out with the last minute packing. We will be leaving on the 12th of December and Ryan will stay here with Tyler and Sydney. Luckily they have movers to actually load up the truck.

I just found out this morning that my parents are coming back on Friday to check out a house that they are very interested in buying. It will be a big upgrade to anything they have lived in before. I was able to go and take pictures and then load them onto a new blog site for our family. It is a private site, but it shows up on my profile. I will post more as I find out more!

Dallin's Second Birthday

Our little guy Dallin turned 2 on November 8th. For his cake I chose to do a vanilla one with white frosting and made spots using sugar crystals. I'm not one to make super fancy cakes. We had a small party that evening with Grandma and Grandpa since they were here to look for a job. They hadn't found out about the house selling yet, that was still a week away.

Dallin didn't know what to do with the candle flame and despite our efforts to teach him, we ended up blowing it out for him. Tyler was in a church shirt since he and I and my parents had spent the morning at Mount Timpanogas temple. We were able to do some work for an uncle that had passed away. It was Tyler's first time being baptized for the dead and he had a very spiritual experience while performing this in behalf of his Great Uncle. The temple was abuzz as we were able to perform the Baptism, Confirmation, Initiatory, Endowment and Seal him to his parents in one day. I watched the whole thing and my sister Kristi was able to see the baptism part. My parents and my brother Randy helped with the other parts. It was a great day for our family. My only regret was not remembering my camera! My mom got pictures though, so she will have to share them. Maybe when she moves to Utah, I can teach her how to blog!

Dallin in his favorite gift- a big Jeep! he has been wanting a "car" to play in for a while. I found it on KSL.com for thirty bucks! My parents bought it for him. Thanks Mom and Dad!

A few days later, we were able to visit with my Grandparents while they were in Utah. They stayed at my Aunt Deanna's place. This is one of the first pictures we have of them and Dallin together. I think it is such a sweet picture. The next one is even better.

I just love this one of my grandparents looking so lovingly at Dallin. Isn't having loving family the best! I think this picture will be one for Dallin's children to cherish.

It's Sold!

My parents house had an offer made on it last Friday and they accepted it! They are scheduled to be out of the house by December 15th! They are now in Oregon packing and making arrangements to move to Utah! We are so excited, knowing how hard it is to sell a house in this market. My parents Realitors are Brent and Marie Boyter. I've known them for years. He used to be in the Stake Presidency in Corvallis. If all of this had happened a couple of years ago, I would have had a hard time. But we are all ready for this now and it is a good time to leave Corvallis if you are affiliated with Hewlett-Packard or the computer componant making business.

Rummors are that HP will be shutting down the Corvallis plant completly in the next few years. They are fazing out and laying off workers. My sister-in-laws father was an Engineer at HP and just lost his job. With the layoffs, the market surrounding Corvallis will be flooded with workers and only the best people or the fastest to jump ship will get the miniscule jobs available. This means most workers will have to commute to Salem or Portland to find a decent job. If they try to sell a house, it will be VERY hard because of the number of houses to sell and not enough buyers. Best option for those working for HP- go back to school to find a job that allows you to stay in Corvallis, or cut your losses and jump ship before you are stuck with an even bigger loss. Sad, but the way this life is, make lemonade from lemons or be stuck with a bunch of rotting lemons!

McKenzie's Baptism

My niece McKenzie turned eight in October and made the decision to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the daughter of my brother Randy. In our religion, a person can choose to be baptized anytime after the age of eight. Sometimes there will be multiple baptisms, but on this day McKenzie was the only one scheduled so she got to choose who would speak and what songs to sing. Traditionally there is an opening song, a talk on Baptism, then the baptism would be performed. Then after the person has changed clothing, there would be a welcome to the ward talk by a member of the Bishopric and then a talk on the Holy Ghost. Then the person receives the gift of the Holy Ghost by those who hold the priesthood. I was chosen by McKenzie to give a talk on Baptism and her uncle (Katie's brother in-law) was chosen to give the talk on the Holy Ghost.

When Katie asked me to give the talk on baptism, I was honored! I decided that I really wanted it to be memorable and I wanted to use some sort of visual to help. I was only given about three days to think on this, so after praying for guidance from Heavenly Father, I went to work. I looked up baptism talk ideas on Sugardoodle.com and some other sites as well as LDS.org. I wasn't satisfied with what I found and I found myself wanting to be original- not relying on what others had done before. This meant having the Holy Ghost lead me to what I was supposed to say. By friday night, I still hadn't found what I wanted to say and so I took a trip to Walmart to look around for visual aids. I somehow ended up in the keychain isle and was looking through the different little items. I found a magnifying lens on a key chain and thought about how I could tie that into baptism. Then I found these neat old fashioned keys on key chains. I was so excited and began thinking of ways to make it work for my talk.

That night I tried to find scriptures on baptism and was led to three different ones in the Book of Mormon. Mosiah 18:10- talks about covenants, Mosiah 18:16-17 talks about entering the Church of Christ, and Mosiah 21:35 talks about baptism being a witness that they are willing to serve God. I didn't feel impressed to write out my talk like I usually do, but I desired to do it without "purse or script" like it says in the Bible. I went to bed a little discouraged about not finding a way to tie in the keys with baptism. I mentioned this to Ryan who was already in bed. He reminded me about the scripture that talks about "entering in at the strait gate" and likening it to having the key to enter that gate- which is baptism. It was an exciting moment as I knew the talk would come together on it's own.

The next morning, I rushed to get my kids and I ready and leave on time to be at the nine o'clock baptism. It was in Orem which was an hour and 15 minutes away from our house. As I was waiting for the others to arrive, I quickly looked up the last scripture that Ryan had mentioned the night before. I found it in the Bible under St. Matthew 7:13-14. When it was my turn, I was nervous but the spirit took over and I just said the things that came to mind as I read each of the scriptures. It was very simple- just right for McKenzie and yet every adult was reminded of the covenant that they made when they were baptized.

Then I told McKenzie that I had something for her and I held up the keys- there were two of them on one keychain (I had bought them seperatly but then combined them on one ring). I read to her the scripture in St. Matthew and likened the keys on the ring to Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost (which we call "Comfirmation" or being "Confirmed") and how they are the first keys in this life that she will get to return to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I also told her that there are other keys that she will need to get, but that these are the first. I then handed her the keys to keep as a memory of the choices she made that day. My daughter Sydney said that McKenzie reached out really quick and was so glad to get them. I then told McKenzie how glad I was to be her Aunt (by then I choked up and I had tears in my eyes). I told her I knew the Church was true and I told her some other things as well. It was a great experience and I'm thankful for the opportunity I had to stretch my faith a little and not rely upon myself. It seems like it should be such a simple thing to give a little 2-3 minute talk, but even simple things can make a big impression on our lives.

McKenzie and her dad, Randy and her Grandpa. McKenzie was baptized and confirmed by Randy.

Can her smile get any bigger?

McKenzie's family- Malia being held by Randy, Katie holding Micah, McKenzie and Morgan.

My second cousin Jeff and his family- Jacob, Chris, Andrea, and Jessi (and of course McKenzie)

Kristi (Aunt Dee-da), and McKenzie

Grandma, Grandpa and McKenzie- she is their third grandchild baptized and on Katie's side of the family she is the first one baptized!

Tyler, Me and Sydney- Dallin was sick and stayed home with Daddy.

This is my second cousin's wife Andrea. We know them so well that it is wierd introducing her as an in-law. She is like a cousin! At the church building in the Primary Room are these cute childrens benches. I just had to snag a picture for the blog. Andrea was my model. Isn't she beautiful?!

This is Jeff and Andrea's third child sporting a jacket that has Lego guys attatched to the buttons! He kept his mind busy playing with them.

Here is a blooper picture. Randy was teasing McKenzie and my Dad was calling a family member in between photos!

Afterwards, we all went to Golden Corral and had a yummy brunch. I had never been there before and was very impressed with the variety of the buffet. They had just about everything you could ever want for breakfast! From grits to crepes!

This is such a cute picture of Katie's sister Lori and her oldest daughter. She is pregnant with their fourth. It was really nice to see you again Lori! You have such a great family!

I've reached the end of this long post. I hope you enjoyed reading about our family and our religious beliefs. It really is interesting posting this for all the world to see. Please be considerate of this as you contemplate your comments. I would love to hear your thoughts on this special day we had.

Halloween 2008- Hoyer Style!

L-R: Dallin(puppy), Kristi (my sister as Little Red Riding Hood), Sydney (She-Devil), and Tyler(Anakin turning to the dark side). For Halloween I took my kids and one of my daycare kids to Ryan's work at the American Towers in SLC. He works for Franklin Capital Corporation and they have three floors in the office building. The kids trick-or-treated to all of the cubicles and got a bucket full of candy for their efforts!

This was Dallin's first time actually participating in the action and it took a few minutes to get the hang of it. He tried to give his candy away after the first cubicle. He thought they were trading. Then when he realized that he got a lollipop, he wanted to eat it. After that, he wanted to be tasting something throughout the whole evening. He was very sticky within the first half hour! needless to say, I just wheeled him around the offices in an umbrella stroller. The only way to go!

Sydney wanted to make faces at the camera whenever I took a picture. She would quickly cross her eyes! My parents were here for the festivities and my sister went trick-or-treating with us as well. We had our traditional halloween pizza dinner and then hit the streets. We had excellent weather for the first hour and then a light drizzle decended on us. Sydney brought her dog with us and Sophie was very good. Sophie had an angel costume but didn't wear it trick-or-treating. Sydney had bought it for her. Since Sydney was a Devil, I told her they were going as opposites of their character! (Sophie has been having some accidents on the floor).

After trick-or-treating, we settled in to watch my favorite Halloween movie- "The Burbs" Staring Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Dan Akroid and Corey Fieldman. If you haven't seen it, check it out! It is a great silly/spooky comedy about a family that moves in to the subburbs and keeps to themselves. They don't fit in with the rest of the neighborhood and become the subject of observation by the nosy neighbors and they don't like what they find!

Sophie in her angel costume!

At our house, when you come to trick-or-treat, you get a trick as well as a treat! Ryan answers the door by poking a snake out the door. Then he opens the door all the way and the kids can pick a candy out of a bucket. The funniest kids are the teenage girls- boy can they scream! When I walked to the end of the cul-de-sac with my kids, you could hear kids talking about the house that has a snake! It was a big draw to the kids! Halloween- Hoyer Style!

Clark Planetarium- Salt Lake City

Tyler's sixth grade classes at his school took a field trip to the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City a couple weeks ago. I was lucky enough to get the day off from watching children- thanks Stacey and Blanca! Dallin went to a neighbor's house and had a blast! The morning started at 8:30 when we boarded the new Front Runner commuter train that runs from Davis county to Salt Lake City. From there we took the Trax to the Planetarium at the Gateway Mall. Trax is like a mix of a cable car and bus. The kids loved riding the Front Runner especially since they didn't have to sit in their seats and could walk around. There were giggly sixth grade girls going from group to group to socialize. I felt bad for the poor commuters that were bombarded by over 75 sixth graders! No, really the kids were entertaining! Since I was on the field trip with Tyler, they assigned me 4 boys to supervise. They were all good kids and didn't make trouble.

Tyler on his first ride on the Front Runner!

As you enter the Planetarium, there is this globe suspended by three cables. If you are in a group like we were, they have a presentation that shines four different projector images onto the globe to give it a full picture of whatever planet they are presenting. In our group, they started with the sun and worked their way out to pluto. When the image of earth came up on the globe, I was surprised to have a spiritual moment as I looked at the beautiful blues and greens. I was overwhelmed with gratitude to God for this gift of a beautiful, perfect planet for life in the middle of the Milky Way. Who would have thought that I would have a spiritual moment on a sixth grade field trip! Just a couple of minutes later, one of the teachers sat down by me and mentioned just about the same thing that I had experienced! Someone was really inspired to put the program together!

As you tour the museum, there are many different space things to look at. Here is a suit from one of the Apollo missions.

This is an actual moon rock from another of the Apollo missions. It was really hard to get a decent picture of this with the glare of the angled glass and my flash.

I really liked this form of the moon and tried to get an artistic picture of it. I think it turned out okay. Could be better if I had a tripod and worked with the lights more.

I just liked the colors in this photo and the interesting signs that make it feel it really is Central Station.

This young man is one of Tyler's friends from Church. He was also in my group. I looks like he is on the planet Mars! The school my son attends has a manditory uniform policy. White shirts with collars and blue dress pants are required for field trips. While we were there, we also saw a presentation in the dome theater. It was presented by a man with a microphone so that you could ask questions if you had them and he could stop to answer them. I was actually tired by the time this presentation was done because of all of the information I took in. Then we went to the Imax theater located in the museum and watched a movie that was narrated by Tom Cruise. It was very informative and was in 3-D. The kids really liked it- but it is geared towards school aged kids and adults.

By the time we got back to the station to leave Salt Lake City, I had a small headache and was tired. We all had a great time and learned quite a bit. I would recommend this museum to older kids who are interested in the planets and the solar system. Toddlers wouldn't find this museum too exciting since it is geared towards children that can read.