The Temple

Gary and I had the opportunity to go to the

Temple last night

What a wonderful way to end this

Christmas Season

We are so Blessed to have this Temple

so close to our home

We need to go often and feel the Spirit of The Lords House

The Beautiful Nativity

at the Spokane Temple

Christmas Night

It is a tradition with Gary's Family that on Christmas

the kids act out the Nativity, while someone reads

the Christmas Story

This year we had a little help from

the adults in our Christmas play

It is a GREAT TRADITION

the little kids love to be in it, the middle size not so much

The Angel Gabriel watches over the Shepard's and

Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus

The Star is in the sky

The Three Wise men have arrived

Joseph and Mary watch over baby Jesus as he sleeps in his bed

One of our Stars

Kristin's Tradition

Every year Kristin makes a new ornament for

all the kids.

This year she included all the adults. The thyme

of the ornament was

"Find Joy in the Journey"

This was a talk given by President

Thomas S. Monson 2008

Kristin takes Joy in Dancing

so she made each of us a

Disc o Ball

but before we could have our ornament

we had to dance

lucky for me I was taking pictures and

Gary did our Dance

Kristin Breaking out the Moves on the dance floor

Becca and Steve got Gary

to do the dance

Dewey doing the Dance

Brenee, Alisa, Kirstin, Client

doing the Robot dance

Mother Nature

Here is Gary doing what he has

done almost every day for the last

ten day!!

The Bird feeders and houses

the quail are here for a snack

Gary takes good care of the birds

these are the quail that come to visit

This is the snow on our back deck

Christmas Morning

The new fireplace is all ready

for Christmas morning

Santa brought Mac and Jill

some new toys for Christmas

they have never seen so many

toys at one time

"Jill" can't decided witch one to choose

Two puppies all worn out after

playing with their Christmas toys

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with two of my children, Kim, my oldest and only girl. Three of her four children were here. Capri her oldest 23, Jamie her oldest boy 17, Austin her baby is 11. Catrina who is 21, unfortunately had to work in Seattle and will join us later in the year. My oldest son Lance and his wife Leslie were also here with their four children. Drew is their oldest and is 15, Derek is next and he is 13, and Brett is 9, and youngest and only girl is Baylee and she is 7. We had a great night, a simple dinner and opened gifts and visited with each other. Then everyone left for their own homes trying to keep ahead of the Snow !! Oh did I mention we had MORE SNOW!!

Austin with a new movie, and Brett testing a new toy

Gary with one of his all time favorite

gifts, smoked salmon

Me with my sweatshirt Capri brought

back from the camp she works at in

the San Juan islands. I love it and wore

it on Christmas Day. The CO, stands

for the camp, but since I have two

Sons that live in Colorado, Capri

said we can say the CO stands

for Colorado, works for ME.

Cute picture of Kim and Capri

Leslie with a new book to read, seems she has

taken a break from books, maybe this will

get her going again!

Baylee with her new scrapbook,

Austin looking on

Derek with his "Shark Day" Stuff

Drew with a new sweatshirt

Jamie with a gift certificate for Movie and dinner. Fun gift

December Snow Storm 2008

My Snowmen "Big an Small"

Mactavish enjoying the new path

Gary shoveling a path for the dogs to run around on


Our back yard and the

bird bath.

Our Street

For all our friends and family that don't live in Washington State, we had a snow storm !!! Oh did we. It all started around December 17th. Here are some of the details that were reported.

Spokane Transit canceled all bus routes at one point, and then resumed service to only 4 of the 35 routes.

The South hill was closed at one point. The only 2 roads accessible were so bad that city officials and police officers were urging residents to stay at home and stay off the streets.

Emergency vehicles were gettin stuck.

All Spokane public schools were closed.

Public officials and City offices were closed.

Courts were closed.

Doctor's offices closed and hospitals canceled all elective surgeries.

The Spokane Valley Mall closed around 1pm, a week before Christmas!

The Spokane airport reported 17" at 8 am. That broke the record for snow accumulation in a 24- hour period that was previously set at 13 inches.

The storm also broke the snow accumulation record for the day, December 17th . The previous record was 5" and at midnight on December 17, 2008 the airport reported 14" of snow.

Spokane received half a season's accumulation in 24 hours.
Before the storm, we were 10" behind the yearly average. At 8 am, on December 18th, we were now 5" ABOVE the yearly average.