A Little Extended Family Reunion in Kirtland, Ohio

(To prevent squinting, you can read the text here:)

When Brother and Sister Fagg came from London to visit Mom and Dad in Chicago, they mentioned that they would really like to see Historic Kirtland. Hard to pass up an opportunity like that to visit your oldest granddaughter, who just happens to be serving a mission there!

Believe it or not, we were able to keep the visit a surprise for months, and on May 3rd, 2011, Mom and Dad completely shocked Melissa by showing up at the Visitor’s Center in Kirtland, Ohio. Mom and Dad claimed that Melissa’s squeal of delight could be heard by everyone there, and Melissa claims that there were a few tears in the eyes of both grandparents. I’d say that they were ALL completely thrilled to be together! Her grandparents said that Melissa was an amazing tour guide who shared a beautiful testimony of the Gospel. I’m so happy that they were able to have this wonderful experience together.

Playing Catch Up...

Time to start scrapping all those photos from last year! I promise not to post ALL the layouts I've completed, but I just loved these bright, colorful pages filled with photos that Melissa took during May, 2010, when she spent a month doing nursing in Ghana. What an amazing experience! 

And while we're on the Melissa theme, thought I'd add a Christmas Skyping page. Equal time for girls, right?!

Not Dead Yet!

I'm not certain, but it's entirely possible that posting only three blog entries in one calendar year makes me unworthy of the title "blogger". And it's not like this was a peaceful, quiet year for our family. I've even taken a picture, or two, or a hundred, that could definitely have been shared here. So, for what it's worth, my New Years' resolutions include blogging more and scrapping more, and wouldn't it be great if I could combine the two....


Here's to a year full of catching up on the past as well as recording the present. Happy New Year!

Best Mother's Day Gift Ever!

Really, the only thing that would make this completely perfect would be if Melissa had accompanied them. But since she's on the coast of Africa right now, that would be a little challenging! This Mother's Day, I'm very grateful for four amazing, wonderful children!

P.S. Guess I should have mentioned that this was a practice for singing today in Church. Guess who's singing which part...

Regents Week Rocks!

I may not like New York taxes and New York politics (and sometimes New York weather), but I love New York Regents state testing! What other state would let high school students out of school for a week in the middle of January - just three weeks after Christmas Break and two weeks before Winter Break?!

This year, Scott received his graduation present early as we decided to spend Regents week on a cruise in the sunny Caribbean and somehow managed to miss out on New York's coldest weather of the winter so far!

We had a blast together -- cave tubing in Belize, visiting Mayan ruins in Costa Maya, and sunning on the beach in Cozumel. At night, James and I went to the shows on the ship and Scott and Craig enjoyed spending time with new friends from Bolivia, Mexico City, and New York City.




Our ship, the Liberty of the Seas, was the big brother of the Explorer of the Seas -- the ship our family cruised on over six years ago. Check out some of these 'matching' pictures!

♫ Oh What Do You Do in the Wintertime? ♬

Okay, I'll admit it -- our family is easily amused. Take our trip to Lake George during Christmas break. Turns out that Lake George is NOT the winter get-away you might have imagined it to be. In fact, we're surprised we didn't see one big CLOSED sign as we drove through this upstate NY city.

But that didn't stop us from having a great time there! For instance, even though we were two days early for the annual January 1st Polar Bear Swim (oh, the disappointment!), we discovered yet another use for the waterfront...




I believe that there was some point to this snowball fight/game - but I have to confess that I wasn't too clear on the rules.

And I'm pretty sure that there are some Lake George ducks that were even more confused...

Just another day in the snowy Northeast. With some pretty fun kids.

Yay! A family picture!

It's been a year since our entire family has been together and we've been having a blast during this Christmas vacation. The kids weren't totally overjoyed to have their picture taken, but they survived. Thanks to the fact that 14-year-old Craig has grown nearly two inches since August, Melissa and I are just weeks away from being the shortest in the family! Oh well -- we knew it would happen someday.

Of course, I wouldn't want anyone to think that taking a picture of the kids is an easy thing....




...but it was worth it in the end! *Ü*

The Photo That I DIDN'T Get

I LOVE taking pictures at Cross Country meets. I love the beautiful fall settings, the expressions on the runners' faces, the excitement and action of the race. And Tawasentha Park, where Scott and his team ran on Saturday, is one of my favorite courses. Much of the second half of the race is run in a hilly, wooded area and we don't see much of the runners until they come flying down 'suicide' hill (I can tell you THAT wasn't named by any runner's mother!) and out into the clearing where they race for the finish line.


The first runner flying out of the woods at the bottom of the hill on Saturday was Shen's very fast top man, but I could see an extra set of arms and legs behind him and a second later Scott's head was visible. I snapped a couple of quick photos while shouting and cheering (not an easy thing!), but was too far away for the photo I would have loved to take -- the one just before the finish line, when Scott managed to out-kick the Shen runner for the win. Congratulations to Scott and the other BH runners for a great race!

Back to BH!

Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure that it's the high point of the school year. It's the first day of school, your back pack is loaded and ready to go, you're ready to jump on your bike and head to school, and Mom utters those now immortal words: Let's take pictures!

I have to say that Scott and Craig are pretty good sports about the picture whole thing. They even smiled nicely for me! And got the finger counting thing correct this year. Nice job boys.


(If you want to see how much these two have changed, check out last year's post here.)

The Faces of Fun

We'd have to give the Great Escape (Six Flags) two big thumbs up on this beautiful end-of-summer-vacation day. Jared, Lauren and Mike joined Scott and Craig on all the fun rides (defined as anything that went upside down, dropped you from heights, went faster the louder you screamed, or got you soaking wet) while I played with my camera. (Note to whoever developed the Nikon 70-300 VR lens: you rock!)

The kids sure are good sports about having their pictures taken - it was so fun to capture the looks on their faces!

A 'Rapid' Recovery from Youth Conference

You would think that after three days of Youth Conference (read: no sleep) during the only heat and humidity we've had all summer, Scott and Craig would be wiped out and ready to collapse.

Not so. As soon as they got home on Saturday afternoon, James offered to take them kayaking/tubing through the rapids of the Sacandaga River and they were up for the challenge. As you can see from these photos, all three had a great time!

Smokey, We're Not in Utah Anymore....

Eric and his fire company left Utah last week and headed to California to fight some wild fires there. Looks like it was quite the experience. How cool to have these photos.

He returned to Provo very late on Saturday night and, while it was great to put all his training to work fighting fires, I think he was happy to be home as well. Check out that beard-wanna-be! *Ü*

It's Not Summer Until...

Yep, it's Scout Camp time. In a quick call home, Craig reports that he's having a fun time there. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that he's hanging out with some of his good friends for the second week in a row.

Apparently, a poor little scout at camp was complaining that everyone in our troop bugged him about looking like Craig. Fortunately, our friend Jeff was there to take the photographic evidence shown above. Check out Craig and mini-Craig. Wow... when did my son get SOOO tall?!