More pics of St Thomas

We stayed in the back building, to the left. This is a picture taken from the catamaran.
A view from the pool.

St Thomas, V.I.

Mike relaxing in the ocean.
Part of the Resort.

Mike and I were able to get away for a week, "kidfree", and head down to St Thomas. After a very windy, bumpy taxi ride from the airport to the Hotel, we finally made it to the "Ritz Carlton". It was a very nice place, a little over rated in my opinion, but nice. We did absolutely nothing! And I'm not kidding. We just layed on the beach, ate, did a little snorkeling and that was it. There are other things to do at St. Thomas, but after the car ride from "you know where" I was not about to get back into a taxi to go anywhere, unless we absolutely had to. Oh, we did take a large catamaran over to St John, and snorkeled at "rendevous bay". That was a lot of fun. All in all it was a much needed vacation for both of us. And the kids had a great time at home with Grandma Cheryl.

Oh the weather outside is frightful......

Two snow storms in one week! I think this is a record. Wednesday night it was all over the news that Atlanta was going to get a "big" snow storm, that schools and business's would be shut down. You'd think we were going to get 10 feet of snow or something, but no, we got about 1/2 of an inch. They still closed school for the day. Braxton was very excited!

Storm number 1

By friday all of the snow from the first storm had melted. But they were predicting a bigger storm to hit us Saturday. Braxton had basketball practice friday night, and that was all everyone was talking about, the BIG STORM! Saturday they canceled all of the basketball games, and people were going out and getting supplies in case the end of the world was on it's way. So around 10am Saturday morning the flakes started to fall and by 2 pm we had about 3 inches on the ground. The kids were so excited. Living out here in Georgia, you don't really need the proper snow attire, so we didn't have much to put on the kids. They went out and played in it for about 20 minutes until they couldn't stand the cold any longer.

Next Michael Jordan!

Well, I think we've found Braxton's sport. He does ok at everything he plays, but basketball........he's really picked up on it. Braxton is pretty good at making baskets, passing the ball to an actual person, stealing the ball from the other team, almost like he knows what he's doing. It's fun to watch him do something he's actually good at. The funny thing is, we play for a Methodist league, and most of our team are Mormon kids from our old ward. So it's fun to watch them play. Braxton loves being on a team with friends. Today's game was especially exciting because every single kid on our team made at least one basket.
After the game I told the boys that they looked like little Michael Jordan's on the court and they all looked at me like I was crazy.....am I really that old?

At the beginning of the game they have a spotlight going, a fog machine on and they announce all the players names as they run onto the court. There's Braxton running out.

Look at that defense!

Braxton seriously stole the ball from this kid right after this shot.

Braxton making a basket.

Braxton pointing out to his team mate that he's standing on the line.

Braxton making another basket.

Making yet another basket.

A week late, but a miracle non-the-less!

Anyone who knows me, knows that every year I have the same wish, a "christmas miracle" is what I like to call it, that it snow here on Christmas day. Well, we've lived here for 9 years and not once have we had snow on Christmas day. I've heard that the last time it happened was in 1996, so I know it can happen. Well, on New Years day we went and saw a movie and on our way home from the theater it started to flurry. By the time we got home it was "blizzardy" looking, ok for Georgia it was blizzardly. It didn't stick to the ground and only snowed for about 20 min, but good enough. So we are getting closer..........maybe next year.

Taken out our front door....

The destructive duo strike again!

Happy 2008, everyone! The past couple of New Years we have opted to stay home and have a quiet evening with the fam, but this year we invited the Maddox's and Sampson's over for dinner and games, that adds 8 kids to our 2 kids which = mess! Don't get me wrong, it's always a lot of fun to have everyone here, especially for the kids.

Hailey and Gabby alone are a handful by themselves....as soon as Gabby gets here they usually run up into Haileys bedroom and get as many clothes as they can to change into and then proceed to get every toy they can get their little hands on and who knows what they do with it all, but it's always a huge ordeal to clean it up. Well when everyone was getting ready to go home, I went up into Hailey's room to look for Gabby's clothes and noticed that it was all clean. I was shocked, but also a little suspicious.......so I went into Hailey's bathroom just to see if there was anything in there and this is what I found..............

I guess I should count my blessings.....at least they didn't turn the water on.

Hailey's Birthday!

I grew up with a sister, who shall remain nameless, that resented the fact her birthday was so close to Christmas. With the hustle and bustle of the holidays there were times when her birthday was kind of lost in the shuffle. I now have a daughter who is in that same perdicament. I am seeing Mike and myself pulling gifts out of her Christmas stash and setting them aside for her birthday, because we don't want to go shopping between Christmas and New Years, and we've forgotten that her birthday is coming up. I'm sure the older she gets, the wiser she will become and this will no longer be acceptable.

Her birthday was on the 28th of December, which fell on a night that Mike had to work late at the hospital, so we didn't even tell her it was her birthday until the following day. She had a great day though. We opened gifts and went and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks as a family. We decided to do birthday cake on new years eve, when our friends would be here to celebrate with us. Her buds Gabby and Seth were here to enjoy the cake and play all night long.

Hailey enjoying some of her birthday presents..

Hailey blowing out her birthday candles....notice the princess castle cake....yes I made it myself and yes it looked just as crappy in person as it does in the picture. Hailey loved it and that is all that matters!

Christmas Day 2007

I can't believe Christmas is over! This year has just flown by for us, so much has gone on it's hard to believe it's been a year......Anyway, we had a great Christmas. Braxton and Hailey slept in until about 8am, and then woke everyone up. They are pretty good about not going downstairs and seeing the presents....(as far as I know anyway) Their "big" gifts this year were bikes. They were both very excited about them. Hailey has been riding her's all over the house ever since she got it. Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri left around 11am Christmas day, so it was just us the rest of the day. We just layed around, ate, watched movies and played rockband. It was a great day! Merry Christmas everyone!

Braxton and Hailey with Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth.

Christmas Eve

This year Mike's Dad, Stepmom and sister, Kerri came down to spend Christmas with us. It was alot of fun to have Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri here. Braxton and Hailey had a great time playing games, "sleeping over" in Aunt Kerri's room and reading books with Grandma Ellsworth. This year I had planned to do a short program with the kids for Christmas Eve, but since they had been up past midnight the previous 2 nights they were out of their minds tired when it came time to do the program. So instead we watched the movie Nativity. But before that we opened our new PJ's to sleep in.

Elf on the Shelf

I'm sure many of heard of the "phenomonon" called the Elf on the Shelf. It's a story about one of Santa's elves that comes to your home and watches you to make sure you are being nice and not naughty...he then goes to report to Santa about your behavior every night. The book comes with an actual elf that you put on your shelf, and every morning he's moved to a new spot. The catch is you can't touch him or he won't come back the next day. Braxton and Hailey have had so much fun trying to find the Elf. I have to admit that there are times the elf has "forgotten" to move and Braxton is very disappointed that he's in the same spot. Anyway, Mike has decided to get in on the fun and started to hide the elf. And this is what we found this morning...........

The fan is running and the elf is flying around. Mike is quite proud of himself.

Oh Christmas Tree.....

We did something tonight we haven't done for years! We bought a "real" tree. It's been 4 years, since the "incident", and we vowed to go fake ever since. (Mike trying to get the tree out of the house and making a huge, muddy, sappy mess on the carpet in the process....plus we were vaccuming up needles for months after that tree.) But since we have an extra family room in this house, it had to have a tree in it, so we thought we'd give a real one a try. We picked out the tree, bought ornaments and lights, then decorated the heck out of it. We went a little crazy on the lights, the color I mean. I opted for plain white, while Mike wanted color, so we compromised.

Hailey and I putting up decorations


Hailey loves to put up ornaments, you can really see it, but there were about 20 balls right in that spot.


Braxton was the official "hook putter oner" for the ornaments.

Hailey and the tree.....notice she is still in the same spot putting up ornaments.....

Three Little Indians......

When we go out to Utah, we are fortunate to have lots if family and friends to spend time with. (which at times makes our visit out there pretty hectic) But we enjoy every minute of it. Our good friends, Chris and Karen have a little girl, named McKenzie. Braxton and Hailey both love to go over to their house and play with her and all of her toys. Other than Hailey and Kenzie fighting over some of the toys, they usually have a pretty good time.

There's no place like "home" for the holidays!

This year we were able to go out to Utah for Thanksgiving. It's been 4 years, since I've been out there for any holiday. I've been avoiding it ever since the Thanksgiving I became deathly ill with the stomach flu, which put me in bed for our entire visit. But we decided to chance it and go. Which I am happy to report absolutely no sickness, with anyone. (Thank you "Airborne") I think that is probably my "Christmas miracle" this year. Braxton and Hailey had a great time with their cousins, and their buddy McKenzie. Braxton didn't want to come home, which is a first for him.

Grandma and Grandpa Hanson with some of the Grandkids.

Braxton, Zach and Spencer at Temple Square.

Temple Square

Mike, Hailey and Braxton. Hailey was in heaven, with all of the "princess" lights.

Braxton with cousins at Thanksgiving dinner.

Braxton, Grandma Hanson and Hailey putting up the Christmas tree.

Happy B-day to the "big boy"!

Mike just had his number 37, this past Sunday. It blows my mind to think he's almost 40... We had a nice quiet birthday, and had some friends come over for dinner, cake and a little guitar hero action.

Just look at the action in that picture...........you can see the flame on the middle candle going out.

Anway, it's alway a great comfort to know, that in this crazy messed up world, one thing will never change....................Mike will always be older than me!

Halloween '07

True to form, this Halloween proved to be just ask hectic as the ones in past years. We think it's going to be a "low-key" night of trick-or-treating and candy eating, but it's never that simple. We went over to a friends home for dinner and to get our kids in their costumes, before we headed out to another friends home to trick or treat. Well, that went smoothly until Braxton locked our keys in the trunk of the car. In the car was the camera. So, I was unable to get pictures of the kids before we went out trick or treating. Mike had to run all of the way home to get our extra set of keys.

Long story short, the only pictures I have are of Hailey at her Gymnastics Halloween party and Braxton and Hailey eating their candy after trick or treating. And all of their face make-up was pretty much melted off by then. Hailey was a cheerleader and Braxton was a football player and his face was all beaten up.

Hailey and Gabby

Haileys gymnastics classBraxton going through his candy.....as you can see his make-up is pretty much gone.

Hailey going through everyone elses candy. You can kind of see the the "GT" on her cheek.

Burt's, Pumpkin Farm

You know fall is here when the air is cool, the leaves start to change and Burt's pumpkin farm is open for business.....well one out of three ain't bad. It's been SOOOOO hot here, and muggy, the leaves are barely starting to change, that it hasn't felt like fall, at all.... At least we can count on good ole Burt! One of our fall traditions is to go up to Burt's farm, up in the "mountains" and pick out pumpkins. There are a bunch to choose from. Anywhere from baby size to a LARGE size pumpkin. We opted for some babies and a medium size this year. The first year we went up there, we were so excited about the huge ones that we actually bought one. $65 later we were kind of regreting it......and once Halloween was over, it was quite the perdicament to figure out what to do with the darn thing.

Braxton and his Aunt Kerri looking for the perfect pumpkin.

Aunt Kerri, Braxton, Me, Mike and Hailey on the hay ride.

Mike with Hailey, Braxton, his Step-mom and Dad.

She finally found the perfect pumpkin, and was very excited about it.

It's tough to find just the right one.......

Another year down!

Mike and I just celebrated our 11th year anniversary! Oh it seems like yesterday, we were young and in love.......now we are old and angry. Just kidding, we are still young and in love.......most of the time. :) Anyway, we decided to go away again this year. Mike had some meetings up in Asheville, North Carolina, so we took the opportunity to have our trip paid for, and headed on up. We stayed at the Grove Park Inn, Spa resort. Apparently it's rated the #1 spa in the United states. It was such a nice place, peaceful and relaxing. Asheville is so pretty. It's up in the Appalachian mountains. We even splurged and had massages. It felt so good to relax. Until the pain set in, I mean real pain from the massage! My back is so stiff I can barely move. Mike was fine until lastnight, now he's feeling it too.

The camera died before I could get a picture of the hotel, so we bought a postcard. The top middle is the hotel, and the three bottom pictures are part of the spa. The pools were the best part. The Hotel is located by the famous, Biltmore home (the house the Vanderbilts, built)

This is a view from one of the many balconys at the hotel. I think it's part of the Blue ridge mountains.....not sure.

The young lovers, while we were waiting for our dinner reservation, we wandered around the hotel to check it out. You can't see it but there is a really pretty water fountain and pond behind us.