Elizabeth loves to go upsidedown.  Every time Paul picks her up, she climbs up his chest and then flips herself over and then laughs hysterically.

Also, Elizabeth has learned to do “the rebecca”, which means to make the furrowed brow & glare that Paul says looks just like something Rebecca or Ellie would do — but she looks more like Rebecca.   It’s clear she doesn’t know what it means (yet) because afterwords she laughs because she was able to make the funny face that makes daddy roll his eyes.

Cameron?  He and Robyn broke up & he’s working all the time and we hardly ever see him.

My brother, David, and his family have moved locally.  He is being sent to Okinawa, Japan on the 15th of this month.  I think it’s going to be nice having more family around.

Oh yeah, and I lost my job on July 3rd.   If you know of anyone looking for a paralegal, let me know.

The last top canine tooth has appeared, which made Elizabeth better tempered for about 24 hours.  Now we have the bottom two to go.  One of them is just a huge lump and she flinches when you touch it.  Hopefully only another couple of days until that one pokes through.

My brother, David, and his wife, Tammy, are in town looking for a house.  David will be going to Japan for the last couple of years of his service in the Marine Corps, so the family will settle down here and David will come here to St. George to live when he’s back.

It’s been nice seeing them again.  Of course Elizabeth is looking forward to when one of her favorite cousins comes to live closer.  When the Nelson’s were here during the holiday’s, Elizabeth really clung onto Jessica.

Adam Nelson was born to Daniel & Jessica Nelson today….  8 lbs. 4 oz.

Just wanted to say congrats to Scott and Victoria on their marriage.

We truly wish we could be there to share the special day, but we will be thinking of you all day and hope the weather plays its part.

Make sure to send us pics.

Paul and Kathy

Today is mums birthday, I was the only one who didn’t buy her a card with 70 on. I said that the cards here didnt go that old..

As it is her birthday we decided to let her just work half day, I know crazy generous of me but thats just the kind of son I am.  We had a nice cooked breakfast, sausages, eggs, ham and toast and elizabeth ran round like a loon for a while.

Then elizabeth went to bed, kathy and I went to get the oil changed, which ended up with them doing the transmission fluid as well and of course took longer than we thought it would. We also got $50 gift card from our a local bank because we opened accounts with them in december.

So thats $50 towards my new shed, now we just have to wait for it to be on sale.

Mum did the windows while we were gone, and cleaned up a bag full of dog poo and I have been told that when she comes next time the dog is to have his own area and the yard had better be clean. You would think at 43 I wouldn’t be scared of me mum but I am..

I am currently trying to work out how to get the pics from mums new zen music player onto my pc.

We went to ruby tuesday’s  for dinner, we had originally planned to go to the texas roadhouse but they had a 40 minute wait. We figured that trying to get elizabeth to stay still for 40 minutes would be just about impossible so we went elsewhere.

On the way home we stopped at the state liquor store to get mum a bottle of Brandy, I was a bit hurt as they never asked me for any id to prove my age.

Anyway that was mums birthday, the big 70 no less!

As usual, no matter what time of year it is, the time that anyone from England spends with us is spent in the rain & cold. Doreen took Elizabeth for walks (which Elizabeth LOVES!) every time the rain stopped for a few minutes. We did a teensy bit of yard work, but it was too muddy to do much.

My plants are doing well. Most of the indoor plants have sprouted and are getting trained for their replanting outside in a couple of weeks.

Work is hectic. It’s horribly busy. On Friday, I worked through lunch and then worked after closing in the evening, just trying to catch up a little. I don’t think I’m getting ahead, though.

Paul’s mum has arrived for a 2 week visit. Doreen’s plane landed in Vegas (of course) and she took the shuttle up to St. George. After we picked her up, we went to Denny’s for a late dinner.

It’s only taking Elizabeth a short time to realize that “nanny” and this lady at her house is the same person.

This is the year that my entire family spends Christmas day at their respective in-laws, so we celebrated a bit early this year. 

David and his family came down from Denver and met at our house last night.   We ordered a bunch of pizza’s to go with our chips & sodas and Cynthia and I made some desserts.   So we had David, Tammy, David Jr., Mindy, Jessie, Cynthia, Eric, Emily, Daniel, Jessica, Ryan, Sage, Dalton, my mom, my dad, Cameron, Elizabeth, Paul and myself.  It was quite a housefull!  The kids all went downstairs to play while all the ‘grown ups’ stayed upstairs and talked.    We had a great time.

Our shy little daughter loved the party, which was odd.  She’s usually clinging onto our leg and burying her head, but she was walking around and enjoying the party as much as the rest of us. 

Jessica (David’s daughter) decided to stay the night at our house instead of with everyone else at Daniel’s.  We took the extra chips downstairs and watched a movie.  Elizabeth loved being with Jessica.   She’s the perfect house guest.

Today was our Christmas.  The same group all converged on Daniel’s house this time.  Jessica made a turkey, stuffing, frog eye salad, and dinner rolls and the rest of us brought stuff to balance out the dinner.   We also sat around and opened presents to each other. 

After dinner & a visit, David went up to Glendale and will be leaving there early on Christmas morning.  It was really good to see them again. 

After we got home from Daniel’s house, we finished off our Christmas since Cameron was going to be gone on Christmas day also.  We started by opening presents to each other and then we opened presents from England.  Some of the tags fell off of the UK packages, and on the others, Elizabeth ripped the paper so fast that we didn’t have time to see what was from who.   Thank you everyone for the presents — everything was lovely.  I’ll have some pictures of Elizabeth & Cameron in their new clothes soon.

Here is a movie of all the kids playing in our curtains.  From the left, it’s Sage, Ryan, then Dalton.  Then Emily (the blonde) and Elizabeth (the cutest one) join in.  Jessica came over to try and get the kids to not tear down the curtains.

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On Wednesday, it’s customary for Alan to close the office down around 3pm.  On that day, I was at lunch and around 12:50 he called my cell and said to not bother coming back to the office.  It was just too slow to bother.  Of course, if I would’ve known, I would’ve ran my errands before coming home and then just not bothered going back.  I packed up Elizabeth and she helped mommy deliver papers to the court, GAL’s and county attorney’s office.  I’m not sure if anyone is sincere, but they say they love to see her and she’s so beautiful and her hair is lovely and she’s getting so big, etc.   Elizabeth just smiles and crawls all over their office.

Thanksgiving day wasn’t very eventful.  It was raining as we drove up to Glendale, which was very scenic up through Zion (waterfalls and wild animals galore).  We got to my parents house only moments before the food was ready.  We ate and everything was immediately cleared away and everyone scattered to go down for a nap.  Paul & I packed back up and headed to Orderville to visit the Walker’s.  We had a short visit and then drove home. 

Black Friday is today.  Nutshell:  We’re both very tired from the early rising to buy stuff.  We didn’t spend a fortune and we didn’t need or want very much, but the few things we got were worth it.   Elizabeth is so worn out from yesterday’s events that she has taken 2 naps and was wanting a 3rd, but we ended up just putting her to bed at 6:30.  That’s extremely early for her, but she just couldn’t manage any longer.  Paul picked her up and she just put her head on his shoulder — didn’t even wave goodnight to me and he carried her away.

Cameron had to be at work at 5am today and when i went into Target late this morning, he was scrambling around like crazy (like they all were).  He’s exhausted also.  It’s currently 8pm and I think we’re all headed to bed here shortly.

We’ve bought a wheelbarrow, some cement tools, and some more cinder blocks.  On Friday after work, or Saturday, we’re going to begin work on the walls outside.  Most of this weekend will probably be digging, but hopefully we can get a small bit of wall put up. 

Elizabeth is loving her new toof.  She plays with it with her tongue a lot.  She’s also standing and walking more and more every day.  A funny thing we noticed….. She has a jumperoo which she absolutely loved.  We went to put her in it again and she freaked out!  She likes standing by it, walking around it, and playing with all of the spinny things and lights, but she doesn’t want to go in it anymore.  Weird.

On Friday evening, Jessica and her sister Melissa are having a watch party.  Elizabeth and I will be going, of course.   We might not buy anything, but you know how we both love to hover around a snack table!