I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...oh wait, I'm not dreaming

2 feet drifts on our back deck

Last minute Christmas happenings

Lucy sings in the Glee Club at school and they sang their songs on Friday.  It was very cute.  In one of the songs they are singing about pumpkin pie and at the end they all put their faces into the pie!
Lucy is standing next to one of her good friends, Elliza:

Lucy is in the pink shirt

I drove up to Cody yesterday to pick Audrey up from the airport.  While I as waiting I saw this Bear Spray sign and had to laugh.  Only in Wyoming would there be a bear spray deposit sign at the airport!

It's good to have Audrey with us:

As per our tradition we opened Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve:

Christmas tree #1

Emma is home and she wanted us to wait to cut down the Christmas tree until she was able to go with us.  So today Brian, Emma, and I drove to Ten Sleep, bought the tree permit, and headed up the canyon.  We didn't go as far as we normally do and turned off at the Ten Sleep Fish Hatchery.  We parked and hiked amid the bushes and snow drifts to find out smallish tree.  It was beautiful out there and had warmed up a bit, in the 20's, much better than the below zero temps we've been having.

Brian and the chosen tree

Beautiful Ten Sleep Creek

Emma getting ready to throw a snowball at me

Pre-snowball throw

Lights added

Finished product

We are planning on getting tree #2 when Audrey comes this weekend.

After our cold adventure, we came home to eating Elk tonight!  YUM!

Winter Wonderland

It's winter in Worland!  -23 this morning. 

It looks nice and sunny, but it doesn't feel nice and sunny!

Peter sang in the Eastside Elementary Christmas program.  He did a great job!  It was just the Kindergarten through 3rd grade, so this was Pete's last year to participate.  The 4th through 5th grades don't do a Christmas program.

Pete is the farthest left against the wall.

Peter's class

I've been busy at the Museum.  We sponsored a Christmas party for the boys and girls club, the 4-H, and the Youth Learning Center on Friday.  It was a Dr. Seuss themed party and Santa came to visit as well.  I got to do a story time with the kids and I dressed up as Cindy Lou Who.

It was a lot of fun!

While Andy was driving home with the basketball team from Green River and Brian and Emma were driving home from Utah Eric, Lucy, Peter, and I were invited to the Tejada's to make and decorate cookies.  We had a great time and the kids made some cool creations.

Not sure what Peter is doing in this picture

Nice face Eric

Yum!

The whole gang: Lucy, Eliza, Eric, Millie, and Peter

Christmas parties are starting

Eric was awesome at the ward Christmas dinner.  Click on the link to watch him lip sync.  It's a little blurry, but he is the second one up, then he does the batman song and Michael Jackson.  I think he's found his calling!

Eric at the Ward Christmas Dinner

Peter singing Little Drummer Boy

All the primary kids singing

Eric eating a cornflake wreath

Peter eating food

Lucy's primary class singing Stille Nacht

Lucy and Santa

Thanksgiving

Our lovely Thanksgiving Lunch!  We had the dinner cooked, devoured, and cleaned up by 1:00!  The boys ran in the Gobble Wobble at 10:30 and the girls got everything ready.  Eric came in 3rd overall in the 2 mile run and came home with a pumpkin pie.  Andy and Brian ran the 4 mile race and Peter and Eric ran the 2 mile race.

This year Andy's birthday happens to fall on Thanksgiving Day.  We put candles in his Coconut Cream Pie.

He got lots of nice presents including a bluetooth speaker for his phone, powerade, pringles, beef jerky, chocolate, cereal, and a BYU Football memorabilia book.

The family humored me and we took a quick little history jaunt in the afternoon.  I've been typing in a lot of oral histories of this area at work and I recently read one that was about a very small town called Neiber.  It was a stage coach station from the early 1900s until Mary Neiber's death in 1923, but quickly faded away by the time the railroad came through.  I had the GPS coordinates of a small cemetery, which was all that was left and it was only about 15 minutes outside of town.  So we put the coordinates into Google Maps and drove away.  We found it on top of a hill. It was a short hike to the top of the hill and we had to dodge millions of small cacti.  It was a beautiful view of the stark landscape from the top. 

This past week Lucy has started her basketball season.  Brian helped coach the first two games as the coach was out of town.  They look pretty good and have won 2 out of their 3 games so far.

Lucy in motion shooting the ball during warm ups before the game with Brian watching.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Sport filled weekend

Lucy has been working hard on her volleyball skills.  Her team played two games back to back on Thursday and won them both.  She is one of the smallest on the team, but packs a big punch...or serve I should say.

Lucy in her ready stance--getting ready for the serve.

The Worland Warriors played the Powell Panthers on Friday.  Powell has been doing pretty well and we fought well against them, but lost 21-14. 

It was a slightly chilling evening, but the littles had fun sitting by their friends.

Me and Lucy selfie

Me, Ellie, Lucy

Conference Weekend Happenings

This General Conference weekend started off with a trip to Cody to watch Andy and the Worland Warriors play football.  Unfortunately they lost by quite a lot!  Andy got in a good block that resulted in a touchdown for us, but it wasn't quite enough. It was a beautiful night in Cody, however.

On Saturday Eric had a cross country meet in Thermopolis, only 30 minutes away from Worland.  Brian went to see him run and he was looking great!  He got to run amid the beautiful red cliffs of Thermop at the very hilly golf course.

Here he comes rounding the corner!

Thermopolis Golf Course

Meanwhile back at home I watched the first sessions of General Conference with Peter and Lucy and Macy and Fiona.  Brian and Eric made it back from Thermop in time to catch the second half of the session.  Andy stayed at the cross country meet to watch his friends run varsity.

Lauren shared this sweet photo of Van watching his first conference:

And here are a few more Van pics, because I'm a Van Fan!

My Fav one!

Daddy and baby are TIRED!

Accomplishment of the day, everyone stayed awake during both sessions of conference!!

Peter and Myles Trombley

Macy Trombley, Lucy, Fiona Trombley and Andy on the couch

Looking forward to tomorrow's sessions.  Lucy is going to leave with the Trombley's after the first session tomorrow to go to the Star Valley Temple Open House.  She is soooo excited!  She gets to stay overnight in a hotel and everything!!  Star Valley is about 5 hours away from us and so we have not found a time to go that wouldn't interfere with football and cross country.  We are happy Lucy will get to go!