2008 School Pictures

Ethan 4th Grade

Matthew 1st Grade

Rachel 1st Grade

Happy 16th Birthday Cousin Aubrey!

This Aubrey's magical year. (At least you think it is until you turn 16.) We wish her the best and hope she has a PEATREE birthday!

This is Aubrey when I first met her in 1994 with Steve.


This is Aubrey now, the oldest of 5 kids.


Isn't she beautiful?

Happy 4th Birthday Cousin Spencer & Happy 1st Birthday Cousin Nephi

Spencer (July 12)
Nephi (July 20)
In keeping with this little tradition that I have started for myself, I have to make this very belated birthday wish. Somehow these two cute little guys slipped through cracks and we didn't wish them a happy birthday on our blog. Sooooo, to try and make it a little extra special, here is what I finally got the kids together to do.


Yeah, it worked!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I didn't post how old my Mom is but here are some great pictures from her 60th Birthday Bash last year with special guest, Elvis Presley.

We love you Mom and Hope you Have a Happy Birthday!

Steve's 20th Santa Paula High School Reunion

by Steve


Our "Prom" picture - 2008


Hard to believe, but this year is the 20th anniversary of my High School graduation. I attended Santa Paula Union High School in Southern CA and have only been back home a few times in the last 20 years. I was too busy with Grad school and a pregnant wife for my 10 year reunion and decided the 20 year might be worth a special trip. We had some great folks putting it together and the confirmed attendee list was looking good. So we left the kids at Grandma Cannon's house and flew home for a quick and very fun weekend.

This is what Melissa said about the trip, "I had a wonderful time. It was so much fun finally meeting some of these people or meeting them again that Steve has talked about so much. I truly enjoyed hearing all the sweet comments about Steve and his family and how much fun everyone had going to the Church youth dances with him. I am so glad that he had such a great group of friends growing up. "


This is Melissa and me with my good friend Gunn Hege Hansen, who came all the way from Norway to attend our reunion. She was an exchange student my senior year and has kept in touch with my family ever since (we were not the host family). She brought her oldest son Magnus with her and it was great to meet him - a very nice and well mannered young man.

My good Friend Elise Peterson made it down from Oregon and we all met up at my folks' house to drive over to the venue together.
Here are a just a few other pictures from that evening. Most of my class stayed in California, so I hadn't seen many of these folks since graduation.

One of my Childhood friends, Duane Gardner

Me and Brenna Jue - flashing our home town sign.

Me and Elizabeth Soriano

Elise, Gunn, Todd and Irene Bonds. Todd was one of my good friends in HS that I've known since Jr High. Irene was a freshman our senior year.

My good friend Ron Carey - I haven't seen Ron in years; long enough for he and his wife to have 3 boys!

David Kasso and David Magdaleno - I hung out a ton with these guys in Jr High. Great Guys.

My good friends Jason Cavender and Glenn Higbee. Glenn married a LDS woman (Jennifer) and joined the church about a year ago.

The Cavenders, Spendloves and Higbees - it was great to meet some of my buddies' wives after all of these years - very nice ladies.

Glenn, Jason Barrett and Jason Cavender. There were 3 blonde Jasons in my circle of friends. We missed seeing Jason Powell that night. Jason Barrett made it all the way from Michigan.

Ummm.... there was some "dancing" later that evening.

The main reunion event was a ton of fun and I saw many good friends that I hadn't seen in years. A few of us went out for breakfast afterwards at 1:00 am at a Carrows on Seaward Avenue in Ventura. Twenty years later and breakfast at 1:00 am just isn't the same as it was when I was 18... go figure. But we had fun anyway. Around the table, starting from the left is Jason Barrett, Ron and Joyce Carey, Gunn Hege, Elise Peterson, Irene and Todd Bonds.

Ron, Todd, Jason and me.

The following afternoon, Tim Koester hosted a family picnic at his home in upper Ojai. This is Ron Carey, Glenn Higbee and me enjoying a little shade.


Jason Cavender with his new son, Tim Koester, our host, Todd Bonds and myself.

It was really a great reunion - I'm glad we made the effort to attend. I was blessed to have a great group of friends in HS. It was very nice to catch up with most of them and see that they are happy and successful on many different levels in their lives.

[One final note: there are 3 times as many active LDS folks in my graduating class now than in 1988. As in 1 (yours truly) plus two who later converted.]

Talk to Me Tuesday on Tip Junkie

Tip Junkie is doing a Virtual Tour of Homes on her Talk to me Tuesday post. And of course I have to participate. These are the top 10 things I love about my home.

I love President Hinckley's 9 B's and nothing like vinyl lettering on a board over my back door to display it. I am also not a wallpaper fan, but my house came with this wallpaper in the kitchen that I love.

I love family pictures and I usually don't hang anything on my walls, put things out unless it has a special meaning to me. These are pictures of Steve's parents and my parents and their parents. I put these next to one of our engagement pictures and a quote I framed by President Kimball (I think) that reads, "Let there be no Empty Chairs in our Heavenly Home." This is also something my dad quoted often.

I love this little corner that was all started with the framed "Families Can Be Together Forever" sheet music made by my Mother-in-Law. My parents also gave us the nice picture of President Hinckley which is always a great reminder of how we stand for something good.

I have posted this before, but it is one of my favorites. This was an old church bench I grew up with in my home. It had been many different colors in the past and I was able to "inherit" it thinking I would strip it down and just stain it. Well, it wasn't as pretty as I thought it would be so it is now this beautiful red bench in my home. And the pillow was gift that my awesome sister-in-law made. I LOVE LOVE it.

This is a picture of the court house in my home town, which was the the County Seat. I think it is a beautiful building and am so lucky to have a picture of it. It was a suprise gift from my husband. I also love the frame.

These are pictures of a train station and old home from the town my husband grew up in. Like I said before almost everything I hang has a meaning. I am going to get some vinyl lettering to put on these pictures describing what they are. Got this idea from the Tip Junkie herself.

This is a picture of a corner in my girls room. I painted it light purple and stenciled this cute boarder to give it a nice cottage look with the uneven ceiling. I haven't done anything else to the room yet so that is why you only get a corner view.

This staircase was a fun feature of our house. And of course more pictures, all of our kids.

I saw this iron rod at a friends house and had to get one. I ordered it from Rod Works out of Utah. The pictures are of each of our kids around the age of one and they are my favorite pictures.

This is showing off part of my collection of the Willow Tree figurines that I love on my mantel. Even if my kids keep knocking them off and we keep glueing them back together.

I love this view from my dining room and yes, more pictures.

I have posted this before also, but our dining room table is lucky to still be in our home. It is actually the table that Steve grew up eating on. So there are lots of great family memories there. But it was pretty rickety. I loved it and so made Steve help me sand it down and refinish it. Actually, I helped Steve. But it is beautiful. And I was able to save up enough of my cake decorating money to buy new chairs, the chairs I wanted, for the table. The chairs that were with it were going to be way to much work for us amateurs to try to salvage.


I hope no one counted how many favorites I have.

What did you do when you were 10 & 4?

This is what Ethan (10)likes to do in his spare time - Look for an Ipod Nano 3gen 8GB on ebay wishing and dreaming he had one like all his friends do. Don't we all wish we had one. Actually, I want an iPhone and I am still wishing and dreaming.

I finally figured out how to charge up my MP3 Player Steve gave me for Valentine's Day and the girls have been having fun listening to it. I just had to get this picture of Lauren (4) wearing her precious Hanna Montana shirt and dancing to my MP3 player.