Janet (Rachel’s aunt) came down to Alpine to cut a piece of granite for our kitchen island. The Granite was a piece that used to be in the restaurant that Ken and Laura had. We didn’t realize until we started working on it that there was a small hole cut out in the middle (it was so wires could run through to the cash register). So Jane is going to cut a hole to the same size and fill it in tomorrow. I watched University of...

Today was a fun day. I played in Hillside Ward’s annual Elders vs. High Priest basketball game. High Priest that had sons there took their sons on their team to even it up a bit. We weren’t really keeping tabs on the score, but I guess someone’s wife was and it turned out we won by 4 points. It was a lot of fun though and fun to get to know some people in the ward. Also, it was just great to get out of the house and get some...

Wow, I have a minutes to write until the year is officially over. I didn’t really make plans to stay up for New Year’s… it just sort of happened. We went to Rachel’s parents tonight. I was going to back up and reformat Ken’s computer, but I had some problems with the back-ups and so I’ll have to finish tomorrow. Rachel and I spent about an hour going over the budget and paying some bills. I’ve been...

Nolan has learned to kiss. It’s pretty funny. As we are watching TV, he’ll run up to us and give us a smacker, then run away. Sometimes (mostly with Rachel) they are a big open mouth kiss. It’s pretty cute. It’s also funny that it has to be on the lips. He will hold your head in his hands until he can get you right on the mouth.

We had a fun family night tonight. After dinner we had a brief lesson about what to do when we get paid, now that the kids are getting paid for doing certain chores. We taught them to give 10% for tithing, put 10% in savings (for mission or college), and the other 80% is theirs to spend. I don’t think they really get the math, but hopefully they get the principle and they will catch on as we continue to do this week after week.

After our church today I drove to our old ward to hear Sam Fallows speak. He was a young man we taught in Sunday school. He had just returned from his mission in Brazil. It was a very good talk. I enjoyed being there. It still feels more like home than our new ward. I miss the old ward already. I hope I come to love our new ward as much as I love the old ward. Those that I talked with were very friendly. One man that I home taught came and said...

We had a party with Rachel’s friends tonight. We were having a good time playing rock bank. Rachel was singing (don’t ask me how they convinced her) and I was playing guitar, when the game was paused because our friends child was hurt and Gehrig was getting hysterical because he got in trouble. I couldn’t calm him down to even talk to him, so we just had to leave and I just put in him the car. When we all got in the car Gracie...