Josh and Brooke's new house!

We were finally able to get some pictures of our new house. Check out our family blog to view the pictures. I'm so excited to be moving in two weeks!

http://www.jbjohnsen.blogspot.com/

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Josh and I had a great time this year with Tanner's first turkey fest. Thanksgiving is the one holiday that we split between both sides of our family. We started off with the Hallidays, then moved on to the Johnsens in the afternoon. We had a pretty low-key weekend and rounded everything off with Tanner getting his very first cold! We've been pretty lucky that he hasn't been sick once in his entire nine months of life, with the exception of pink eye when he was just five weeks old. I guess I need to be grateful that he hasn't been sick before...and it was bound to happen sooner or later.

In other news, we wanted to announce that we are joining the ranks of all you homeowners! We have the most retarded neighbors in the entire world. About two weeks ago, the jerk yelled explitives at us one morning while listening to church music (can you say hypocrite?). We felt so uncomfortable, and angry, that we skipped out church and went to Josh's parents' ward. The next day we called the apartment owner and asked if anything could be done. Right off the bat, he offered to let us out of our lease, which goes until June. So, that very day we found a house in Harrisville that we liked. We went back up a couple days later, prayed about it, and decided to make an offer a few days afterward. It's a brand new construction, but it's on schedule to be finished right before Christmas so we can move in in time for Christmas Eve!

Cool....

I heard about this blog and so I checked it out. It's been great to see what's been going on with everyone and to see pictures of your families and everything else! I was also encouraged to post an update on myself. However; I warn you, my life right now is somewhat dull and revolves around school, work, church, and a little bit of a social life.

So, school. I am finally graduating from BYU this year with a Bachelors degree in Latin American Studies with a minor in Spanish. After a lot of debate and introspection, I decided not to continue in pre-medicine and will instead pursue law. International Law or Immigration call my attention right now. I may decide to intern with an NGO in Santiago, Chile, this next year and would be working in social, civil and human rights. Another exciting, but potentially dangerous option would be with another NGO in Guatemala, where I would also work in human rights.

Although I may complain about school, it has offered me a lot of great opportunities. Many of you know that I interned in Iquique, Chile, fall semester of 2005. More recently, BYU offered me a research grant to return to Chile. So, I spent most of the summer researching the effects of the dictatorship of Pinochet on religious groups, especially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In other words, I spent the summer interviewing some amazing people! Currently, I am working with a professor to get my research published and prepare it to be presented in a research conference.

Enough of school. Work: it is sufficient to say that there is always a lot of it at General Electric. We'll leave it at that.

Church is exciting. Right now I serve as the Ward Clerk, which means Sunday is no longer a day of rest. But, I'm loving it! It never ceases to amaze me how perfect and inspired the organization of the Church is! My ward is AWESOME, and the bishopric is AMAZING! Early Saturday morning there is usually a group of us, including the bishopric and their wives, that go up to do a trail run. It is a lot of fun!

And last, but not least; I try to make some time for a social life, which consists of some dating, some hanging out-which I know has been discouraged-and making videos for http://www.zoobynews.com/. (Everyone should check it out!!! Some of the stuff is hillarious!) It reminds me of the Kaysville Cow Project experience. And I think that perfectly concludes this post.

I guess that it is the Newbolds turn...

I guess that I should take my turn to post. I look at this blog most every day and hope to see new posts.

We moved last week into a new home. It is a rental and it is like a HUD rental. It is not owned by the government, but it is subsidized, so our rent is really low. We went from a one bedroom basement to a brand new, never been lived in, 3 bed, 3 bath, 2 car garage house for $150/ month less. It may not be very interesting to anyone else but it is a pretty big development for our family, especially because I am the only one working.

I was in New Orleans last week. I don't recommend it as a vacation spot. I take that back, I thought that a lot of the city was fun, but Bourbon St was so trashy and disgusting morally that I would tell you to avoid it. I stayed in a hotel that was a ways away from Bourbon St but our conference was right on it. It was not very great. I think that of all the people that were at the conference I was the only one that preferred to stay in at night.

Lorie and Claire are doing great. I love taking pictures of my girls. They are the highlights of my life. Claire was a monkey for Halloween. Ever since I found out that I was going to be a dad and that she would be here before Halloween I have thought about what she would dress up as.

My new address is 1731 S. 1280 W. Logan Ut 84321. I also have a new cell phone number: 435-760-9573. Just in case you need to get in touch with me.

Keep posting!!! Xauzinho

Happy Birthday, Jenni!

Happy birthday, Jen, from Josh, Brooke, and Tanner. We hope you have a great day!

Halloween Pictures!

Halloween was lots of fun this year! The weather was great! Allie, as you can see, was Snow White. Detmer was a stuffed pumpkin! Halloween seems to be a month long event lately. I think we had about four parties, so plenty of chances to dress up. It was great!

We are so excited for the Holiday season. We love this time of year! I'm not ready for snow yet but I am enjoying listening to Christmas music!

Tanner's new highchair

Josh and Brooke bought Tanner's first highchair yesterday. We've been using a bumbo, but since he's getting too big for it (and topples out of it if he leans over too far), we decided it was time for a highchair. I took some pictures of him after I fed him this morning and thought these two were classic. You can even see his new two bottom teeth in the first one.

Amber is engaged!

Pumpkin Festival and Ward Party in Cedar

Hey guys last weekend we had a chili cook off for our ward party (unfortunately we didn't win) so here are some pics of the kids in their costumes. Bennett is a mean pirate and Kyler is a little sweet pea.

On Saturday there was a pumpkin festival in town that was fun for the kids, well Bennett at least. He got to decorate a pumpkin cookie, paint a pumpkin, play in leaves, and pumpkin bowl. It was a fun little activity, but I think next year the kids will enjoy it even more.

I also meant to post last week when we blessed Kyler on October 14th. It was a great day and Derek's family all came down for the event so it was nice to have some company for the weekend.

Anyways thats about it for us, Kira I can't wait to come see your new house!

Johnsen Family Halloween Party

Josh's parents threw a Halloween party this year. It was a lot of fun and all the grandkids looked so cute in their costumes. We even played some fun games like pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern, toss the candy in the Halloween bucket, and bite the donut off the stick. Here's a picture of the donut game (L to R: Josh's sister, Jennifer; Josh's brother's wife, Britnie; and Brooke). Can you tell who isn't winning?

And here are all the grandkids dressed up so cute (L to R: Wyatt (as a fly), Sydney (as a witch), Tanner (as a monkey), Lauren (as a lion), and Isaac (as a dragon).

Halliday Family Oktoberfest

We held our second annual Halliday family Oktoberfest this past Saturday. It was loads of fun and the food was sehr gut. It was fun to make all the food with my mom, and it was even better that it took about 1/3 the amount of time as it did last year. All my family gathered for dinner at around 5. After we ate, we did the Chicken Dance and had dessert. Then, we all gathered in the dining room and listened to my dad tell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in German. It was a hoot! I videotaped him this year so we can burn it onto a CD for each of my siblings.

I'm not sure how many of you know, but my dad has had two heart attacks. Because of that, I've been in this mode of trying to capture a lot of memories to keep as part of our family history. A couple years ago, I started writing my memoirs. I still have a long way to go before that's finished. I also polled my siblings about their favorite songs and stories that my dad sang and read to us in our youth. I then set out to have my dad sing, read, and record himself so we can have these stories forever. I think it was for this reason that I wanted to record my dad telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As hard as it is to think about your parents not being with you forever, I've realized that death is inevitable and I want to do what I can to capture as many memories as possible.

On a lighter note, here are a couple pictures from Oktoberfest. The first is of some of the food we ate (rouladen, wiener schnitzel, bratwurt, and kartoffel klosse). The second is of Tanner, who fell asleep in the car because he was so wiped out from the day's activities.

Jenni??

Jenni,

I'm just wondering where your little blurb is about what's happening in State College. Last I talked to you, you were about to start a new job. How's life? I would imagine that autumn is very beautiful there. Post some pictures & stuff!!

Love ya,
Janneen

Customizing the Side Menus

I added a few links to the side menu and I would like to add more. If you have a site that you want me to add as a link, let me know what it is by email (you should all have my email address, but if not, you can send it to the kaysville cow project email). I was thinking it would be fun to add pictures to the side menu for each contributor and/or spouse and/or family too. If you get a chance, post a picture to the blog that you'd like to use for the side bar and we can get it added.

Brooke

Look what I found...

Janneen's Family

Hi everyone!! I'm very glad Brooke & Josh are so computer knowledgeable so they could get this Blog together--it's such a great idea!! It was fun to read about everybody & what they're up to.

(This is a picture of Chet & I on a cruise to Mexico in July of this year.)

I'm sure everybody knows pretty much everything about us, since not much has changed in the last little while. We're still living in good ol' Kaysville & we like it! Chet is working at Hertz in Bountiful, but is now the manager. That's great because he can drive a rental car home every day & it's free gas for us. Plus, I get to have a car at home all the time now, which is very handy. :) I get to be at home with my boys, Ryan Chet (3) & Clint William(1), which I love. We spend a lot of time outside & at parks because my boys love to play in the dirt. Clint has recently mastered his walking skills & prefers to walk around the block, instead of ride in his stroller. Ryan & Clint are finally starting to get to the point where they can play together without too many not-so-favorable incidents, so that's fun to watch. Some news that a few of you may not know is that we are expecting our third baby boy in February. We're really excited about that, but we may have to make a few changes when he gets here--car, sleeping situations, etc. (P.S.--does anyone have any secrets about how to make girls? We seem to be out of the loop on that one.)

I'm not doing any special crafts or hobbies or anything, but I spend a lot of time thinking about everything I want to fix up in our house. :) One day we may get to accomplish a few things on my list. I recently read the famed vampire books too & really liked them, especially Twilight. I also spend a lot of time fulfilling my calling as the Relief Society Secretary, & enjoy that as well.



That's pretty much it for us!! I'm excited to hear more about what everyone's doing!!

Hey friends!!

Hey everyone! I will try not to use too many exclamation points, but I am pretty excited to be blogging with y'all. Jake gave me the info.

Here is the update on the Newbold Family. We have now expanded our operation with the addition of our daughter Claire. She is the prettiest little thing you have ever seen. She was born on July 16th at about 7:00 in the evening. She is huge already. I don't remember the exact statistics, but she is near the top percentile in weight and length.

I am still going to school and will be until May of 2009. Hopefully it will go quickly. Lorie had been working at Logan City until the baby came and now she is a stay-at-home mom. She loves it.

I will post more later, because I am at work. Later, Nick

Johnsen Family Update

Thanks Natalie, Terre, and Kira for blogging. I'm glad to see that this blog is starting to get used!

A lot of changes have happened this year for our family. Having Tanner, both of us getting new jobs, and moving have all made life change pretty drastically for us. Tanner is almost 8 months old. After having been born with a club foot, we were able to finally free his foot from casts and braces in August. He only has to wear his brace at night, which will continue until he's 4 years old. He's the cutest little bug and I just love him so much!

Since April, Josh has been working as the night operations manager at Home Depot. He's worked for them for nearly 5 years and enjoys himself. He's moved around to a lot of different departments and will soon be switching to days. This time around he will be the plumbing department manager. I'm excited for him to switch to days...but we may have to get a bigger bed because I've been used to having it all to myself during the week. =)

I still work at TaxWorks, but I switched departments at the beginning of August. I was in the Communications department working as a technical writer and editor. But, I decided that the best thing would be for me to be home with Tanner so I talked to one of the other department managers about me working in his department. He is over the Quality Assurance - Processing team so he's over all the CPAs and tax analysts. He thinks families are really important and was glad to help me out. My official title is Processing Helps Specialist, but really, I am still just doing technical writing like before. The difference with this job though is that I only work on one project (the helps for the tax software as they relate to preparing a tax return) instead of a zillion. And, the best part is that I work 100% at home. It's been really great because I get to be with Tanner all day, and Josh and I haven't had to arrange our shifts to make sure that there is someone to watch Tanner. My boss is great and I really enjoy not having to go into work everyday.

Josh is in school again this semester. He took the spring off because of having Tanner, and he's wishing time would just hurry up so he can graduate. He's majoring in English and hopes to finish in another couple of semesters.

Earlier in the year, my sister-in-law started a family quilting club. We've only had one gathering (things got busy and she got pregnant), but I made this quilt square. The other squares will have different patterns, but the colors are the same green and blue (although different fabric). I'm also working on a new Swedish weave blanket. I think this is the 10th one that I've done and I love it. (This image is of the most recent one I did. The one I'm working on is for autumn so it will have red, orange, green, tan, and black.)

Anyway, that's it for us for the moment. I'll be adding another post about my family's Oktoberfest that we're having next week. And I'll have to share a few pictures of Tanner in his Halloween costume, but we'll get to that as Halloween gets closer.

Dave, Kira, and the kids!

This is my first time too, so let's see how this goes...

We are still living in Clinton, but planning on moving next week. We bought a house in Layton. We are very excited! We have LOVED living in Clinton. We never thought we would become so attached but we have made some of our best friends out here and it will be hard not living around the block, but we look forward to moving on and meeting new friends (while keeping the old, of course).

My little Allie turned 2 in August. It's freaking crazy how fast time goes! She is so much fun and keeps us entertained at all times. My baby Detmer is almost eight months. He is super fun. I really love this age. He loves all the attention he gets. He crawls everywhere and if he thinks he may be able to climb it, he tries. Out of the tub, out of his crib (luckily he is too little to succeed at these things yet). Last night he climbed onto the bottom shelf of my sister's entertainment center. We love that boy! Oh, and as long as Natalie mentioned BYU football, check this out http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695206501,00.html (I'm sure a lot of you saw that coming!) Detmer got to meet his namesake last month and it was such a blast! Dave still works at Fidelity Investments and loves it. I still stay home with my babies and I love it!

It was super fun to read about those who have posted and I can't wait until everyone else adds there post!

teammorty

hey guys! i agree this is a great idea, i just hope everyone starts blogging so we can see what everyone is up to and stay in better touch. this is my first time blogging so nobody has an excuse that they've never done it before.

lets see since a lot of you guys probably might not know this we moved down to cedar city at the end of march for derek's work. he decided to be brave and switch over to becoming an escrow officer rather than being a title officer and searcher. so far he is really enjoying it and doing pretty well. i really like it down here too thanks to such a great young ward we are in. they have a lot of activities during the week and month and so it has been pretty easy to make new friends. derek is an assistant blazer leader (i think) for scouts and i am a district leader for relief society, which is the easiest calling ever. i'm just glad we weren't put into primary the first week we moved in because then it is impossible to get to know people.

also this year we had an addition to the family: kyler jorja. she was born on august 20th weighing 8 lb and 20.5" inches. she has brought more joy into our family and it has been so fun having 2 little ones. bennett is 20 months now and getting so big. i am enjoying being a stay at home mom and to make a little extra money i make headbands and bows like this one for a couple stores here in cedar.

anyways thats about all for teammorty!

See what you can do?

(Brooke) If you're new to the blogging world, I wanted to show you a few things you can do when you create posts...like add cute pictures of your family! Thanks to Jenni and Kira for trying this out. Now you guys just need to write your own posts so we know what's going on with you guys!

Here are some cute pictures of my family. From top to bottom: The Johnsen Family at Tanner's blessing in May; Tanner and Josh at a family party in August; Tanner laughing at his cousin Sydney at a park in Orem (family reunion); Tanner looking at the trees (look at those eyes); and Tanner just after eating green beans at Grandpa Halliday's birthday party in September.

Keeping in Touch

Hello friends,

I thought it would be a good idea to start a group blog that we can all post to as a way for us to keep better in touch with each other. We can use this blog to schedule get-togethers, post photos, and relate the happenings of our lives. For those of you who already have blogs, we can add links to this blog to each individual blog. I just really think it's important for us to start updating everyone on what's going on in our lives so the ties that bind us together can stay strong.

-Brooke