Marvelous March . . .

Yes - 'Tis True! March is here and before you blink, it will be gone!

We started the month out with special visitors from Lewiston, Idaho! Whitney's crew of friends came down for a "guys" weekend. I made them some Chicken Fried Steak, we visited Aggie Ice Cream and Gossner Dairy, they got a free tour of USU Campus, attended an Aggie B-Ball game (complete with Bill Spoat), and we (they were nice to invite me) saw the movie Sherlock Holmes (loved the movie). It was fun! (A side note - guys need to be alone with guys for it to be a proper "guys" get-a-way!) All you guy readers will know what I mean. As a family we just enjoyed asking the guys about their families and how everyone in Lewiston was doing.
























Something else - we also went to "clean the sink" at Angie's for FHE with some friends, the Haycock family. (This is a local restaurant and the sink is full of ice cream - it's a Man vs. Food Challenge). This is something we've wanted to do since we have moved to Logan. I have a list and we are slowly checking things off as we complete them. Someday perhaps I will share this list with all of you.























I'm also happy to share that I celebrated another year on this planet. It was a fun day of too many sweets to eat and a lot of phone calls from family and friends. A friend at school made me a cute bouquet of sugar cookie shamrocks, all my students were wearing my favorite color, and I had my favorite dessert - mint brownies!! I love having a birthday on St. Patty's Day as we always enjoy corn beef and cabbage, special lime salad, rolls, and lime sherbet floats. Traditions are the marrow of memories! Try it! Whitney and the kids made me a chocolate cake. That made the night complete.

Fabulous February . . .

Time for another update from Pugh-land. This month has been full of fun and frenzy. Here is our latest. . .

Shannon started out the month by turning 14. We tried to stop her but it just happened in the blink of an eye. One minute 13, the next 14! I'm always amazed by this process. She was so happy to enter the age of "Stake dances" (for non-mormons - this is the age you get to attend dances with youth ages 14-18 from around the valley). She attended her first one this last weekend. It was fun sending all three of the older children out the door and having them return full of energy at 11:30 PM. Because of our schedules, we took Shan to breakfast for her birthday. She liked this but prefers dinner.

Kaylee performed for the school musical "Oklahoma!". It was good to get finished up with those 5:45 AM practices (since December). Unfortunately, she is on to state orchestra and is now practicing again at 5:45 AM. We just accept that this is now part of life.

Kendall is finally working on his eagle project. He's doing a bicycle safety rodeo for the elementary schools in April. This is a good step as he has everything but his eagle and we kept telling him it would be a shame to let it slip by. He and Kaylee just went to the sweetheart ball last weekend. We had a day full of teens coming and going, making food, eating food, playing games, and dressing up. FUN!

Weslie finished up her basketball season in Jr. Jazz with Whitney as the coach. She is still the ball girl for the women Aggie team but is looking forward to warm weather to play other sports. She joined the Cache Childrens Choir for a celebration show they will be doing in April. Craig Jessop (Past director of the Mormon Tab. Choir) is leading this choir. Should be a great concert!

Braden started reading the Lightning Thief. I won't let my kids see movies which are based on books until they read the book FIRST! (I know - I'm a meanie!) He is so excited to see the movie. I'm reading the book as well and so far, not bad!

Landon just started reading!! We are so excited for this. He got his sounds down and is in the beginning stages of reading 3 letter words with short vowel sounds. He came to me the other day to demonstrate. I was pleasantly surprised and had to test him by writing some words for him. Now if we can just work on those motor skills and perhaps get him on a 2 wheel bike??!

As for Whit and I, we just keep up and try to stay afloat at work. Whit plays city league basketball and manages to keep up with the younger guys on the court.
I was able to go snow skiing for the first time with my fourth grade class. Weslie's class went as well. It was a lot of fun but I was so sore for a few days!

Happy late Valentine's to all of you. We love you!! XOXO

Only 10 months and 2 weeks to Christmas??!

I'm getting lax in my blogging habits. It's not that I don't WANT to blog, it's just that it has slipped lower in my priority list. I need to rearrange and make time as it is an "outlet" for me and it also allows you (my loyal blog subjects) to keep tabs on the Pughs.

January summed up:
*Return to school (sigh!)
*New Goals - (stay tuned - I may share . . .)
*COLD!!
*Whitney's birthday! (We won't mention numbers because once you hit 30, your birthday becomes just an Anniversary of your 29th!)
Whitney was in Atlanta, GA for his birthday at a conference. He had planned a fun day and the highlight was to be a great NBA game however, his traveling companions had different plans and so he ended up in the airport catching the midnight flight home. Poor guy. The kids and I tried to make up for it but we had to settle for better luck next year.
*The girls had their piano recitals and of course, they were awesome!
*More COLD, COLD, COLD!
*More Basketball, basketball, basketball!

February is here and I must admit after a week of it, I'm ready to return to January!
We had our sweet Shan turn 14! She had a party today and boy are fourteen year old girls rowdy. They had a great time and were very entertaining.

Our dryer went out this week and so we are having fun hanging our laundry around the house. Since it is a gas dryer, it will take a week or two to order one in. Hee-Hee ... with 8 of us, the plot thickens! I get to try my version of "roughing it" OR I may have to find a laundromat!

Yesterday I went skiing with my fourth grade class (my FIRST time ever to snow-ski). Six classes went. Weslie was able to go with my class. This was a blessing as she and my students got me up on the mountain (something I had vowed NOT to do)! It's awful hard to say "NO WAY" to the same students you encourage each day to TRY SOMETHING NEW! Once I got the hang of it, I had so much fun and knew I should quit but just couldn't. Needless to say, I'm sore today in places I didn't know I had! Can you all say Ibuprofen??!

I hope you all are enjoying your year, it's going to go fast and the title is just a reminder of that!

A Christmas without Santa!

This year we propositioned our children for a trip to Disneyland and Sea World in California, the catch --- Santa would not be coming this year as a result. The children didn't take much time to unanimously decide in favor of our proposition. The younger boys and I wrote Santa a letter telling him not to come this year because we would be gone. (He did deliver stockings on Christmas morning to our hotel room).

School ended on the 22nd of Dec. and so we headed out the next day despite threats of snow. We stayed the first night in St. George, UT with my parents then hit the road at 5:30 AM the next day (Christmas Eve) strait to Disneyland. Disneyland is a magical place especially IF you have children to share it with. We loved their oohs and aahhs, the comments were priceless. We had a great time together! We had decided this was the best time to go with the possibility of our children leaving the "nest" looming in the next several months. It was. (A word of advice however to my loyal readers - DON'T go on Christmas!!! It is the busiest day of the year and very, VERY crowded!) The weather was spectacular the whole time we were in California. We couldn't get over the green grass and beautiful flowers everywhere.

After spending three days at Disneyland, we spent Sunday going to church in Los Angelos near the LA Temple. We then visited the temple (I can still smell the flowers!) then we headed to San Diego to visit the temple there.

The next day was spent at Sea World. The kids enjoyed the shows and loved interacting with the sea life.

The following day we went to the San Diego Zoo then visited the national cemetery and finally ended on Coronado Island beach where Whitney and I spent our honeymoon. It was spectacular. We watched the sunset together. I should've known the kids would get wet - it's a given when going to the beach even if it is December!

Needless to say, we were worn out from all the walking but the good thing is we stayed trim doing so and we made memories to last a lifetime. The kids were ready to head home. We spent the next night in St. George again, this time visiting with Scott & Sundy and Kerri & Mark (and kids). The weather was great to return home New Years Eve and we made good time so that we could enjoy a family party of games,videos, and toasting in the New Year 2010 with ginger ale.

I must admit that I missed Christmas at home but would not trade this experience for the world. I feel so blessed to have been able to go and am thankful for supportive relatives as well.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It's the Final Countdown!

We have a variety of countdown gadgets in our house during this wonderful month of December. There are the usual ones sent home from school - paper chains, glue the ornament on the tree, and color in the picture. The kids have two favorites that are traditional, the life-saver tree and our nativity advent calendar. The problem you run into when you have only two of these and six kids is apparent. Luckily, the teenagers aren't as picky (If it were a money tree or a cell phone minute tree - they'd be well into the competition).

Every year we try to do a number of things to help the kids catch the true spirit of the season. We go to parties, attend concerts, try to drive up to Temple Square, and invite friends over to decorate gingerbread houses. This year seems to have gone by too fast and the weather, although beautiful, hasn't cooperated well.

The kids enjoy re-enacting the Christmas story as found in Luke 2 of the Bible. Here are a few fun pictures of that.
















Now to our favorite family tradition! We have the 25 days of Christmas where, as a family, we sit around the light of a single candle and the Christmas tree and we read a scripture about our Savior and share a story about giving and sacrifice. We sing a song together, pray and blow out the candle. The kids treasure this tradition and we relish the time away from the usual craziness of bedtime and enjoy each other. My sister Kerri also added to that tradition by sewing a banner with 12 little pockets in which are stored little "treats" for the last 12 days of Christmas. I'm so grateful for traditions and for this time of year! I would love to hear from all of you regarding your traditions! In the meantime, Happy Countdown!!

The Giving Tree . . .

Don't you just love the book, The Giving Tree? I love it so much, I translated it into Spanish when I was in High School. Wish I could find where I've filed it!

This is the season for gratitude. I would hope that I can hold such a season in my heart everyday. Some days I'm better at this than others. For now, I will share my most cherished gifts and as I do so, I hear an echo of all of you saying -- YES, me too!

Health!!
A wonderful family - immediate and extended
Freedom
A Beautiful World
An Education
My Testimony of Christ
Forgiveness
and Years and years of experiences which have made me who I am (good or bad)!

Let's also not over-look:

indoor plumbing (and 2 ply TP!)
automobiles
sticky fingers blowing kisses
and these blessed but curse provoking computers!!

November came and is going, going ... go n e ! !



The kids report that all is well. We were able to spend Thanksgiving with Whit's family in Green River, WY. We had a great time. Kaylee, Kendall, and Shannon discovered the fun of crossword puzzles. Weslie, Braden, and Landon felt redemption from having missed trick or treating as grandma had plenty of sweets.
I enjoyed a good book (hoorah! - The Gift by Richard Paul Evans) and Whitney finally got to watch a Dallas Cowboys game as is his favorite thing to do on Thanksgiving. From all of us to all of you --- THANKS for being a part of our lives!!

OCTOBER FEST!!

Oh what do you do in the Autumn time, when all the leaves are . . . red, orange, yellow, and brown???

Just a quick summary again of some of the festivities for October.

We started the month with UEA weekend. I ditched going to the Teacher's Conference and caught up on some bills, school work, and housework so we could go to St. George and spend time with my family. Because it was the BIG marathon there, we couldn't get a hotel so we stayed at my parent's place along with Kerri & Mark and their family (not a very big place - 2 bedrooms). We were literally wall-to-wall people but we had so much fun! Mandy brought her boyfriend Tyler and we enjoyed getting to know him as well. We enjoyed General Conference for our church on television and cinnamon rolls (tradition) along with games and swimming. Quick trip but oh so worth it! We also enjoyed seeing Cove Fort on our way down. (I can now include that in my UT History for my 4th graders!)

We next celebrated Landon's 5th!! I get emotional as I reflect on the circumstances of his birth. Those of you who know us well, know what a miracle he is and why we affectionately call him "chub". He had his McDonald's party as is tradition with all of our children when they turn 5. (HOORAY! - no more McD's parties!!!).


























Kaylee turned 18 the week following Landon!! What an emotional month to celebrate our oldest and youngest within a week! (By the way, she can't really be 18 because I'm not that old!!) We are off to do the college tour this month and then it's scholarships and applications. Any words of sage advice are welcome! Kaylee celebrated her birthday this last weekend by having a Halloween Party here. Whit conveniently was gone to Fresno!









We attended the annual North Logan Pumpkin Walk. This is spectacular! Wish all of you could come and see it. I've included a few pics. Everything is done using squash or pumpkins. They have warm fires, cookies, and displays to fill the park and it's all free.



















We were also able to slip in our annual FHE (Family Home Evening)activity of going to the corn maze. We hurried this year as it was cold! We received a few inches of snow but this week - Ahhh . . . THE SUN!!















Now . . . a picture of the "NEW PUGH" --- It's a Boy! The kids named him Cosmo after much debate. He's a poodle, shitzu mix.