Christmas Vacation

Christmas seemed to fly by this year. We made the trek home the weekend before Christmas and headed back to Boise the weekend after. Got some good family time in. Good thing I guess because we don't know when we will be back that way. We hope everyone had a great Christmas. Here are some of the pics from the holiday.

Close up of Joshua, Aunt Dawn's foster son. He kept crawling closer and closer to the camera.

Joshua after a nap.

Bailey got to try on Lucy's bells.

Bialy felt left out so she had to try on the bells too. They didn't quite fit her as well.

Lucy sleeping under the Christmas tree.

This is beautiful Azalea. She is Hazen's cousins daughter. She got a new broom for Christmas.

Sister Picture (+1)

Shawna and Spud

US

Heather and Joshua

Aubree went to her mom's work and got her picture taken with a few of the residents.

Hazen's new Christmas present.

Snow and Fun!

Same old story. Aub is still working two days a week and Hazen is closing in on a couple jobs. We have been spending our time finding new and exciting ways to not spend money. I know it sounds like bushels of fun. Seriously though, we have been enjoying ourselves and the eventual end of our vacation time. Lucy continues to keep us on our toes. We have gone on a few drives in the area and had a great time. We also got out and watched the WSU/Gonzaga bball game at a local bar. It was a lot of fun as there were a lot of cougs around. Here are a few pics.

Exploring around Boise: The Swan Falls dam on the Snake River was a beautiful sight and a fun drive. Aub got herself into some trouble (see video clip on this post)

Aubree and Lucy went for a walk above our house to get a view of Boise covered in snow!

Looking back down at our pad.

Lucy figuring out she can watch things out the window. She spends many hours just watching squirrels, joggers, and dogs go by our window. Squirrels are her favorite.

The new "choke" collar not really doing its job. Don't worry, it sounds much worse than it really is.

While down at Swan Fall's dam Aubree and Lucy wanted to run through a flock of Geese. Against Hazen's recommendation, they went and this is what happened.

Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time visiting the family. We were worried about Lucy but she did a great job. She didn't get sick in the car (Yeah!) and she did fine with meeting everyone. She mostly slept the whole time in the car. Which wasn't that great when we arrived at the Armstrong's at 11:15pm and she was wide awake and wanted to play. Anyways, here are a few pics from the holiday.

Hazen and Mason

Ryan and Joshua (Aunt Dawn's foster son)

Grandpa and Mason. What an adorable kid.

One of the happiest families ever.

The pumpkin bars were pretty good this year

This is the only time Bailey will get this close to Hazen

This is what Lucy looked like in the backseat of the car for 8 hours (16hrs roundtrip)

The retaining wall Hazen put in. It will hold a hot tub soon.

A few pics

Things are going well. We have been hanging out at the new pad a lot and have been enjoying evenings by the fire and in the hot tub. We took Lucy up in the woods again to play in the snow. She had so much fun that she didn't want to get back in the truck. She has become much more assertive and comfortable with us. Sure has been fun. Here are a few pics.

The fires put her right to sleep and luckily she is learning to share a little bit.

Lucy is pretty sure she owns everything in our house. The only place she is not allowed is our bed. That is still an ongoing battle.

Not much new

Hi everyone. Hope you are all doing well and getting ready for Thanksgiving. We can't believe it's next week already. Seems like we just got over here and now we have to come back already. Aubree will be working a half day on Wednesday and then we will be headed out. Will be interesting to see how Lucy does in the car for 8 hours. She has gotten sick a couple times in the truck but it has only been on logging roads. She seems to do fine just going through town. Hopefully that will be the same on regular roads for an extended period of time. We will have a full car once we stop in Portland to pick up Travis, Sarah, and Mason. Lucy will be up in the front seat with Aubree. Should be a fun experience!

Not much new going on around here. Aubree started working this week! Worked Monday and Wednesday and was completely worn out. What a life. Almost got a chance to work Thursday as well for a co-worker but it didn't work out. Still waiting to hear from the other dentist about the Tuesday job. Hazen went to a meeting for substitute teaching and got finger printed and back-ground checked. Will be going in for another orientation soon and shouldn't be too much longer before he would be able to start teaching. He found a job on craigslist to put in a retaining wall for an older couple. They got an estimate from a landscaping company and were flabbergasted at the price. He will probably be doing that the first couple days of next week before we make the trek home.

Sorry we don't have any new pics to post yet. There really hasn't been much to take pictures of. Except that Hazen built Lucy a new doghouse. Will have to make sure to get a picture of his expertise to show everyone. We haven't tried to get Lucy into it yet since it is waiting for the paint to dry. Should do for a good laugh. Who knows, maybe she will love it and go right in. Well, enough for now. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

Thought we'd try this again

We have had a request for "inhabited" house pics so here they are:

This is the Family/Sports room. Not much in it except the computer and some Mariners blankets hanging on the wall.

This is about the only room in the whole house that is fully furnished.

Beautiful bedroom set (thanks grandma)

This is the Map Room. No furniture - just maps.

The living room. We just picked up a couple recliners yesterday. I had this room photographed before we bought them and the room looked a lot emptier. Thought I should retake the photo with the chairs since these are suppose to be inhabited house pics.

Aubree and Lucy. Sometimes she doesn't like her picture taken. Either that or she doesn't like to be layed on.

Lucy thinking she is small enough to sit in the chair with Hazen.

Couldn't leave this precious little thing out of the post. Our niece Mason as Baby Elvis for Halloween.Mason enjoying the Boise State football Uncle Hazen gave her on our trip to visit Travis and Sarah in Pacific Grove, California.

Hey everyone. We thought this was a good way of communicating with a large number of people while we were on our trip so thought we would try it again. We will try to post new stuff as it happens, but we don't have a whole lot going on at the moment. We are still on the job hunt. Aubree ended up getting the Monday/Wednesday job. YEAH!!! She has a working interview today for a Tuesday job that may eventually turn into Tuesdays and Thursdays. For now, she has contacted the temp agency and will hopefully be getting some work through them. Hazen has signed up for an orientation to be a substitute teacher in the Boise school district. As for the rest of our time, we have been running around with Lucy. She keeps us busy and that is what we needed. Hazen and Lucy went to cut some firewood today to keep warm this winter. (We are cheap and like to save on energy payments if we can). Guess that's about it for now. Hope you enjoy our site.