I've always had in the back of my head that I didn't want to let my teaching certificate expire because one day my kids won't be preschoolers, and I would like to have more options for myself than not. So last October was the end of the certificate I had. Months before I had started looking at what I would need to do to renew it. I was thinking I could still use credits from my final Masters summer in 2008, but to my dismay, I discovered those would be too old by about 3 months. I had six credits from 2009 that I could use, but then I would need to either take another six credits or find a way to get 90 professional development hours.
Somewhere in our attic, I probably have papers that have a couple hours here and a couple hours there, but I really didn't want to go hunting, so I looked around for online options. I wondered about something like Coursera, but when I called the Deptartment of Ed, they didn't even know what that was let alone if it would count. But then I discovered an online outfit that would give me what I needed for about $400--which is considerably cheaper than trying to take credits and it could be done all online.
I had sort of thought about trying to take some classes in gifted ed because I would one day like to be certified in gifted ed, but it didn't make a whole lot of sense now. I would have to be teaching and working in a gifted ed classroom in order to be working towards that certification, and who knows if or when that will happen.
So I spent a whole lot of hours between November and April completing my continuing education. It was somewhat tedious and monotonous. It was a lot of reading, note taking, and quiz taking. But I made it! And one week after submitting all my paperwork to the DOE, I had my new certificate in hand--good until 2021. I don't know what I will be doing three years from now, but at least I will have options!
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Monday, May 4, 2015
One more dump
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| Julia and I took a little field trip to the Tempe Police Department to see how the policemen work. I was pretty fascinated, and Julia had a fun time with a bunch of other little preschoolers. The vest she is wearing is pretty heavy, but she was game for a picture. |
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| She got her badge! |
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| Making Cat in the Hat hats for joy school. |
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| The treats for Dr. Seuss's birthday. |
 |
| We had eggs in our organ pipe cactus this spring. |
 |
| And then just a few days later, we had babies! |
 |
| My rose bushes were blooming beautifully this spring. |
 |
| We took a trip to the IDEA Museum in downtown Mesa, and the kids loved the instruments outside. Asher also really liked the computers set up that allowed the kids to make their own Lego Movie. |
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| I took the kids downtown during spring break to decorate cookies at Sweetcakes Cafe. This is Julia's final creation. |
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| Asher eating the fruits of his labors. |
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| And Julia. |
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| We go downtown to the AZ Science Center to play with our membership. This is a fun one from the brain exhibit. |
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| I took Julia downtown with her friend Gavin to an Easter egg hunt. I wish the hunt had been better organized for the number of people who were there. It was kind of crazy, but the kids got about 10 eggs a piece, and they had a good time. |
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| Gavin's sister Grace came, too, and their mom who is a good friend of mine. It was an adventure, and then we went to Cain's Chicken for lunch. |
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Pat's Run
After running the 10K with friends last fall, a few of us decided to do Pat's Run in April. It is quite the event benefiting the Tillman Scholars which is part of the Pat Tillman Foundation. Tillman Scholars are all military veterans pursuing education of some sort or another. Most of them are pursuing advanced degrees in some pretty diverse areas.
Pat's Run is big deal here in Phoenix. Nearly 30,000 people ran it with me that day in Tempe. Most people walked a lot of it, but it is amazing the support and spirit there is for this movement. It was very well organized and orchestrated, so even though there were so many people, it didn't seem much like it. It was powerful experience and I would do it again. Every participant finishes on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium, and the course is pretty interesting, so it made for a good run on a beautiful day.
Let's do it again, Erin, April, and Lindsay! :)
Pat's Run is big deal here in Phoenix. Nearly 30,000 people ran it with me that day in Tempe. Most people walked a lot of it, but it is amazing the support and spirit there is for this movement. It was very well organized and orchestrated, so even though there were so many people, it didn't seem much like it. It was powerful experience and I would do it again. Every participant finishes on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium, and the course is pretty interesting, so it made for a good run on a beautiful day.
Let's do it again, Erin, April, and Lindsay! :)
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Eulogy for John Wilkinson
This is the text of the eulogy my brother Mark shared at the funeral. It provides some interesting history of my dad and his life.
I’m sure most of us in this room have had someone close to us diagnosed with cancer. It’s a
terrible disease, and when someone like a parent is diagnosed at an advanced stage, at least for
me, the grieving process starts then. For the last year or two since Dad we learned Dad had
advanced stage prostate cancer, I have been thinking about this day, and what I’d say about my
Dad if I had the opportunity to speak. And here I am.
John Wilkinson loved history. He loved telling people about world history--particularly
British and American history. But he also loved talking about his own history. He liked to talk
about certain parts of his life a lot, others not as much. Unlike world history, though, the facts
about our own lives are not usually as well documented. The years bend them, and bend our
perspectives about them.
You probably know my Dad was born in Scotland in
1943, in Airdrie, what is still known to be a rough suburb of
Glasgow. Back then it was populated by coal miners and factory
workers and their families. He was the youngest of seven
children, by some years. His mother died when he was young.
He was cared for by his older sister, Susan, who never married,
and they lived in the house of their father, Jeremiah, also
known as “Jerry.”
According to Dad, his childhood was harsh, without
much love. It's not clear whether this was just how children
were raised in Airdrie at that time, or whether there was some
aspect of his upbringing that was uniquely painful...but by the time he was a teenager, he went to
live with another much-older sister, Helen--she was old enough to have children my Dad's age.
He was much happier there, and his nephew Jim--who he stayed in touch with throughout later
years--was like a brother to him.
At around sixteen, he met some LDS missionaries in his town. The missionaries started
teaching him along with his sister Helen. With the Church, dad found both a new religion--one
that was practiced only by a small number of people in Scotland--and a religion that was little
understood and viewed with some significant suspicion, perceived as a very American church.
My Dad and his nephew/brother Jim were fascinated by the US, the American West, and
American music... So in the church, Dad also found a way to be closer to the country by which
he was fascinated. He spent lots of time with the missionaries, and according to the Scotland
family's version, started speaking with an American accent before he even left the country.
Elder Dick Whitehead, one of the
missionaries he got to know quite well
returned home to Utah, and shortly
thereafter, they offered to sponsor his time
and education in St George, Utah. Dad
raised money for his travel to the US by
working as a “hod carrier” -- someone who
carries mortar for masons. Dad had great
ambitions for his life and future, and Scotland
was not going to be part of them. As my Dad
left, he either swore--or joked--that only he'd
return to Scotland after he “made a million
dollars.”
His ambitions to make his millions must have originally been grounded in acting. He started
his theatrical career at the University of Utah and Dixie College in St George, where he met our
mother, Janet, the eldest daughter of a physician from Roy, Utah. Mom was a piano accompanist
in class he was in, and he asked her out. That’s how they met.
Two of Dad’s most triumphant roles in his acting career were Arthur Dolittle, the ne'er-dowell
father of Eliza in My Fair Lady, and Willy Loman, the unrespected salesman at the end of
his career.
Marriage to my Mom came along soon enough -- he won her
engagement ring by correctly guessing the number of watch
screws in a jar in a contest at a jewelry store. He joined the US
Army pre-emptively to avoid just being drafted, even though
he wasn’t a US citizen (and he never became one, incidentally)
then left for a tour of duty in Vietnam -- two days after I was
born at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington. Mom and I moved
in with Grandpa and Grandma Flinders in Roy for the next 18
months.
After his return from Vietnam, the next few years involved a
brief stint at Florida State in Tallahassee, where dad started a
masters Degree in Theatre. However, depending on whose version you hear, there were conversations between various interested parties -- Dad, Mom, and
possibly her parents -- which can be summarized as either "Why don't you plan to get a job that
can support a family?" And "Why are you trying to crush my dreams?”
The more practical path won out, and thus began Dad's career in sales. He initially sold
floor coverings for The William Volker Company, who moved him to Idaho Falls, Idaho. That’s
where the next child, Amy, was born. He was then transferred to Great Falls, where the rest of
the family came along over the next 14 years. Dad soon changed from selling floor coverings to
selling furniture, then eventually became a “factory sales rep” who sold several lines of furniture
to furniture stores in sales territories that included the very large states of Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, and sometimes even North and South Dakota.
Throughout the years, dad kept up his theatrical
interests through the opportunities he either found or created
in Great Falls. In 1976, for the bicentennial of the United
States, Dad and a committee of several people in the Great
Falls Stake of the church created a Bicentennial
extravanganza they called “This is My Country” with a cast
of a hundred, who performed on the outdoor stage at the
Great Falls State Fair. Dad played the role of Uncle Sam.
Later, he planned a few dinner-and-a-show evenings
intended for the grown-ups in the stake, that were called
“Soirees.” These sorts of things gave opportunities to many of
the kids in the stake to act, to sing, to dance. I vividly
remember when I was about 11 or so, being made to learn
“Food, Glorious Food” from the musical “Oliver” with eight
other kids, and Dad making us practice the song and dance
routine over and over on the stage in the cultural hall on a Saturday afternoon. This was the first
time I realized that performing takes practice, and sometimes beyond what is fun.
Dad’s large territories meant that as a sales guy, he traveled. A lot. Initially, when he just
sold floor coverings, it would be for a day or two a week. Then a week or two at a time as his
territory increased. He spent literally HOURS driving across the wide open spaces of the
American west, in various vehicles and vans, in all kinds of weather conditions. With that many
hours behind the wheel, the odds came up, and he got in several car accidents, but emerged from
them without serious injuries -- not so for the cars he was driving.
All of that driving...Looking back on that now as an adult, I’m not sure how he did that. I
can’t think of anything more miserable, but he seemed to actually enjoy it.
He’d call home every night while he was traveling to talk to Mom and each of the kids. I’m
sure all of us remember the conversations:
“How was school today?” “Fine.”
“What did you learn?” “The usual stuff.”
In the early 80s, Dad decided he’d try his
own hand at running a furniture store and
opened “Jonathan’s Fine Furniture” in Great
Falls. It looked, for a while, like we’d actually have
a dad who was home for dinner every night, and
for a few months we did. Then he opened a
second store in Billings, and he was back to being
gone again, spending 3-4 days a week down at
that bigger store in a bigger city.
His work, especially in the 1970s and 80s,
made him quite successful financially. He didn’t
talk to me a lot about his work, but every time he
got a new line of furniture, I remember he’d
usually tell me about it, specifically, and was
excited about “how he was going to make a lot of
money” with this or that opportunity. This didn’t mean a lot to me initially, but now I realize it
meant that our parents were able to pay for piano lessons, voice lessons, dance lessons for my
sisters, and more.
He and my Mom were both good examples of getting a college education, and the
importance of being educated, but also in being well-rounded and using your talents.
Things changed over the years, and I know that the older kids in our family had a very
different experience growing up than the youngest, in terms of how well dad was able to provide
for them, and Mom’s illness and death took a huge toll on all of us. Dad took it particularly hard.
When he started talking to Bev, shortly after he moved to Utah, he told us that he had been
in contact with someone that he had known many years before. He was very interested, and
excited. Just a couple of weeks later, I was on a business trip and when I landed in Atlanta and
turned on my phone, there was a text from Dad: “Great news! Bev and I are engaged to be
married.” Always the kind of news you like to get from your dad via a text message.
Our family is very grateful to Bev for the care she has taken of our father, and for her
service to him. She made him very happy over the last year, and was a great comfort to him until
the very end.
When the Wilkinson kids look back at our lives thus far, what we have accomplished
collectively and individually, and the people we have all become, I think both of our parents have
a lot to be proud of. I know I sure am proud of Amy, Emily, Jill, Kimberly, Megan, and Jessica,
and their families.
I’m sure most of us in this room have had someone close to us diagnosed with cancer. It’s a
terrible disease, and when someone like a parent is diagnosed at an advanced stage, at least for
me, the grieving process starts then. For the last year or two since Dad we learned Dad had
advanced stage prostate cancer, I have been thinking about this day, and what I’d say about my
Dad if I had the opportunity to speak. And here I am.
John Wilkinson loved history. He loved telling people about world history--particularly
British and American history. But he also loved talking about his own history. He liked to talk
about certain parts of his life a lot, others not as much. Unlike world history, though, the facts
about our own lives are not usually as well documented. The years bend them, and bend our
perspectives about them.
You probably know my Dad was born in Scotland in
1943, in Airdrie, what is still known to be a rough suburb of
Glasgow. Back then it was populated by coal miners and factory
workers and their families. He was the youngest of seven
children, by some years. His mother died when he was young.
He was cared for by his older sister, Susan, who never married,
and they lived in the house of their father, Jeremiah, also
known as “Jerry.”
According to Dad, his childhood was harsh, without
much love. It's not clear whether this was just how children
were raised in Airdrie at that time, or whether there was some
aspect of his upbringing that was uniquely painful...but by the time he was a teenager, he went to
live with another much-older sister, Helen--she was old enough to have children my Dad's age.
He was much happier there, and his nephew Jim--who he stayed in touch with throughout later
years--was like a brother to him.
At around sixteen, he met some LDS missionaries in his town. The missionaries started
teaching him along with his sister Helen. With the Church, dad found both a new religion--one
that was practiced only by a small number of people in Scotland--and a religion that was little
understood and viewed with some significant suspicion, perceived as a very American church.
My Dad and his nephew/brother Jim were fascinated by the US, the American West, and
American music... So in the church, Dad also found a way to be closer to the country by which
he was fascinated. He spent lots of time with the missionaries, and according to the Scotland
family's version, started speaking with an American accent before he even left the country.
Elder Dick Whitehead, one of the
missionaries he got to know quite well
returned home to Utah, and shortly
thereafter, they offered to sponsor his time
and education in St George, Utah. Dad
raised money for his travel to the US by
working as a “hod carrier” -- someone who
carries mortar for masons. Dad had great
ambitions for his life and future, and Scotland
was not going to be part of them. As my Dad
left, he either swore--or joked--that only he'd
return to Scotland after he “made a million
dollars.”
His ambitions to make his millions must have originally been grounded in acting. He started
his theatrical career at the University of Utah and Dixie College in St George, where he met our
mother, Janet, the eldest daughter of a physician from Roy, Utah. Mom was a piano accompanist
in class he was in, and he asked her out. That’s how they met.
Two of Dad’s most triumphant roles in his acting career were Arthur Dolittle, the ne'er-dowell
father of Eliza in My Fair Lady, and Willy Loman, the unrespected salesman at the end of
his career.
Marriage to my Mom came along soon enough -- he won her
engagement ring by correctly guessing the number of watch
screws in a jar in a contest at a jewelry store. He joined the US
Army pre-emptively to avoid just being drafted, even though
he wasn’t a US citizen (and he never became one, incidentally)
then left for a tour of duty in Vietnam -- two days after I was
born at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington. Mom and I moved
in with Grandpa and Grandma Flinders in Roy for the next 18
months.
After his return from Vietnam, the next few years involved a
brief stint at Florida State in Tallahassee, where dad started a
masters Degree in Theatre. However, depending on whose version you hear, there were conversations between various interested parties -- Dad, Mom, and
possibly her parents -- which can be summarized as either "Why don't you plan to get a job that
can support a family?" And "Why are you trying to crush my dreams?”
The more practical path won out, and thus began Dad's career in sales. He initially sold
floor coverings for The William Volker Company, who moved him to Idaho Falls, Idaho. That’s
where the next child, Amy, was born. He was then transferred to Great Falls, where the rest of
the family came along over the next 14 years. Dad soon changed from selling floor coverings to
selling furniture, then eventually became a “factory sales rep” who sold several lines of furniture
to furniture stores in sales territories that included the very large states of Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, and sometimes even North and South Dakota.
Throughout the years, dad kept up his theatrical
interests through the opportunities he either found or created
in Great Falls. In 1976, for the bicentennial of the United
States, Dad and a committee of several people in the Great
Falls Stake of the church created a Bicentennial
extravanganza they called “This is My Country” with a cast
of a hundred, who performed on the outdoor stage at the
Great Falls State Fair. Dad played the role of Uncle Sam.
Later, he planned a few dinner-and-a-show evenings
intended for the grown-ups in the stake, that were called
“Soirees.” These sorts of things gave opportunities to many of
the kids in the stake to act, to sing, to dance. I vividly
remember when I was about 11 or so, being made to learn
“Food, Glorious Food” from the musical “Oliver” with eight
other kids, and Dad making us practice the song and dance
routine over and over on the stage in the cultural hall on a Saturday afternoon. This was the first
time I realized that performing takes practice, and sometimes beyond what is fun.
Dad’s large territories meant that as a sales guy, he traveled. A lot. Initially, when he just
sold floor coverings, it would be for a day or two a week. Then a week or two at a time as his
territory increased. He spent literally HOURS driving across the wide open spaces of the
American west, in various vehicles and vans, in all kinds of weather conditions. With that many
hours behind the wheel, the odds came up, and he got in several car accidents, but emerged from
them without serious injuries -- not so for the cars he was driving.
All of that driving...Looking back on that now as an adult, I’m not sure how he did that. I
can’t think of anything more miserable, but he seemed to actually enjoy it.
He’d call home every night while he was traveling to talk to Mom and each of the kids. I’m
sure all of us remember the conversations:
“How was school today?” “Fine.”
“What did you learn?” “The usual stuff.”
In the early 80s, Dad decided he’d try his
own hand at running a furniture store and
opened “Jonathan’s Fine Furniture” in Great
Falls. It looked, for a while, like we’d actually have
a dad who was home for dinner every night, and
for a few months we did. Then he opened a
second store in Billings, and he was back to being
gone again, spending 3-4 days a week down at
that bigger store in a bigger city.
His work, especially in the 1970s and 80s,
made him quite successful financially. He didn’t
talk to me a lot about his work, but every time he
got a new line of furniture, I remember he’d
usually tell me about it, specifically, and was
excited about “how he was going to make a lot of
money” with this or that opportunity. This didn’t mean a lot to me initially, but now I realize it
meant that our parents were able to pay for piano lessons, voice lessons, dance lessons for my
sisters, and more.
He and my Mom were both good examples of getting a college education, and the
importance of being educated, but also in being well-rounded and using your talents.
Things changed over the years, and I know that the older kids in our family had a very
different experience growing up than the youngest, in terms of how well dad was able to provide
for them, and Mom’s illness and death took a huge toll on all of us. Dad took it particularly hard.
When he started talking to Bev, shortly after he moved to Utah, he told us that he had been
in contact with someone that he had known many years before. He was very interested, and
excited. Just a couple of weeks later, I was on a business trip and when I landed in Atlanta and
turned on my phone, there was a text from Dad: “Great news! Bev and I are engaged to be
married.” Always the kind of news you like to get from your dad via a text message.
Our family is very grateful to Bev for the care she has taken of our father, and for her
service to him. She made him very happy over the last year, and was a great comfort to him until
the very end.
When the Wilkinson kids look back at our lives thus far, what we have accomplished
collectively and individually, and the people we have all become, I think both of our parents have
a lot to be proud of. I know I sure am proud of Amy, Emily, Jill, Kimberly, Megan, and Jessica,
and their families.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
My dad
 |
| My dad with my nephew Pete in the summer of 2013. |
My dad didn't talk much on the phone in the last few months of his life. His hearing was poor, and so talking on the phone was very difficult for him. Occasionally we would text back and forth. Usually he would just say he was doing fine and that he loved us and wanted me to give Asher and Julia a love from him. Communications were brief. But when my sister Megan called in the middle of March last year to say he wasn't doing well and that he had been put on hospice care, I knew I needed to make a decision quickly on whether or not I should make a visit to see him. I remember having the distinct feeling that I should go and that I should go soon--like if I waited a month or six weeks, it might be too late. I jumped on the Allegient Airlines website, and decided to head up to Utah about 2 and a 1/2 weeks later. And I am so glad that I did. That ended up being the last weekend that he was alive.
It was not easy to see him in those final days. He wasn't very coherent and was sleeping most of the time. He was also so thin and frail. He hadn't eaten much in days, and so it was like seeing him as skin and bones. His wife Bev was wonderful, though. She sat and chatted with us for several hours as he would rouse every so often. She took wonderful care of him, and made sure that he was not alone in his final days. I am grateful that she was there and willing to care for him. The were only married less than a year, and he was sick much of that time, so she was more of a nurse to him than anything else, but she said that she learned a lot about love and service in her time with him.
After getting in a couple of different visits at my dad's apartment that weekend, I was glad that I was able to say good-bye and tell him I loved him. That closure was important for me. I also was able to have a good visit with my Aunt Jennine, my sister Megan, my sister Kim, and Linda and Lynette Weight that weekend. I missed my kids and Enoch, but I needed to be there for my own closure and emotional healing. I knew very well when I left on the plane, that my dad likely would be gone within the week, and that I would be returning soon with my family.
And my dad only lived another three days. He passed away early on Thursday morning. His passing was peaceful, and Bev and my sister Megan took the lead on funeral arrangements. My dad left no instructions of ideas of what he wanted. Truth be told, I don't think my dad would have ever wanted to talk about his funeral. I don't think he ever really let himself think about his death. To the end, he always thought there would be something that doctors could do.
We all arrived in Utah for the funeral. My little family mostly stayed with my Aunt Jennine in Roy. My dad was buried there so we figured it would be fairly easy for getting around. It was good to be with my siblings, to share memories, tell stories, laugh, and sometimes be frustrated for the way things went with my dad. Having a good relationship with him was hard for all of us.
My older brother and sister both shared memories and the eulogy at my dad's funeral. I think they captured a lot of his complexity well. I think they also managed to shed some light on why my dad seemed to struggle in his relationships. His childhood included several significant traumas for a child to endure--the death of his mother, a stern father, heavy drinking in the family. So my dad developed the habit of wandering and performing as a means of coping. I think this means it was hard for anyone to ever really get close to him--to really know him.
But he knew how to work hard, and he certainly instilled in us the importance of education and literacy. We also have a love of music and musical theater that is in part due to him. My own childhood was one largely of happiness and opportunity because my dad provided for us and supported us in having lessons and developing our talents. I feel very fortunate in that regard.
The funeral also included a musical number by all the daughters but Amy. Bev's son and three of his friends also did a quartet musical number that my dad would have loved. Really, I think my dad would have enjoyed the tribute to him we did in that funeral.
Then we drove up to Roy for his burial there next to our mother. There was a military honor guard because of his service in Vietnam and my brother in law Stuart dedicated the grave. My favorite part of the graveside, though, was the single bagpiper who played at the beginning and at the end. It was perfect, and I know my dad would have loved that. Nothing like hearing Amazing Grace being played on the bagpipes. Then we went to a nearby church for a luncheon with family and friends. I appreciated all those who came and supported us. We are blessed with many wonderful people in our lives.
It was a week of many emotions. I am glad I could share the experience with all of my siblings there. My children will really have no memory of him, but I hope over the years, I can share with them a sense of who he was even with his imperfections. He had his faults, but he meant well, and I owe a lot to him. He did much to support our family and to support the dreams we had.
 |
| The seven siblings after the funeral luncheon. |
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Photo Dump 3 and moving on to real posts again....
This is the last from last year, and then I will be back with more regular and timely posts like one on our recent trip to San Diego with the kids. Woo!!!
 |
| Rapunzel and a ghost for Halloween. Asher wouldn't let me paint his face or color his hair, but hey, that made my job easier. |
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| Rapunzel going for the donut at our ward Halloween party. She really is the cutest thing ever I think! |
 |
| Amidst the Halloween season I was also working on painting and putting together an ornament set for a new Christmas tradition--the 25 days of Christ. |
 |
| Took the kids to Vertuccio Farms one morning. Julia liked the big blow up trampoline thing. |
 |
| Asher at his school's Halloween Mercado. His Montessori puts on a Mercado three times a year. The older kids run booths while the younger kids use their "money" to participate. It is pretty fun, and he had a great time. He really didn't want to be bothered with me and Julia being around. |
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| More fun at the Mercado. |
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| For my October turn at joy school, I did apple painting with the kids. It didn't turn out quite as I expected, but it wasn't a bomb either. |
 |
| Another shot of apple stamping. |
 |
| My friend April and I getting ready to run our first 10k. It was super cold that morning, and we had to wait a long time at the start. I didn't prepare well fuel wise, so by about four miles, my legs felt dead of energy, but I kept running and finished in 1:07. |
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| A bigger group of friends from the race. It was fun to have so many! |
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| Asher playing at the Phx Children's Museum over Thanksgiving break. We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with my friend April and her family. It was nice and low key. |
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| The kids decorated the tree, so most of the decorations are at the front and on the low part of the tree. |
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| Julia enjoys a peppermint chocolate milk shake at Chik-fil-a. I am glad they only have these around at Christmas time. Yum! |
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| We took the kids and Jill and Elaine and Charlotte to Flagstaff for the North Pole Experience. They liked the dinosaur at the Sinclair station. |
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| Meeting Mrs. Claus at the North Pole. |
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| Julia's dance class practices for the parents. |
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| Megan, Hannah, and Julia love to dance together. |
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| the photo booth at our ward Christmas party. |
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| more fun |
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| and more fun. |
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| Asher preparing for his winter program at school. |
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| a sampling of the music. |
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| Julia and Santa at the Forever Living Christmas party. |
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| wearing flannel with the Marks. Gotta do it! Or wear Dora and Boots. |
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| Christmas present excitement. |
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| Going shooting out in Hyder. |
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| This boy enjoyed the shooting experience. |
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| Playing Tumblin' Monkeys--a fun Christmas gift. |
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| Playing in the water works at the AZ Science Center. We got a year long membership so we'll be coming back. |
 | |||
| We also did a little family bowling over the holidays. |
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| Asher with Santa. |
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