"He gots the grasshopper!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday. Wow 22 years...yikes! I have to tell a little story about him. When we lived at the 'apartment' in Oregon City the boys were real good about finding all sorts of homeless critters to offer our home to. I'd find all kinds...allllll kinds....We had an old fish tank that became a little village of critters. Mike and Doug had invited a praying mantis to 'join' our family. So into the fish tank he went with all the sticks and leaves to make it feel more at home. They searched the libray to find out what a praying mantis eats. Discovered it was grasshoppers so they went out shopping the wild back yard for a morsel for the mantis to munch on. They found an abundance of the hoppers and had fun capturing a couple and carefully placing them in the Mantis den. Well to the boys disappointment the mantis wasn't hungry for a few days. One day as J was messing with our new video camera recorder, Mike and him walked over to the Mantis den to capture, for posterity, a look at the wild critter. All of a sudden you hear Michaels little 5 year old voice exclaim...."He gots the grasshopper!" The mantis finally did get hungry and we have Mike's little voice recorded to prove it. WE LOVE YOU MIKE!!

Me fine!

I always thought that 'dog clothes' were just a tad eccentric....but then I realized there is a time and place. We had very coooold weather here...10 to 20 below...our poor Saydie Dog was freezing her tush off every time we needed to take her out for her job. (We don't have any yard). She'd rush outside happy and anxious as ever. Then two minutes out she'd look at us and lift her paws up one by one and seemed to say..."are you crazy". So we broke down and got her a winter outfit and it was hilarious watching her walk, but it didn't take her very long to figure it out.

Sometimes when you ask Max if he wants something or let him know he needs to do something he'll reply "My Fine"....... I escaped once again to Tacoma the weekend of the 12th to get a snuggle from two of my favorite kiddlies. Here's Max with one of his favorite christmas story books sitting under their beautiful christmas tree.

Ryan is definantly into food. He gets his little bird mouth going and sits up in this cute little chair and munches away.

This is one of my favorite pics of a super cute Ryan. Getting him to smile and laugh is priceless.

Tony was sacked out on the couch and Max decided he would take a nap with daddy. So he crawled up onto the couch with his "nite, nite" (blankey) and laid there for about a minute and then "all done" came back down to build some more airplanes with his blocks.

Catching Debbie in cuddle times with Ryan.

These trips come not often enough. But I'm glad we have the benefits to make the flights as often as we can. Thanks Tony and Debbie! So until next time...."My fine"......

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Tis the season to decorate....the challenge is it's a new home and thats always a quantry to try to figure out where all the christmas stuff goes. Thankfully we put Mike and Nicole to work during the Thanksgiving weekend to pull up all the christmas boxes and we had several minds going as to where everything would go. Engineer Mike built our tree in a box and made it look respectful. Then we put everyone to work decorating it. They did a spectacular job!

A not so flattering picture of Mike, but I couldn't figure out how to delete it....sorry Mike. So someday... I need a patient person to tutor me in Blogging 101...any volunteers?

Coooooooooooooooold

Hi! We are alive! The winter deep freeze that dumped itself onto Billings, MT went from several days of below zero temps that took your breath away as you stepped outdoors, to now a much milder 30 degrees. Amazing how you appreciate even a little warmth! And I must say the snow is really noisy...it's really dry and squeaky and moans and groans as you walk on it. No snowmen in sight, it just doesn't stick, but I have seen some creative snow angels on my morning walk to work.

Thanksgiving adventure

Thanksgiving was a really really small group this year. We were able to have Nicole join us for the week and get to know her a little more. I made a menu & posted it on the cupboard.

Looks pretty fancy.....but we really did have lots of left overs.

Doug' sparkling personality added the touches to this pic

Hey Jensons and Mays does this game look nastalgic?? Had to initiate Nicole into the Epperson games.

Wedding in April

Well you guessed it. Mike is engaged to a cute little missy: Nicole Williams. They met in Book of Mormon class at BYU-I last April. She is from South Carolina...without an accent. She is a sophmore studying Childhood Education. She's really cute and smart and seems to like Mike alot and visa versa Mike seems to really like her too.

J and I met her in July when we went to watch Mike & Doug do the Idaho Falls fireworks shoot. We like her alot too. They are here visiting for Thanksgiving week. It's been fun getting to know her a little more. This is a picture of them up on the rim in Billings.

Mike actually proposed to her in Rexburg on the 14th of November. He had her go on a treasure hunt with the help from roomates and friends to find clues at different sites on campus and ended having her go to the class room they met and he had written on the blackboard "Will you marry me, Nicole". This is just the plan B picture if plan A didn't work. There plan right now is Nicole will be going home for the winter semester to spend time with her mom and get things prepared. No actual date set yet...but they are definantly looking at April. We'll keep you posted as the details unfold... (I know I need to change the date thingy on my camera....where is that instruction book....)

Dad Hero

Just when you think your kids are too big for a good dad hero, something like this happens. We were blessed to have Mike stay the weekend with us last Friday because of some unforseen circumstances (ie) a car break down as Mike & I were trying to catch a plane to San Diego for a Kawasaki seminar (a whole story in itself). Didn't happen but we got Mike for the weekend. We decided to drag Doug away from his computer to go play Folph. (Frizby Golf). Our park that is only a block & a half away has a great course. Doug has some really official looking Folph discs. So I, Mike & Doug head to the park, J takes Saydie dog for his piddle walk. We throw 2 'holes' but on the third 'hole' Mike has a big fir tree right in his direct line. He decides to try to throw over the top of the tree and you guessed it, the frizby smacks into the tree and lodges itself among the branches. It's getting dusk and Doug's first words were, "Mike you owe me $10.00." (I'm thinking crimany $10.00 for a disc, holy crow!) Mike decides he's going to try to hit it out of the tree. We gather a couple big rocks and some sticks. He throws.... the rocks fly through the tree and the sticks lodge themselves nicely among the branches. We try to hoist Mike into the tree, but the branches are too dense so he backs out. We throw more & hit the disc once but it only glides down to another branch, which we couldn't see as clearly. Well in the mean while J is standing a far distance away watching the proceedure. He decides to wander over and is chuckling to himself as we are propelling rocks into the tree & it's getting dark. He trys his hand at throwing a rock, no luck. Then he goes up to the tree, looks up, jumps and reaches the first branches, hoists himself into the tree and starts gingerly climbing among these skinny little limbs. He can't see the disc because it's so dark now, so he reaches into his pocket and produces a little pen light. He discovers where the disc is and has to climb a bit higher. I'm directly under him on the ground praying those little branches hold. Pretty soon we hear a thump and the disc has made it to the ground. J monkey climbs his way out of the tree and drops to the ground. Doug, Mike & I were amazed. J's comment was,"Makes feel like I'm 12 all over." A little travel into childhood. And in the eyes of my boys & myself....a Dad hero!!