It's Christmas Time!!!

As tradition merits, setting up the Christmas Tree always ushers in the beginning of the Christmas season. Setting up our gigantic tree (it is a 12 footer) is always quite the chore and therfore takes a small army to do. Well, the six of us made up that small army and between all of us we did the deed. Now the season can officially start...

Mom stabilizes the antique ladder so Ben isn't killed in this process while Dad relays the ribbon from Ben to David (who'd have thought the boys would be the decorators of the family).

Jenn steps in to save the tree and make it presentable.

and I pose for mom's sake so she can take a picture of me (but really, I did help too!)

...and ta da!!!! Here it is--our magnificent and beautiful Christmas Tree.

Bowling Frenzy

As part of our Thanksgiving Holiday festivities we had an enthralling game of bolwing which probably turned out to be more comical than competitive. Due to poorly size shoes with laces falling off and unusually heavy balls our games were thrown a little askew. It was great to watch Jenn granny bowling becuase nothing else would work and to see Ben experience beginners luck on "the spin." There was also Dave's little kick of the foot that we came to expect on every trip he took to the line. As for the winners of our eventful trip...the mom and the pregnant lady--go figures ;-)

Thanksgiving Holiday Fun

I can't think of anything I enjoy more than when everyone is home like in the olden days. I realize those precious days are quickly slipping away with marriages, grandchildren, and my family growing up. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Thanksgiving.





Jenn adding the touches the tables to make them look festive.




With the cold weather (in dipped down into single digits at night), the boys going to the church gym to throw football, play tennis, and basketball. I know Dave hoped for playing in a Turkey Bowl, perhaps this helped; he certainly has not lost his touch.

Yes that is a few days growth on his face!


Cute Katie


One of my beloved moments when David and I worked side by side washing the many dishes from our Thanksgiving meal.

Momma Melanie, the only thing missing is her ever expanding belly.

Making homemade noodles for our traditional post Thanksgiving turkey noodle soup.

End of Trimester

Idaho Falls High School incorporates a trimester instead of a semester system that I am used to. Ben and David completed the 1st tri on Thursday. Instead of having 6 class periods in a day, there are 5. Classes last 1 hour and 15 minutes. They have been celebrating now for 2 days and will start 2nd tri on Monday.

Ben was pushing hard to earn a 4.0 after slacking off a little in a couple of classes during the soccer season. He had to play catch up in honor's English for the last month and was moaning about having to finish 200 pages of Jane Eyre in a week. A's had to be earned on all the book's quizzes, tests, and papers in order to accomplish his goal. He had to get high A's on both biology finals (the teachers test and the state's ECA test) to squeak by. The English "A" was captured, but biology still remains in question. Stay tuned.....

David's final week didn't seem as intense. He did put in some hours studying for American Government and English. He endured Economics, which obviously has not been one of his favorite classes. The teacher is a really nice lady, but Dad was one of her students 32 years ago when she first started teaching and she is understandable weary and ready to retire. He has really enjoyed choir and weight lifting. His final in weight lifting was to improve "X" amount of percentage in the amount they could lift (I am not sure what that was). He scored 204 consecutive situps, maxed at 230 lbs at the bench press, and did 10 repetitions of 450 on the sled press for legs.

He will have Trigonometry and American Government for core classes next tri along with choir, weight lifting, and seminary. He will have early release since his math class is 0 hour.

Ben takes Algebra IIB, Honor's English, History, Men's choir, and seminary. Both he and David have seminary 4th hour. I wonder if they will get the same teacher. They have 3 seminary teachers. They only take seminary 2 of the 3 trimesters so one or two teachers will teach the second half of Old Testament, another(s) will teach 1st half. Neither boy had seminary last tri.

Happy Birthday Richard!

Yep, November 13th is the day. Jenn made him a chocolate birthday cake. I LOVE Richard's smile. It is among my many favorite things about him. (Don't mind the piece missing from the cake - Vance couldn't wait for a taste!)



We celebrated his birthday with his family at Brick Oven. It was a fun group and I enjoyed getting better acquainted with his parents and siblings. We purpose spread out so we would get to know each other better.



Here is a picture of Jenn's first attempt at cutting Richard's hair. She was like a duck to water, an absolute natural at the job. They decided that next go around they will leave it a little longer on the top. She will strive for perfection at Thanksgiving break. A word about his hair. It is thick and grows really fast, so although Thanksgiving is in 10 days, it will be ready to cut again!

Katie's Condo

Her condo is on the 3rd floor on the right hand side. The two things that attracted her to this particular place was the price and each unit has a washer and dryer. She is living with Becca, a roommate from last year, plus 3 other girls. She likes her ward and is the youngest one she knows of. Her current calling is an FHE mom. She carefully plans and invites her "family members" and has between 15 and 20 attendees.

Here Comes the Bride

One of the main purposes of the weekend was to select a wedding dress for Jennifer. We decided to rent because it is a little cheaper and gives a few more options for the price. Here is the dress Jenn didn't choose, so you can imagine how good the one she chose looks.

This picture is of the necklace she is going to wear. It is an heirloom from Grandma Miers, Jenn's great-grandma on the Fager side. She ended up wearing the necklace all day so she didn't lose it. It was an interesting combination with blue jeans and silver hoops for earrings.

Here is a preview of the one she did chose, but we are not sharing all the secrets, you will have to come to the reception and see :-)

Katie's Fun Date

Here is a picture from a date Katie had last week. It looked like fun - Katie fill us in on the details.

The first date

so this is ben telling the rather boring tale of my first date. we started off by going to the high school to get pictures, it was quite slow as we came a little late and had to wait in line. After pictures we went to pizza hut for our dinner where it took FOREVER for the pizza to get to our table, so naturally we arrived late for the dance, we got there at about 9:10 and stayed for an hour and a half, the group i danced with was sooooooooo nervous that they wouldnt dance and so i felt like a true white boy dancer with my not so graceful moves, i felt that i danced like the guy off of hitch. i still prefer stake dances, because there is less rap, and i dont look around and see dirty dancing. After the dance we went to our house to get pictures, because my mom is a blog finatic who doesnt know how to take pictures. Then we went to one of the houses of a guy in our group (sada, the asian). we played games and watched ten minutes of waynes world, which i thought was the most retarded movie in the world, even worse than napolean dynamite. when i took my date home, (maddy) i totally spaced out to take her to the door, and now i feel like i failed the date, even though i was the only guy in my group that would talk to my date, and so as to not make the rest of the girls in our group hate that night, i talked to all of them too. but all in all i think it was a successful first date, besides katie.

The Weekend

I have done more canning this year than I have in a long time; 144 bottles of peaches;50 + of jam, 170+ of grape juice; 85 of applesauce. Here are pictures of the latest escapades.

Mel, Dave, and Katie came especially for this 2nd annual event. We all dressed for the occasion. Melanie won the best dressed award with her blue man shorts that hung below her ever growing belly, soccer socks donated by Ben, an oversized t-shirt that covered Carson sponsored by Vance, it was accentuated by an apron.

Melanie, Katie, and I worked for a few hours on it and had to call in reinforcements. All seven of us worked feverishly for about 3 hours to get the job done. Ben was the apple sorter and washer, Vance and Katie the cutters, David, Dave, and Melanie the mushers at the Victorio Strainer, and I was the overseer running the canner and other little details.

vn

Although we all helped with clean-up, Vance did most of it, especially the dishes and there was A LOT to do.

It was one of those moments that created memories that I will think about every time we have applesauce.

Vance and Diane Blog

I've decided to create a blog for Vance and Diane and link it to the Gabrielsen and Fager blog so I don't have to post things twice. That way, I'm not hogging all the blog spots and can still report on all the happenings in our family.