Happy Conference Day!

Dearest Family,

It was good to talk with each of you & learn how you are doing & what's new in your life. It certainly has it's challenges but we have much to be thankful for. I am listening to the latest church CD called Called to Serve & really enjoying it! The sky is blue with a smattering of clouds all around. Don't think it knows just what it really wants to do outside today! Garry got his hair cut & then went on over to the Mission Valley Stake Center to listen to the Priesthood Session. I'm anxious to know what is being said at this time for us to prepare for. Perhaps it's still the same things since we haven't all mastered the ones they've been saying for so long. I am anxious to really get our food storage squared away. It is a work in progress for at least the 3 month " Must Have" supply (we are on our way with los of canned goods but need to do the wheat, flour & other essentials). We have the 72 hr packs in the house & 1 in each car. Did you guys eat yours today so that you can rotate them & keep them fresh? I must admit I didn't but the weekend isn't over yet!! I heard that a lot of folks do that & it's easier to remember when you did it if it's every Conference.

Well Darlings All - I am going to try to get some more of the Book of Mormon read as I am taking the challenge from our Stake President, Pres. Spring, to re-read the Book of Mormon by our Stake Conference the first weekend of November. I am enjoying it thoroughly once again.

I'm very grateful to my Father in Heaven for each of you & look forward to seeing your smiling faces & dancing eyes once again. I continually keep you in my prayers & my heart. I will forever love to hear "Steal Away" because I can see you skating to it on the old patio & your creative routines!! Love you so!

Heavens Blessing to ya...


Mom

Hey These are GREAT!!! Can't believe she is walking. Garry says, don't let her start walking yet!! Hold her down!! It was good to see some of both of you, too. She is such a doll babe. Thank you so much for sharing the pics & vids with all of us. We are trying to get our things done today that we would normally have done throughout the week. We are very happy in our mission, and come home with a tired but satisfied feeling having done what we could to aid the missionaries in their service. It is rewarding & so easy to get caught up in that we spend sometimes 10 hours a day before we get home. Hope you have a save flight, Nick, & I'm glad that you & Amber are doing so well, too., Crys. Glad you have such good friends that you can count on, as well. I hope this makes it to the blog...

Love forever,

Mom & Garry

Ambers' walking!!!

So here are a few pictures and videos of Amber. I can't believe she is growing up so fast! She turned 10 months on Friday. It's just going too fast!!! Like usual, not his fault, but Nick is gone again for a week. This time he is going between Travis AFB, in northern CA, Hawaii and Japan. He leaves for Qatar again the 13th of October, so we're hoping he won't have to make another trip when he gets home. We'll see though...who knows?! Anyway, here's the pics and vids. Love you all!

Love, Crys

An update...

Hi everyone!
I know I haven't posted anything for quite some time. Sorry about that. I realize everyone is sooo busy, especially with all the hospital stays and Utahnas' treatments. I just wanted to update everyone on how things are going here.

Like Nick has posted, he is home FINALLY!!! YAY!!!! It's been so nice having him here and feeling like were a family again. I guess I just get so into my own routine with Amber and the boys, that I didn't really realize how much I missed him. I like having him here. And being married to him! :) Since being home from CA, we've had our fair share of ups and downs. Amber and I have been sick a few different times, which is quite rare for me and hopefully for her as well. We both had an upper respitory infection and were on antibiotics. Nick was pretty sick for the first week he got home. It's something about the time change and all the flying that just wares and tears on his body. PLUS...he's finally able to just relax and so his body lets him know it needs the break. :) Also, our dogs were attacked by a pit bull and protected Amber and I from being attacked. Gotta love them!!!

Nick had to go on that Human Remains mission last week, and actually posted a link to see a video of the plane in Guam. I HIGHLY recommend seeing it. :) he leaves again this week for another mission. This one is a areomed evac mission. It's strange to be doing all these jobs as a boom, but it's a GREAT thing for his career and actually helps with his chances on getting tha scholarship to go to school full time and not be deployed anymore. We're still hoping that works out.

Amber is amazing!!! She is so big now that is has become quite depressing I might add. She is sooo smart and is saying so many words that I haven't even tried teaching her. She has just picked up on them and says them. Her latest one is "Gog"!!! (Dog, for the boys) She also has decided that she'd rather have Nick change her diaper and me play with her while he is, because she grabs a diaper from her pile and hands it to Nick and says "Dada"! Apparently her word for diaper is Dada...which I LOVE!!! She also crawls through out the house saying, "Mama" and "No" and "Dada" and "Hi" and whatever else her little heart desires and she has figured out to say. She is SOOO funny. Anything that she can do to make us laugh or get our attention, she does. Even to the point of her doing something she's not allowed to do and knows that she's not allowed. She will crawl over to the entertainment center and grab onto the tv and say "Mom"...until I look and tell her to "sit on her bum!" She will "sing" as loud as she can to make sure we know that she is still there. She's getting another tooth on the top of her mouth. She's been pretty sad sometimes, but is our little trooper.

As for me, I've been feeling pretty sick this past week. I've had a constant migraine for about 4 days and a headache when the migraine subsides. It's been kinda rough. THis weekend I got pretty sick with a sore throat and achey, crampy legs. I thought it was just the flu, but there's a chance that it might be West Nile Fever. I have a few tests to do, but since it's just the fever and not the virus, I should be able to recover from it on my own, with just meds for the symptoms. Here in ND, it is RIDICULIOUSLY common. 6 out of 10 mosquito bites carry the WNV. I won't have to have a vaccine for it since it's just the fever. Kinda sucks, but I'll survive! Anyway, I love you all. Hope things are going alright with everyone.

I hope you are feeling better Utahna and that your strength retursns soon. And I also hope that little Michael is feeling better and that Dori and Dan don't have to spend anymore time in the hospital for a VERY LONG TIME!!! Good luck with the mission Mom and Garry and know that I'm proud of you for serving so faithfully. I hope works going well for too Cheryl and that you're feeling happy and appreciated. Talk with you all soon. Love you!!!

Love, Crys

I'm back again, for now at least.

Just got back from Guam to deliver a fallen Navy corpsman home. It was a pretty somber mission compared to most. We also had his father and one of his friends fly with us. The soldier was twenty five years old. He was married and had a kid. He was killed in an i.e.d. explosion. The news in Guam filmed us coming home. You'll see me in it. I think I'm like the second to the left. The reason they spray the airplane when we came in is to symbolize a sailor being buried at sea.

here's the link http://www.varietynews.com/news/29637.mp4

Nick

Hello everyone!

Yes I'm home finally. Sorry its taken me so long to post, it's no excuse but i've been feeling pretty sick this past week. I don't know why but whenever I change time zones by a lot i get sick. Oh well, guess that's going to do me well in this job hehe. This week has been very nice, they give us a week off when we come home from deployment. Its nice just to rest and not fly so much. Though in between now and the next deployment i'll be going what they call tdy, it stands for temporary duty. I can go anywhere from alaska to australia, or from italy to hungary. Mostly tdy's last from 3 to 7 days. So I will still be busy flying around unfortunatly. I will be able to see some pretty cool places though I'll be missing out on some really fun family time.

Crys, as you have already seen, has been doing an amazing job raising and teaching Amber. She has changed so much, she's like a real person now. She doesn't just sit there and make noises every now and then. Now she is everywhere all the time. Luckily she's singing wherever she goes so we always know where she is. She's so tough too, she rarely cries because she has fallen down or something like that, but take away something she wanted or tell her no and she might shed a few tears. :( She's pretty freaking cute though.

Our dogs are as crazy as ever but we have them hooked up outside now which makes them and us much happier. Kodah is 85 pounds and 9 months old, he's the brawn. Jake is 65 pounds and 2 and a half years old, he's deffinetly the brains. Kodahs really sweet but really dumb, though he's starting to learn. Jakes a pretty good teacher. We did have to get Kodah a shock collar because when he's outside he has this annoying yappy bark. When he barks once is shocks him on low and for every bark after the first within 7 seconds the shock value will increase. He barked three times in a row before he realized what was going on and jumped straight into the air yelping. It was sad but you couldn't help but laugh because he was so "shocked" by it. (Yes that's a pun) He did it again a few times until he finally figured that if he wasn't barking he wasn't being shocked. Now we have a peaceful street again.

On the way back home we had 36 hours on the ground which was very nice. Most crews coming home get min-turned is what they call it. That means they have the minimum time on the ground before they have to take off again, which is 13 hours. Since we had they extra time we made use of it by spending a day in London. It was so much fun. We went to the Westminster Chapel, Big Ben, Parliament and we also road on The Eye. It was pretty amazing. The Eye if you didn't know (i didn't) is a gigantic ferris wheel from which you can see all of London. It was pretty amazing. The deployment definitely was not fun but the way home was.

Its very nice to be home and am not looking forward to the next time i have to go out which I will find out probably on Monday. I love you all.

Love Nick

Old-Timers Disease...

By the way Cheryl, I'm still waiting for that information I was tryng to get. Just didn't want you to think that I was not on top of it. How goes work? Is this a super busy time of year? Are you somewhat seasonal in scope or always goin' sixty? I was so pleased & proud to know what a big company you work for. I ecxpected it to be somewhat smaller but wow - was I surprised. Tell them I think you are due another raise for all that you put up with!! Hey Chris, I hope that your job is still going great with Panda Express. Garry has taken me there several times & I like their food. I think the Peking Cafe is still my favorite but that's because of multiple items for dinner plates. Do you have the same thing? I grew up on it, too, which makes a big difference! I never really looked at the menu for it - just got the same things that we always get because we like them the best. Good luck with school starting next week & keeping up with super grades this year, particuarly. You can do it! Hope your truck is running well. Stay cool & be all that you can be. We all have confidence in you!

Lots of love,

Mom & Garry