Congrats Darcy

Darcy Graduated with her Masters. As you can tell from her cords she received tons of awards. I couldn't begin to tell you what they all were, but I think she had the most of all of the other graduates, no joking.

Mom, Darcy and me

School Dance

The kids had their first all school Christmas dance this year. It was really cute. The kids practiced dancing in PE for a week in advance.

This is Kayla and her friend Chandler

The girls Dancing

Collin helping out with the bowling section

Kayla and her friends

Collin hula hooping

OJT Christmas Party

We had our second annual OJT Christmas get together. Thanks to Denis and Alexis for having the party at their house this year. The kids drew names and got gifts for one another and we did a White Elephant. Needless to say we had some interesting gifts this year. We had tons of good laughs.

Alyssa, Morgan, Collin, Kaylee, and Kayla (Reagan is there, but got cut out of the pic)


Collin, Avery, and Alyssa

During the gift opening
Me & Tim

Decorating the Tree

We got a late start to decorating our tree this year. We usually do our tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but this year we left on our trip for Monte Carlo on that Friday. So we didn't start decorating until December 11th. We got the tree down and the kids did an excellent job of helping decorate.

Sunday and Monday in Monte Carlo

Sunday was kinda a slow day here in Monte Carlo. It was arrival day for most of the other people on the trip with us. I woke up at 2 am in the morning. I told myself I needed to at least lay in bed until 4 am. Then next thing I knew Tim and Collin were awake. We were all up and about by 6 am. We went to breakfast on the top floor of our hotel. The view was great, but clouds were rolling in. We started the breakfast being able to see in the mountain top and by the time we were done the clouds were covering everything. Then it started raining. We finished up breakfast and headed down to the welcoming event. We had some drinks and got hand massages and a neck massage. We walked throught the city, but everything was closed. So we spent most of the rest of the day in the hotel trying to stay awake so that we could get ourselves on schedule here.

Monday started out in a rush. We had a guided tour of the city and getting all four of us down to breakfast by 8:30 was a little challenging. We were still off schedule, but doing a little better. We took a bus through Monaco and over to the old town were the Prince's palace is. The tour was very informative. Monaco is only one square mile. There are about 30 thousand people that live in that one square mile and only about 3% of them work. The live here because they do not have to pay any taxes. The apartment buildings are 35 stories tall and they have parking garages underground that are four or five stories below ground. There is parking in the mountains too. The tour guide was very informative. We ended the day with a welcoming dinner. It was really nice. They had prize drawings, but we didn't win. They also had dancers and other entertainment. It was a fun evening.

1st day in Monte Carlo

We started out on Friday evening and got to our destination of Monte Carlo on Saturday mid day. Our flight was long and rough a few times. We landed safely in Germany, then rushed to our connecting flight to Nice, France. We had an hour between and our first flight was running late. Once we landed in Nice we took a nice bus ride over to our hotel. Our hotel is nice and our room has an ocean view. Our balcony is litterally hanging over the ocean. Once we got here I was totally wiped out. I don't sleep well on planes at all. So we ordered dinner and then I showered and was out. Tim and the kids went for a walk throughout the hotel. They walked through the city.

Halloween 2009

Obiwon Kanobi and a Monarch Butterfly were the costumes of choice this year. The mask on Collin's costume was so realistic. It was hard to tell that it wasn't a real face. Kayla of course looked adorable with her fake orange eyelashes and all.

The neighbor hood kids.

After trick or treating we headed out to a costume party. I was Dorothy and Tim was the Scarecrow.

Kayla, Summer and Bella

Lesa and Emily - Hint her dad was dressed as an angel.

Mike and Julie L.

Me, Jill H, Alexis, Cora and Julie L.

Tommy, Brian, Denise, Mike and Tim

We had a great time. Thanks to the Starks for inviting us again!