Christmas Time

Our Christmas season officially starts when we put up our Christmas tree right after American Thanksgiving, even though we don't officially celebrate American Thanksgiving.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

Next, we celebrate Austin's birthday! We went to Tony Roma's to celebrate his birthday dinner. Carly and I had wrapped his birthday presents, and then she put them all in a gift bag to carry into the restaurant. She kept asking if it was time to open presents. So after we placed our orders, it was time. So she handed each gift to Austin and said, "Here is your wallet. Here is your shirt. Here is your tie." We had a good laugh. We love Austin!!

Jill played in her first band concert. ( I didn't even get a picture.)

Hanna sang in her elementary choir concert. It is one of my favorite events of the year.


We went to do our Christmas country visiting teaching, and we had gotten about 6 inches of snow the night before. It was my turn to drive, so I drove my new Yukon. We made it to the first two houses with no problem. We were talking about how nice it was to have 4-wheel drive as we drove to the last house. I wasn't going fast enough to make it up her hill, so I decided to back up and get a run at it. Well, I didn't back up straight and got off the road. To make the story shorter, I ended up with one wheel in the ditch. We were really stuck. So we walked up the hill and did our visit. Right as we were going to head back out to try and get out, the bishop rang the doorbell. He was driving past and came to see if we need help. Thank goodness. So he hooked his truck up to my car and pulled us out. Luckily the story has a happy ending, but I sure felt stupid.

Jill had a basketball tournament in Barnwell. Her team won the tournament. Way to go girls!

Today is my 36th birthday. It is off to a great start. I went running this morning. Then Austin made a delicious breakfast and put up decorations. I already have 30 happy birthday posts on Facebook ( I love that). My visiting teachers came, and I am headed to meet my friends for lunch. Then Jill has a basketball game and we have Austin's junior high dinner party tonight.

This is the stocking I came home from the hospital in on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas in 5 more days!!!

Nunn Times

Time for an update on our family. Someday when I am old and bored, I will remember back to these times....

Carly

* Follows me all around the house all day talking and talking - then we follow her big sisters around all afternoon and evening
* She likes to help me - her favorite task to help me with is folding laundry. She also mops sometimes and even helped me paint Jill's bathroom
* Her favorite weekday activity: storytime at the library. She also gets a sucker every time we go to the bank or post office
* She loves to play with her cousin, Annie-Jo and calls her several times a week. She also likes playing with her friend, Maggie.
* Carly is in her last few weeks of nursery and will soon become a Sunbeam
* She wants to do whatever her big sisters are doing: dribbling the basketball, serving the volleyball, tying goats, etc.

Lucy

* Lucy loves school. Her grade one teacher is Mrs. Romeril. She is happy but quiet in the mornings when we wake her up to eat breakfast and get ready for school.
* She played basketball with Champs this year (an 8-week after school basketball camp). She loved it. She just smiles as she dribbles up and down the court.
* Her favorite thing to play with is her Barbies.
* She would play with a friend after school every single day if we let her.
* After falling off our horse Cheno, she lost her confidence but it is slowly coming back as she started to ride Sparky the pony again, and now we have a new horse that she walks, trots and lopes on...Bugsy.
* Lucy is still our family princess

Hanna

* Hanna is having a great grade 5 year with Mrs. Schow. She has fun friends in her class (Maren, Ashley, Mike & Mitch, Donavon, etc) They have a good intramural team.
* Her class got to spend 2 nights at Waterton for a fun campout and to learn about Waterton.
* Hanna also played Champs basketball this year. She is good at defense.
* She enjoys activity days at the church. She just got new leaders.
* She is in her second year of senior choir at the elementary school. The choir is really talented, and she loves it.

* She goes to a junior roping class on Mondays and a goat tying class on Wednesdays. She went to her first rodeo of the season and placed 1st in break away, 2nd in goats, and almost caught the heels team roping with Jill. She is an awesome cowgirl.

* Hanna says she wants to be a vet when she grows up. She loves her dog, Roxie.

* Hanna's current obsession is earning money to buy a bearded dragon. This is her washing windows to earn money and then her money collection.

Jill

*Jill is a true teenager (braces, wearing random colored socks to school, hanging out with friends, shows a wide range of emotions, is taller than her Mom)
* But we love her. She is the top student on the honor roll in her grade. She is playing the clarinet in band (which she doesn't really love).
This is Jill dressed up for blue and white days.

* Her YW leaders and friends love her
* She had a great year of volleyball, and they even won the division championship (#33)

* Austin is helping to coach her grade 7 girls basketball team
* Jill also goes to junior roping and goat tying at the Westwind Rodeo Academy. In her first rodeo of the year, she placed 6th in her division in goat tying (11.09 seconds) and caught the steer in team roping (but her heeler, Hanna missed). She is a really good rider.

Austin

*Principal of Cardston Junior High. We hear lots of good things about Austin as the principal. He really likes his staff, and he hasn't taken away any bottles of vodka this week. He is always working to make his school better and better. This week he started the phone system that calls parents to remind them of school events (We won't talk about the first time he used this system 5 years ago when the calls went out at 5 am).
* Austin is the 1st counselor in Young Mens. He is really excited to go on the winter campout this weekend. Have you ever heard Austin talk about his love for camping?? He only has 4 teachers in his quorum right now.
* Austin is training horses for other people. One is perfect because it gives him a little bit of cowboy time every day. Two is okay but busy. He got up to 4 for a while, but that is too much for his crazy life.
* Austin teaches junior roping class on Mondays. Last year he started with about 6 kids. This past week he had 19 kids on horses learning to rope. He has a teaching gift.

Kaylynn

*This is the newest addition to our family. I love it but it reminds me that I am getting old. We needed a new car to drive in the winter and for our road trips. I found it in Montana, took it for a test drive when I went to run the 5k with my friends, and went back the next week and bought it. Austin never saw it until I got home with it. My Mom said my Dad wouldn't have let her do that in a trillion years.
*I am getting older but love my life. I drive a Yukon, I have more and more gray hairs, I have a daughter that is taller than me, etc.
* I am the 1st counselor in Relief Society. It is a great calling with a great presidency.
* My current exercise schedule includes a weekly yoga class that I love (but I will spare any pictures of me in down dog or twisted prayer position). I also go to the junior high in the mornings to do P90x three times a week and run twice a week. I have great exercise friends.

That's all I can think of right now!

Halloween

Halloween = fun + candy

This year the junior high had Halloween a little early. The students dressed up, decorated pumpkins and their classrooms, and went through an amazing, over-the-top, scary, fun, artistic, professionally done spook alley. The spook alley was all thanks to the Parent Council president with an artistic mind that loves Halloween, Letje Gibb. She recruited lots of parents who spent lots of hours getting it ready.

Austin was in the entrance of the spook alley. The artistic ladies did his face with toilet paper, white glue and Halloween make-up. He was in a chair in a corner and then he started to move and lots of kids screamed. They only knew who it was because of his voice.

Austin

All of the spooks (Dads and Grandpas)


Jill's costume - what is she? a junior high girl...random
Do you like my prom dress from high school?


I helped at the picture booth after the kids went through the spook alley.

PUMPKINS
We grew pumpkins in our garden and we actually got a couple good ones. But they never turned orange. So we carved our green Canadian pumpkins.





HALLOWEEN
Lucy, the witch


Hanna, the Hindu

Carly, the clown (with our green pumpkins and the first real snowfall of the year)


We went to the elementary school to watch the costume parade. It was fun.

Carly and Lucy ready to go trick-or-treating. Jill and Jami Berry stayed home and made crafts. Hanna did a bit of town trick-or-treating with her friends before we picked her up to go country trick-or-treating. We like country trick-or-treating. People are really excited to have kids come. They give great treats. It is warmer because we drive from house to house and most of the time they say, come in, and you go all the way into the house to get your treat.
We only went to 15 houses and filled our bags.


Carly and Hanna at Grandma's






We got home and Jill and Jami were all dressed up and begged to go trick-or-treating. I agreed (bad idea) to take them to a couple houses. I took them to 3 houses of people we know. Funny kids.

And that is how we celebrated Halloween this year. Let the treat eating begin.

Thanksgiving at the Ranch

We went to Lodge Creek Ranch to celebrate our Canadian Thanksgiving this year.
It's always a benefit to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner without having to cook anything. Grandpa Buck and Grandma Nunn came to the ranch, too.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night.
On Monday, we watched Austin and the crew castrate and brand 2-year old horses. I bet none of you cut horses for fun on Thanksgiving Day.

I wanted to give a full tour of the ranch - so you can appreciate the full experience and so we can always remember the good times. Austin has come to the ranch for 20 years for a few days or weeks or months. We also come with him lots of the time.

This is the first building you come to when you drive into Lodge Creek Ranch. This is known as the brown trailer. You might be surprised to know it is the nicest of the ranch accommodations. This is where we stayed this visit.



Next is the green trailer - a little like a tin can. You can see daylight through some of the doorways and walls. We have stayed there a few times, too. The camping trailer next to it is Mary Jane's trailer. She comes and goes.

Next on the road is the indoor arena. It is a nice building. When they had their horse sales, they had them in this building.

The equipment row.

The big white barn


The ranch house - Carly is on the deck. I wish I would have taken some pictures of the inside. There are two kitchen tables because there are always people coming and going and working and getting fired or quitting and more visitors, etc.

Joan, the lady of the ranch. She would give you the shirt of her back. She collects lots of clutter and never throws anything away. She is a micro-manager when you help her in the kitchen. She hates flies and spends much of her day swatting flies.


Time for the ranching event of the day:
Austin getting warmed up.


Horse down - ready to cut and brand


Kaylynn watching all of the excitement - including Austin getting bucked off - no broken bones just a swollen hand and bruises.


Jill holding Austin's horse

Joe (the man of the ranch) with the branding irons



Austin roping the next horse


So what do we do all day while Austin is working....

Carly and Addison (a ranch visitor) playing with the miniature donkeys

Lucy on the elaborate playground on the ranch


Lots of random people come to the ranch.
This is Adell. We have met him before. He makes his living driving his van full of goods to ranches and farms selling things. Joe bought 3 new pairs of overalls. Grandpa Buck bought new wool socks.


At the end of our awesome ranch vacation, we got to the end of the 45 minutes of bumpy dirt road, and Grandpa and Grandma weren't behind us anymore. They had gotten a flat tire. So while we waited for them, we took some pictures on the highway. You will be able to tell how much traffic there was...

Jill, Hanna Kaylynn laying in the middle of the road

Hanna running

The prairies have their own beauty

Good job Jill on this photo - notice the moon.

That takes us to the end of our Thanksgiving break.