Merry Christmas

Well, instead of sending our Christmas letter out in the mail we decided to send it out on our blog.
Greetings from Loa, Utah. We hope this finds you well and enjoying this holiday season. We figure that since everyone else and their families are sending updates on their families we should give in to positive peer pressure and do the same.

We figure that George needs to be included even though he really wouldn't know the difference since he never comes in to check out the blog. But, he is growing up and doing well. His news for the year is that he sometimes gets to go on trail rides and chase cows and other dogs around. He gets excited to see us and learned to sit still while fly-fishing with Scott.


Elena has had a pretty great year and continues giving us a run for our money in trying to keep her happy. She is three and full of life and boundless energy. She is into pretending to be Allie's mother and telling her what to do. She continues to pretend that she will be five and going to school next year.

Allie is in first grade and loving every minute of it. She continues to amaze us with her wit and her love for those around her. She is growing up and becoming quite the reader. She is looking forward to Christmas and finally being able to spend a day off with Scott.

Andrea continues to maintain an incredibly busy life in Loa. She continues teaching piano lessons. She also continues serving in the Primary Presidency in our ward. She also has been rather busy the last while preparing for Christmas and for the primary program. She continues putting up with Scott and working to maintain her own sanity at the same time. (Quite the task!)
Scott continues furthering his Equine Therapy career at Aspen Ranch and becoming more and more of a cowboy as he goes. He also had an exciting year fly-fishing as he began working with the owner of The Quiet Fly Fisher guiding on the local waters. He is becoming more and more interested in that world and the spiritual nature of teaching others something he loves.


The best news of all for this year is that next year we will be adding to our family. WE ARE EXPECTING our third child next July! We are excited and looking forward to finding out what it is early next year.

We hope that the coming year brings joy and happiness to you all. May the Lord Bless you all!

A Lesson Learned

So, this is Scott. I have been doing a lot of fly fishing lately and in the process have had a lot of ideas and thoughts about my new life as a fly fishing guide and therapist. The more I think about fly fishing and therapy the more and more they keep coming together. There are so many similarities that I find my mind wandering while fishing trying to figure out a way to implement fly fishing into a therapeutic process.
I have noticed that sometimes the wandering of the mind can be negative and I will miss a fish or two and then at times the opposite is true where I find my mind wandering to thinking like a fish. Weird I know but, it has brought a whole new meaning for fly fishing for me. It is giving me ideas in what to do with certain people that I work with.
Actually, I had a pretty interesting experience when I caught this fish today:
I caught this fish in a place that I had fished more than once and even guided a few people on. I had never caught a fish here before. As I left the house this afternoon I told Andrea that I was going to catch a fish here or die trying. Well, after fishing the spot for about an hour or so I finally caught this rainbow. The experience taught me that sometimes you have to go out with a goal that seems huge and then work long enough and hard enough that it finally ends up like you want it to. I didn't stick around too long after catching the fish but, I did go away thinking that I could catch more next time.
So, lesson learned, stick to it and make a goal to accomplish something difficult and don't give up until you accomplish it!
Fish On!

Halloween

So, it has been a long time since we have posted and we have a good excuse, our camera is starting to flake out. It will only take about three pictures and then the batteries die. We think it is trying to tell us something.
Anyway, here are the few pictures it did let us take for Halloween.

Allie's First Day of First Grade

Allie's first day of first grade was Thursday August 23. She was a little worried about going to school all day until Mom told her that she would have 3 recesses. Her first day went great. Her favorite part was the recesses. She wanted to take a home lunch, but when she saw the school lunch she decided that she wanted to have school lunch sometimes. Elena already had an imaginary sister by Thursday morning. Friday, which is a short day, she must have asked if it was time to go get Allie about 30 times, at least. She does love her sister.

Allie's 6th Birthday

Allie was very excited to have her birthday party with her friends. Her Aunt Jessica was even in Loa to help out and drew the Happy Birthday chalk art.

New Flyfishing Hall of Fame Inductee

So, Uncle Ron (Scott's Uncle) is the newest member of the Peterson Fly-fishing Hall of Fame. He was inducted on Saturday July 22nd during the afternoon drake hatch on Donkey Reservoir in Wayne County, Utah. After some amazing rain and some sore legs he was heard saying that it was well worth the rocky road to the water for some amazing brook trout.

Papa (Scott's Dad) was over heard on the way back to town saying, "That was probably my favorite trip on a float tube ever!"

You will notice in the pictures above how clear the water is. The morning hatch was shortened by an hour and a half thunderstorm that soaked Scott, Dar, and Ron. We are pretty lucky to live with minutes of places like this. Fly-fishing and awesome scenery are at hand. Thanks for the great times Dad and Ron.

Allie's Award

Allie was invited to the school awards assembly where she received a citizenship award. Only two students in each class receive the citizenship award. The school has a color coded card discipline program. If a child misbehaves then they have to change their card color. Each color has a consequence. Allie never had to change her card all year. She received a pin and a certificate. When her teacher called her name for her to go up to the stage she didn't want to go. I finally had to tell Scott to take her up there. She went with him, but she didn't want to be up there any longer than she had to be.

Allie's School Hike

On Tuesday, May 22 all of the students at Loa Elementary went to Capitol Reef National Park to go on hikes. I went with Allie's kindergarten class. It was really fun. We hiked from the visitor's center to a nature center where there were several fun learning activities for the kids. Next, we went to the Gifford house, which is a pioneer home. Then we went to the pinic area where we had lunch. During the whole hike the kids were asking when it was going to be lunch time. I think they kept asking because they were so excited to get to eat their special lunches, especially since they don't usually eat lunch at school.

The Newest Fly-fishers are born!!

So, Scott took the day off today and went fishing to clear his mind. The fishing was slow and he decided that it was a great idea to spend Family Home Evening fishing on a nearby creek. Andrea got waders last year and hadn't gotten them wet yet so, she did tonight. After a brief demonstration of how to catch a fish with her fly rod, away Scott went to catch fish further upstream. A few minutes later Scott had a fish on his line and looked downstream and so did Andrea. So, pretty much what we are saying is that Andrea has been inducted into the Peterson Family Fly Fishing Hall of Fame. Little did we know that Allie would join the same day. After catching her Tiger Trout Andrea handed the rod over to Allie for some supervised instruction (since she was now a certified professional Fly fisher!). A few minutes later Allie had a fish on. She caught a Tiger Trout as well however, she wasn't able to land it in the net. She was so excited. Scott was one of the proudest he has ever been watching and helping his girls catch fish and enjoy learning to be "fishers of men" as that was the topic of discussion for Family Home Evening. Enjoy the pictures!

Look Out Loa-Here Comes Elena & Allie

So, on Saturday we were working in the yard and Andrea and I looked up and noticed that Allie and Elena were hanging out on the four wheeler. Elena kept telling Allie to hold on and that she was driving. Luckily the key was in my pocket or it would have been even crazier.

Car Trouble

I haven't driven my car for the last two days because I figured we might want to have the local shop check it out first. But, today Scott had the Explorer and I needed to take Allie to school so I drove my car. At first it was fine. Allie arrived at school and I went to the post office. After I picked up my mail, when I tried to start my car, I couldn't get it to start. I also couldn't get the key out of the ignition. So I called the shop I was going to take it to anyway and one of the owners (also the YM pres in our ward) came to help me out. The car has to be towed, but he was able to get the key out. The only other issue was that I had opened the sun roof, which can only be closed if the car is on, and there are dark clouds outside and I can hear thunder (which means I probably shouldn't even be on the computer). So he was going to try and do something to be able to close the sun roof.

He brought Elena and I home, which Elena did not like one bit. She was crying and screaming because we took the car seats out of the car. She was also upset about leaving the car at the Post Office. I told her Daddy's friend was going to fix it, but she wanted her Daddy to fix it. I told her he couldn't and she finally calmed down. I called the sheriff's office and they said to make a copy of the bill for them after the car is fixed. So hopefully somebody else will pay for the damage besides us.

I'm glad we still have my car!

Living in Loa was a little too exciting for me yesterday. Scott had asked me to bring him his id badge and some gatorade, which was fine. When we got to the car Allie was getting in her seat and she lifted up a large panel and asked me what it was. Yep, some kids had tried to steal my car! They pulled a couple of panels off from underneath the stearing wheel, moved my seat, took the parking break off, messed with my cigarette lighter and pulled a wire down. I had noticed the car smelled funny when I had first opened the door; yep, it was from the cigarette lighter. The ignition looks really messed up, but my key still works.

Scott had taken the 4 wheeler to work so I put the girls in his car and took him his stuff. When I got home I called the sheriff's office. They had me go to their office and write a statement about my car. Then I went home and a few minutes later an officer came to my house. I am really glad I didn't drive my car, because there were footprints in the dirt at the end of the driveway which I probably would have driven over. Some kids from Sorensen Ranch (a RTC in Koosharem) had run away. They stole a truck from Brian Farm (the local IFA, True Value, and gas station) and broken in the store and done a lot of damage. The footprints at my house matched the footprints at Brian Farm. They already had the boys in custody. The officer took one of the panels from my car to see if he could get some fingerprints off of it. I haven't heard anything else yet.

Just to make something clear. I usually lock my car doors at night (which most people around here don't do). After school the day before we locked all of the car doors because we weren't planning on going anywhere later on. That night Scott was washing his car and he needed a bucket and Allie was a big helper and got her throw up bucket from the car for him to use. She forgot to lock the doors and neither Scott or I thought about it. But yes, I usually lock the car doors. I think our garage will be clean by the end of the week so we can park our cars in there again. ;-)

Snowman

We don't get very much snow in our little valley during the winter. However, during April I think it snowed more than it did the rest of the winter. We actually got enough snow during one storm for Allie and her friend Miriam to build a snowman. The snow was melted by the afternoon so I was glad they had played in the morning before school. Miriam is the daughter of the fly fishing guide Scott is friends with.

Spring Festival - Elena

During the Spring Festival Elena spent her time playing with her friend Parker. These two love to play together. It is amazing how well they get along considering they are both 2. Elena thinks Parker is very cute.

Allie's Spring Festival

Allie's school had a Spring Festival filled with singing and dancing at the beginning of May. The music teacher does amazing work with the kids at the school. I just found out that she is retiring this year. I am really bummed because I think it will be hard for them to find someone with her kind of talent for creating shows and teaching children music.

"The first box had 8 colors" - That was Allie's part in the kindergarten program about colors and Crayola. She did a great job and has been singing her color songs around the house. Elena has been picking up on them and changing them to fit her needs. For example: "R-E-D, red, R-E-D, red, that's how you spell my name."

Sunday February 25, 2007

Here is Allie with her shine on!

Here is one of Elena with the "Cheese" in her grin!

So, we decided to start adding pictures to the blog a couple of times a week for you to look at and admire!

Welcome!

So, welcome to the Loa Peterson's Blog!

We'll try to keep up with adding things to the blog as they happen.