September 11, 2011

Wow what an amazing day! Lots on the news about Sept 11 ten years ago. At church Cody gave his farewell talk. Our Cody is leaving us in about three weeks. His talk at church was fabulous! Our friends the Wilkins came. His buddy, Pat was there. And so many people from his work came. It was a wonderful day. We are so proud of him. He really showed his true colors and we got a glimpse of the amazing missionary he is sure to be. Tacoma, Washington is going to be in very good hands.

Sis made 50+ cupcakes for a friend to take to church today. Wow she is so nice!

Learning more about TS (Tourettes Syndrome). It is going to be a tough road but I know she can do it! I love her so much and am just trying to help her.

Have a great night. I love you all and pray for you continually.

Trying again

Well here it is Sept 10, 2011. I am going to give this a try again. With some prodding from friends and fam I am going to make a serious effort to keep up with it. Probably I will have less pics but lots of new information. Cody is going on his mission. He will be serving in the Tacoma, WA mission. He reports to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on Oct 5. The plan is for Gary and Cody to go out to Salt Lake City the first weekend of October and they are going to try to attend General Conference. I will fly out Monday or Tues morning and we drop Cody off Wed at the MTC and say goodbye for 2 years. I will have another blog just for Cody so ppl can keep up with him and always have his address. He is a little worried about being forgotten so lots of letters will be nice.
Sis is going out to SLC to go to school out there. She will live with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ross. They are all very excited. She will have a blast out there and I know she will do great at school. We will miss her but we have to let them go sometime.
Kasey is in 6th grade and LOVES school! She wants to go to school 7 days a week. She has lots of friends and is very happy with school. I am very happy with wonderful teachers that work really well with me.
Gary keeps very busy flying as much as he can to pay for this great big house we built just before our family shrunk by almost half. He just got called to be the Ward Exec. I am in YW and I can say I sure do love those girls. And I am trying to keep it all together.
We are getting family pics very soon so I will post some when I get them. In the mean time know that I love you all and miss you all very much!

Florida Vacation with our friends the Shorts

So we are going just a little bit out of order here. I have remembered how to get my pictures in and I am getting some much needed posts in here. We went to FL in June to be with our wonderful friends the Short family. We would live with them if we could, especially me and Cody. They welcome us into their home and are so great! Life is just heaven with Ellen. We took a beach vacation with them this year. The last time we were able to do this Sis was 4 so Cody and Taylor were 5 and little Kasey wasn't with us yet. So it was much needed. We got a condo on Madeira Beach. Ellen and I want a place their. It is awesome!!! We saw dolphins swimming right out our balcony in the mornings and the other direction at night. So we played on the beach, ate great food including lots of gelati, and the kids played volleyball. The kids got to ride go carts and the big kids went parasailing, which they loved. It was one of our best vacations ever.

Our visit to a compost pile for science

So most all of you know by now that we have chosen to school Kasey at home. We are using a curriculum called K12. It is awesome; not easy by any means but really exciting and wonderful. One of our lessons in science was on producers, consumers and decomposers. Rather than take her out into the woods and find it happening to an animal, we visited our wonderful friends the Royle's who have a terrific compost system in their yard. Mary was so helpful and showed Kasey her piles and how she does her composting. This year we will be posting lots more about our school experience. Or at least I hope to. I will also try to include the big kids. haha! Hope you enjoy it.

Christmas 08 and New Years 09

So we had a wonderful Christmas and New Years and we hope everyone else did too. We hung around here until Christmas day and then flew out to Kansas City to be with the family there. We stayed at Karen's house as usual along with Gene and Hariett and Stephen and Debbie and the cousins. It was full but so fun. We shopped, played and of course ate wonderful food. Finally got home and had our wonderful friends Suz, Will and Maresa, from KY, come and visit us. Hopefully they will come and visit more often. We love and miss them so much!
Wishing all of you a happy and healthy 2009!

Kasey got her ears pierced!

Well yesterday was my birthday and I had a wonderful day, thanks to all my wonderful family and friends that called or left me messages or sent cards. It was a super day! But the really exciting news was that Kasey was really brave and got her ears pierced. She was so scared but faced it and did it. And they look so cute. She is growing up way too fast, just like her sister and brother!

Thanksgiving Cruise 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

Well I haven't had much to post until now. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good food and great company. I missed my friends and family but had a terrific time on our family cruise. The kids had a week off school for Thanksgiving break. So we decided to make some fabulous family memories. Boy, we certainly made some memories that will probably never be forgotten by anyone in our family or or friends the Wilkin's family. So we flew to Miami on Nov 23 and embarked upon a cruise that will live in our minds FOREVER. We had a day and a haft at sea and arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Tues night. It was a quick trip off the ship and back on, but we got some cute pics there. The next day was a day in St. Thomas. It was BEAUTIFUL! Poor Alexa was stuck on a beach in St. Thomas. We got back to the ship for dinner and the next day was ST. MAARTEN. Oh that day was the best and the worst! We had more fun there than anywhere else. Which is what got us into trouble. We rented two jeeps for our two families. And toured the beaches on the island. No one wanted to leave the last most perfect beach with the most awesome waves EVER!!! And who knew there was going to be the worst rush hour traffic we have ever seen. So two families who are supposed to be on the boat by 4:30 were no where near it. And still not there at 5:00 when it was supposed to take off. We were praying like crazy!!! Finally we see the boat and park the jeeps and go running as fast as we could to the end of the boat where we can get on with crowds of people cheering and clapping and screaming "run! run!" It was harrowing!!! The last two days at sea had perfect weather and we made it home with lots to be thankful for!!! Thanks for hanging in this long and taking a look at the pictures. We love you all and miss you so much!!!

Kasey's Gymnastic Competion Oct 11, 2008

Kasey competes in gymnastics as most of you know. She is so brave and goes out there in front of the other gymnasts and judges and does her very best. We love to watch her. She trains hard and this is what it is all about. We usually have to drive at least an hour to get to her competitions. UG with gas as high as it has been that isn't our favorite part. But we do love watching her compete. And she usually brings home at least one medal.

Helloooo and Welcome to Gray Space

I have taken it upon myself to create a blog for our family. I want to share what is going on with our family with all of our family that lives so far away. And I want you to feel free to share here also. Please send news that you would like included at anytime and I will get it in the family news blogger for all to enjoy. I need to have everyones' current email addys. So be sure to get me any that you think I may not have. Also because I am really new at this feel free to help me with input at any time. I have pretty thick skin and would welcome any advice for our "family" project. We miss out on so much being so far apart and this may help us feel closer together.
We love you all so much and I hope this brings us just a little closer. Not sure how this is going to work out. So please bear with me while I am learning.
I love and miss you all very much!!!
Love and hugs,
Rusti