Happy December! We are snow-ly hiding out in our Tooele home and liking it very much. Since we try to write to you every month, this isn’t some big wrap up letter, but another of our newsletters – let us know if you don’t want to get them anymore!
Ellie – got the staple out of her head (very nice) and then went for her 18-month visit the next day and got FIVE shots! Poor little thing couldn’t hardly walk the next day! (But that was ok, because we spent the whole day in the car driving to Montana for Thanksgiving). She is so cute, as soon as we buy her a Christmas present, we give it to her! So far she has a dolly stroller (which the dolly is not allowed to ride in, but that Ellie likes to push EVERYWHERE – even drags it up the stairs!), TWO doodle pads (because she likes to write so much – now it just doesn’t make as much of a mess!) a new little table and two chairs to sit it and color (we put it right in the kitchen/dining area – so she can work while mommy cooks!) and a plasma car ( SOSOS FUN – mommy likes to ride on it with our monkey – it goes FAST_). Still, I think we have a few more presents for under the tree. Ellie had her first ‘official’ day at nursery today in church – she was very good – marched right in and didn’t even look back! She has been ‘unofficially’ attending for about a month – so she knows its fun in there. We went to the little playgroup (held in the nursery room) this week and we are walking down the hallway and she sees the nursery door and yells ‘Yah!’ and takes off running toward the door. She can say a ton of words and will mimic almost anything you say. She likes to fold her arms for prayers and will repeat a few words if you go slow and says ‘MEN’ at the end. Her hair is getting really long and her pony tails are too cute for words. We got her a snowsuit and coat and her first outing I am in the garage and I hear an ‘uh-oh’ and is sitting on her little bum on the ice in the driveway! We will send picks.
Ann – I am liking our new house a lot. I have decided to become a journaling-scrapbooker (this relieves the stress of being totally cute – because you put a picture in and then write about it (although I hope you are read my handwriting!)) I have started with my childhood scrapbook (will, it LITERALLY fell apart when we moved – so that was good motivation). It is very fun – I am determined to make an hour a day time to play. I now play with piano in Relief Society and Josh and I are on the activities committee. I have some nice friends here in Tooele and like to go to SLC the library and do fun stuff ‘in the city’ with old friends. I am still teaching online classes and writing op-ed pieces for the paper (which they don’t put online- hello!). I am excited to be at home and like trying new recipes and stuff.
Josh - Wow, I can hardly believe that we have been living here in our new house in Tooele for over two months now. There has been some progress on getting the house entirely set up as some of you know having been down here earlier in November. I suppose everybody is interested in knowing how my new job is going. For the most part I am still doing what I was doing for the better part of the summer working on lidar system to measure aerosols.
For those who didn’t already know Dugway is the nation’s biological and chemical weapon testing grounds. That is to say we test weapons and also systems to detect them. I work with the later of the two. With the lidar you can see a cloud and have some idea of the components in that cloud. Most of the testing takes place during the summer months so things are slow out there right now as people are taking their vacation time and most of the work is preparing for the next season of testing.
Next week I am going down to Florida to a test prep meeting. The test will take place during Jan/Feb and will probably be three weeks long. The testing will take place up in the panhandle of Florida, but I think Florida in February is better than Utah in February.
Ann – and the great news is that we get to go to Florida!!! I am planning trips to New Orleans, Jacksonville and maybe Orlando – anyone want to come visit our condo and go to Disney Land with me!??!?! Josh just got called to be a ward missionary today. So we are doing good.
We are still only 29 minutes from the airport if you want to come and see us!! Happy Christmas, New Year and life in general.
Love – Josh, Ann and Ellie
