Catching up...

It's been a while since I've blogged, so I thought I'd catch up on what's been going on around here... starting back in December :)

This Christmas, Carrie and I got to be apart of the Singing Christmas Tree. We both had a wonderful time, and met lots of very nice people! It was our first time in an actual "choir" so we were both nervous, but everything went very well. We were both placed in the alto section (alto is such a fun part to sing!) and I even got the solo part I had tried out for.

Pictured: top picture - Joanna is fourth from the left in the middle row, picture below - Carrie is second from the left on the bottom row

We also had a very nice Christmas. On Christmas Eve we attended our church's Christmas Eve service and then went caroling at the Nursing Home. On Christmas Day we had our cousins and grandparents over for Christmas dinner.

Here Sam is modeling the slippers he got for Christmas. He loved them and didn't want to take them off!

opening presents on Christmas morning...

Last week, Dad replaced all of our kitchen counters and put on new laminate. It looks very nice, now!!

Here, Carrie is helping Dad fit the new counter into place. (Dad made all of the new counters!)

While Dad was gluing the counters and laminate into place, he taped up a sheet to separate the living room from the dining room, and we all went into the living room and watched movies while the glue dried. Our sheet-wall (sorry... no pictures) worked pretty well, and so far none of us are showing any severe signs of brain-damage from the toxic fumes... :)


And here's our "new" kitchen! :) Now we just need to repaint the cupboards...

..Excitement over, we are all settling back into our school routine now. I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years!

Working on Dad's Boat

It was the last week of the fishing season, and the people that had been working for Dad were no longer interested in the job. So... Dad took me, and a friend from our church, to work for him instead.

We were blessed with beautiful weather, and it was nice to be out on the water...

Here's Dad, working on the back deck of our boat.

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets!

My job was "the cook", and writting the fish tickets. We had a good time, and I learned a lot!

Waving at a Cruise Ship

I was looking through some of our late-summer pictures, and came across these. They were taken back in late August, but I thought they turned out nice, so I decided to post them now anyways.

Dad is driving this Cruise Ship... (no, I'm not joking). He really is!! :) He called us a little before it passed this beach and said he would be passing by. So we all loaded into the car and drove to the beach. We got there just in time. We all ran down to the water's edge to watch the ship pass by and wave.

These ships are SO big... it is pretty impressive.