December 19, 2010

The Colorado Haws Family

We finally made it here to Colorado a couple weeks ago, being blessed with wonderful weather along the way and two little ones that were very well behaved for the long trip. (As well as, having Andy drive the entire way, which he made it from Newport News, VA to just outside St. Louis, MO in one day; while towing Melanie's Nissan Altima with his new Ford F-150 5.4L engine and 4 wheel drive).

Along the way to Colorado we stopped and spent two days at Vanesa and Dewey's house (Melanie's sister), on the outskirts of Fort Riley, KS. While Melanie and Vanesa were out, Dewey and Andy went shopping, in which Andy returned with a brand new, never fired Springfield Armory XDM .40 cal, and Dewey returned with an attachment for his M-4 rifle. Needless to say that Melanie and Vanesa will not let these two go shopping together anymore unless they surrender their debit and/or credit cards, and can only have $20.00 cash each. However, Andy is loving Colorado very much. One of his most favorite things about Colorado is their VERY LOOSE GUN LAWS; (he already has his concealed weapons permit, which should be arriving in the mail any day now). Andy is also enjoying the mountains, the big animals that he and Dewey will be hunting next hunting season (mainly due to the deep freezers' request), as well as the great fishing, shooting areas, places to take his truck off roading and many other things that WE (meaning Andy and Dewey) have been very excited to do. Andy will be checking into Fort Carson, Co on the 28th of December and is currently on orders to go to 4th Infantry Division (ID), 4th Brigade Combat Team (BCT). Which is not suppose to deploy to Afghanistan until Feb. 2012, which will give him about 14 months home between his last deployment and this next one, but we will see what happens.

In other news, this past Monday for Family Home Evening we were able to finally put up the Christmas tree. The girls of course were trying to see who could put the decorations on the fastest.

Haley started school and Melanie was able to help in her class this past Friday with a Christmas breakfast and activities. At the end of the day they had a Christmas program put on by the teachers. The principal had announced that King Elementary (Haley's school) had been adopted by the YOT Club (toy spelt backwards), and has donated a toy for every child in the school with 8 big toys for children's names to be drawn out of a hat. To our surprise Haley's name was drawn for one of the big bikes! She was so excited!

Kayla is very excited also because she will be starting school on the 5th of January, it is crazy how quick they grow up. Kayla was very excited to go backpack shopping for school and finally picked a Tinkerbell backpack, after about three stores.

Melanie has been able to see and spend some time with some of her old friends from various places that we were stationed, and is excited that her friends are stationed at Fort Carson also.

These past two weeks have been very busy unpacking the house and setting everything up; however, we finally finished unpacking this week, which was great. We also received some cold weather in which we got about 1/2" of snow and it dropped to approx 20 degrees, IT WAS VERY TOUGH, especially compared to Wisconsin weather!


The Lane's of Virginia


Hello to all!

We are getting more and more excited for this Christmas!

This week, however,we got our first good snow. I know the people in Wisconsin are probably thinking that is ironic. Jeff had to dodge all the people not used to driving in snow on his way to work extra hours this week.


FHE we went to go look for the Christmas lights. The ones we saw were cool, but they were a little too far and few between. Hopefully, tomorrow's lights will be better!

Julie carved glass plates at enrichment.


Jeff conquered the Bufflo Blazin' Wing challenge: 12 of their "hottest" wings in 6 minutes. The waitress was going crazy about how calm Jeff was with the heat. Jeff's only reply is that was not that hot.

Saturday we watched BYU demolish UTEP in the New Mexico bowl. A&M also edged Arkansas in basketball.

Today we went tithing settlement and we also both got set apart in some more callings. Now we have four callings between the two of us: Elders Quorum teacher, Primary teacher, achievement day leader, and sacrament meeting chorister. When I was getting my primary manual a little girl came up to me all excited that I was going to be her achievement day leader- and it was tender. We also both taught elders quorum and relief society. We tried to get them together, but alas they were separate. The relief society did not enjoy the jeopardy game quite as much as I would have liked, but they liked the discussions that came from it. That is why they are sticking me in the primary- hehehe!

We are a little interested as to whether the rumor that Jeff Haws maybe moving up here this spring is real or not.

Julie

Grant's News

Grant survived the winter storm this week and the restaurant has since been crazy busy thanks to the holidays. It has been a fun adventure this week dealing with the snow, a new menu, and a lot of new employees. The restaurant has also been visited by the regional manager, as well as the lady in charge of all the Applebee's in Wisconsin...so that has meant a lot of work for Grant. However, Grant was able to get his days off. He finished the project of the redoing the upstairs bathroom. (Stage One was finished in summer, This was Stage Two.) He was also off on Friday to go to Wausau with the family and then to Texas Roadhouse...where he was able to eat Catfish again for the first time in years. Grant is also excited because as of Friday when the last package came in the mail, he is officially done Christmas shopping.

The Wisconsin Haws Family


Logan went snowboarding this week with some of his friends. He had a great time and wants to go again soon. He is really looking forward to the arrival of his siblings. He is counting down the days. Logan joined Lanette and me to see the Nutcracker on Saturday evening. It was really well done.

Emily has been working at Chips quite a bit in an effort to get some money for Christmas presents. She is getting extra driving practice in including driving me on my hometeaching route tonight.

Lanette performed a solo "No Golden Carriage" for her Christmas performance this week. She did a wonderful job. I am always amazed what a beautiful voice Lanette has developed with so little instruction.

Mom has been doing Christmas preparations. She is anxious for her children to arrive home. She has prepared the study for Stacie and Kevin and we have plans for Emily's room for Julie and Jeff. I have put some additional touches on the basement. It is coming along.

The Jackson's of Albuquerque

This week Kevin finished off his finals! Phew. He is very happy to have completed his first semester in graduate school. Monday was a difficult day for Stacie as she had to go through to process of terminating an employee for the first time. Thankfully, she had some guidance and assistance from her supervisor. It was a good learning experience in the end. On Tuesday, Stacie joined the young men and women in folding paper bags to make luminarias. In order to fund youth conference and girl's camp, the youth sell luminarias, which are paper bags filled with sand and candles. Setting luminarias out is a New Mexican tradition created to celebrating "leading the Christ child into our homes." They are absolutely beautiful when all lit.


On Friday Stacie and Kevin headed over to a Christmas/End of the Year party with several of Kevin's classmates. They enjoyed preparing for the party by selecting some great white elephant gifts at Goodwill. They were surprised to find a large map of Hitler's home in Oberslazberg, Germany and a set of ACDC beer glasses. At the party they became the hottest and most traded items. They ended up winning an oversized remote and a stuffed elephant. The party was lots of fun. They continue to enjoy creating more friends, even if the crowd is a bit different than their friends at BYU.


On Saturday, Stacie and Kevin were proud to complete the last of their Christmas shopping and to finally pick up the derby car kits for the Cub Scout Pine Derby next month. Today they helped narrate the Christmas program in church. The program was absolutely beautiful with wonderful quotes from the Quorum of the Twelve. They were thankful for the experience to focus on the Christ in Christmas. They look forward to flying home this week and spending time with the family in Wisconsin.

The International Haws Family

Jeff has not sent me a contribution for the blog but he is working diligently on getting things ready for his family to move to the US. He spent some time this week giving Renata a virtual tour of Pennsylvania. Hopefully everyone will get excited about coming here in the future.

Jeff has enjoyed learning some new computer languages permitting him to design new presentation options for Uncle Steven's business. He is Uncle Steven's right hand man. I am recruiting him to help me with a presentation that I have coming up soon.