Visitors Round Two

The family came day by day this week.  After Jenna and the boys; came Austin, Laura and baby Brooklyn.  Brooklyn had never met Grandpa Taylor so this was a sweet meeting!  

She looked and looked at him!

 These two new grandbabies are only a month apart and so interactive at 3 months old!  

We get lots of smiles when we talk to them.

 Carter loved watching cartoons on Grandma's bed while she babysat the little ones while the Mommys were away shopping.  See how both tiny ones would focus on the camera and Carter was glued to the TV!  It was so funny!

 We took the kids to a playground...

because you really can do this in December in Arizona...

 and we had a fun time watching Carter play on the slides and run around.

 We also got some pretty cute shots of Mommies and kids!

It was great to get outside and spend time together!

Visitors Round One

We have been counting down the days until our family started arriving for Christmas...and we got the first on Saturday Dec. 17. First to arrive were actually Carole and John Olsen, down in Phoenix on a last minute trip.  We were so excited to have them visit!  Carole went with us to the airport that night to pick up Jenna, Bennett and Carter!  We waited and waited...to see them finally come on a wheelchair to help Jenna with the two boys...who barely made their flight in NYC and came with no luggage!

Carter was just happy to see familiar faces and to have his "Cars" bag of goods.
Bennett was just happy any time anyone would interact with him in any way!  So mellow and happy!
 Grandma was happy to read books in person to Carter and not just over Skype.
Grandpa was just happy to play Grandpa and not Mission President for a few minutes!
And we all were happy to have been together even though Carole and Johns visit was only a few days!Now they know how to get to our house, we expect many more visits over the next couple of years!
THANK YOU FOR COMING JOHN AND CAROLE!

The Man In Red

We had a special visitor this year at our Christmas Zone Conference during lunch time... you'll never guess who!

And our missionaries were delighted to see the "jolly old elf."

There was lots of lap sitting...

quite a few handshakes...

even some piggy back rides...

And a couple of well-deserved hugs! THANKS SANTA for adding a

fun element to our special day!

I'M DREAMING OF A...

So we were driving to church this morning and this is what we saw....

...is this what you think it is??? Yes, and we were not in Utah either. I have to admit, I made us late for church because I just had to get someone to take our picture outside of the building.

What looks like snow to Arizona kids, is actually a build up of hail from a thunderstorm last night, crunchy to walk on, but white and cold nonetheless. We did not have any at our home only a few miles away so that was interesting. Someone at church told us that the last time this happened was sometime in the late 1980's, so we feel blessed to have even this little taste of home. I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS!

IS THIS HEAVEN? NO, IT IS BYU BASKETBALL IN AZ

CLICK ON THIS LINE FOR ALL 15 PHOTOS

We had been looking forward to going up to the BYU- Northern Arizona University Basketball game for about two months and it finally came! And just in time! Seriously, we finished a three-day transfer cycle and were exhausted mentally and just needed to get away from things for a night and this ended up being the perfect thing!

Scott's associates at the BYU sports information hooked him up with free tickets for us, so that was a sweet deal. Braden got to take one of his good friends, Jeremy Hancock, from our ward here and that was sweet.

We got to sit four rows up behind the BYU bench and that was sweet.

Braden asked for a Mormon.org pass along card to hold up and it got him some media attention so that was also sweet.

Then having a Dad that was also a Mission President and stood out like a sore thumb wearing a white shirt and tie, which caught the attention of the camera crew and ended up getting us on TV for the last 30 seconds after the game was also SUPER SWEET.

But the sweetest thing of all was waiting after the game to see some of the players and getting first a photo with Charles Abouo...who was super nice.

And then getting to talk with Brandon Davies who grew up in our stake in Provo and knew Scott as his stake president for that time, was the frosting on the cake. He was the nicest person and took the time to visit with us and hug us and take a photo with us.

The fact that BYU blew away the other team was negligible...it was all about so much more!

Yup, we are good to go for another 5 months here!