Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The best gift received on Christmas

 Katie told us she would call 2pm our time on Christmas afternoon. We turned our Skype on and waited for her to ring through. 45 minutes later still no Katie. I get an email from her that says, "Mom, help me I can't remember my Skype account". That made me upset. About 15 minutes later I see her call coming through our computer. We couldn't see her face for a few seconds but could hear her voice. The second we connected and heard each other we were all crying! It was the BEST! We talked and talked about everything. Our neighbor Luis came over for a few minutes and spoke to her in Spanish. It was so incredible to hear her conversing and understand Spanish. She even sounds like a latino, with that accent. I love my girl so much! I feel like it was a dream talking to her. It happened so fast, and then was over.  She sang "called to serve" in spanish, then she prayed in Spanish, that was neat! To end our call Grant offered a prayer. We are thankful for our daughter who is working so hard, learning Spanish, loving the people of Progresso Uruguay, walking 10 miles a day, eating strange food, enduring the humid, hot weather without any air conditioning,  teaching with the Spirit, growing her testimony of Jesus Christ, and just loving her mission. 




Christmas Eve and Christmas morning

 The Christmas Eve tradition is, dinner at our home, a crazy gift exchange, a few funny games, and Grandpa Coon delivers tons of candy bars in the pockets of his leather saddle.
 The cousins are all getting big!
 Everyone knows how much I don't love animals! Johnny went to pets mart and bought a domestic white mouse for our gift exchange. Long story short... after the game the mouse was left at my house, we didn't know what to do with it. I was not going to keep it! So we left it at our neighbor/friend/ward members door. James rang the bell and ran. They never found out who left them this Christmas Eve gift. All I know is they love this little white mouse! I see pictures of it being loved and cared for.

 Hannah and Jolynn in matching shirts!  Those type 4 beauties!

 Grandpa Coon and Hannah
 Grandpa Coon and Annie
 Rob Coon and Rick Shumway were dressed up like Santa. Each team was incharge of dressing their Santa Claus.
 Jennifer, Lila and Santa Claus... Rick
 Santa Rob and Niki
 Christmas Eve opening a gift. Hannah was so disappointed! She thought she got a box of raisin bran. She was serious!
 The girls wanted "footie" pj's. They are all warm and cuddly!
 Setting out our Christmas Turtle cookies, an orange and a few carrot.
 Hannahs letter to Santa!
 Climbing in bed!   Very excited!

 Santa was so close! Hannah could hear his sleigh bells ringing outside her window.
 They looked in the sky and they saw his sleigh. That Hannah has such great eyes!
 The gifts are out and everything is ready for morning! Sugar cereal... they eat it one time a year. Christmas time. They are excited to eat it, after a week no one will eat it and it usually gets tossed in the garbage.
 Go Pro suction cup!
 New Shoes!
 Very soft, warm and cute robes!

 Even James looks cute in Hannah's robe.
 Family picture using the timer on my camera!
 The big gift was a trampoline and a ping pong table! 
 So happy our Shumway cousins were over for breakfast. The big boys put the trampoline together.
 Everyone is happy! This was the best Christmas ever!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

End of the year family picture

Grant 46, Jill 41, Katie 20, James 17, Annie 11, Hannah 6

I didn't get James Junior pictures this year.
So off to target we went.
James 17 years old!

Setting up Christmas!





Dayley Christmas Party

 Big boys: Jacob and Colton Dayley, James Coon, Braden and Carson Shumway
Kids: Annie Coon, Lila and Sam Shumway, Gage Dayley, Hannah Coon, and Tate Dayley
 Carson and Tate trying to lift Colton!
 Hannah is thrilled with the Baton or microphone she ended up with playing the gift exchange.
 Annie got what looks like an egg whisk, really is a head scratcher!  It feels crazy good!
 Colton and James throwing Tate to see if he could fly!
 Sam loved his new nerd glasses. He is wearing them to school the next day for "Nerd day"
 Jenny and some new boy socks!  SCORE!
 Lee and Gage going to hit QT for a refreshment!
 Just plain cousin FUN! We were missing Greg's crew, (Chandler, Dawson, Morgan and Porter)

Oldest to youngest, missing of course our Katie who is on her mission in Uruguay! She is the oldest of all the cousins. Hannah is the youngest!




 Grandpa Dayley and Grant Coon
To start the night off we ate dinner. Mom and Dad served lasagna, breadsticks, salad and a fresh jello. After dinner we had a piano recital then played our gift exchange game, then we took some action/fun pictures. The best part of getting together is the cousins. They all love each other and like to be together. That is what family is all about!