Please Help!

Hi Everyone!

Need your help. Recently my kids entered two contests to win a trip to San Diego, and we could really use a vacation. But, we need your help to win. I need you to go to a couple of websites and vote for my kids. Since you can only vote once per computer we are consolidating our votes on one child for each contest.

It's really easy and will only take you a second. Just go to each website, enter your email and vote for the number I ask you. Then check your email and follow the instructions to make your vote count.

First, go to this website. (You may need to copy and paste the link) Vote for 164. This is Janet.
http://www.kosy.com/pages/safekids_fair/vote1.html

Now go to this website and vote for 116. This is Samuel.
http://www.570knrs.com/pages/sandiego/vote.html

The more votes we get the better our chances, so please vote on all the computers you have access to. Also forward this note along to everyone you know, so they can vote too.

I know I've been posting this everywhere, and I'm sorry if you've seen it already, but I really want to win! Thanks for all those who have voted.

Please, please, please help us!!

Signs of the time

Raymond is still looking for a job. Everyday it seems I hear about someone else being laid off. We keep hoping things will turn around and Raymond will get a job that will meet the needs of our family. We are also hoping that some of the properties we have will be able to find buyers. It can be frustrating to have to wait and only have limited control over what's going on. We just keep trying to do our part.
There are six families in Raymond's family. Right now four out of six of them are now jobless. It seems unbelievable to me.

Sick Day

This past weekend Samuel has been sick. He has had a fever and sore throat, coughing. It's similar to the illness that took Raymond and my father out of the game for a few days. He's been missing school and he's still not better. He has been getting better though, so hopefully he can go back to school soon. I'm just hoping no one else gets sick.

Happy New Year

This year Raymond's family decided to have a New Year's Eve party with his parents and sisters who live in Utah. The kids were happy to see their cousins and spend a lot of time with them. We had dinner, played games, and watched the ball drop. Even Janet stayed up until midnight. Then we spent the night at Raymond's parents with everyone else. The next day, we played more games, built a giant 11 ft 2 inch snowman, and saw "Bolt" in the theater. It was a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. All the kids Grandparents were there to share in the fun. Gideon was the only one who didn't want to wake up, but he was fine once he went upstairs and figured out what was going on. Janet was more excited about everyone else's gifts than her own, but that's okay. She liked opening presents for the first ten minutes and then she was bored with it. Ammon liked his Curious George plush and super heroes.
Samuel was the funniest. It started on Christmas Eve when the kids got to open their special star present. It is always pajamas to wear. He ripped his open and then said, "Oh, it's just clothes."
On Christmas morning most of his toys were unwrapped in his Santa pile (Santa doesn't wrap things at our house), so wrapped under the tree was mostly clothes. Everytime he opened a clothes gift he would say, "Not clothes again!" or "There are so many clothes!" He was very disappointed by that, but Santa was good to him and left him lots of great toys.

Oh no! Christmas is Coming!

Christmas only 8 days away and I'm far from ready. I still have gifts to buy. I least I don't have anything I have to ship. I think it will all work out though. Unfortunately I don't think I'll get to those Christmas cards. Hmm. We've got three Christmas trees up, but only one of them is decorated. It happens to be one that was at the Festival of Trees. No one had purchased it, so my mom did after the fact. We think she got a good deal on it.
Now if we can only get those other trees looking a little less plain.

Thanksgiving and such

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. My sister was here from Texas and my brother came up from St. George. Raymond's sister was also here from Colorado. It was great to see everyone. On the Wednesday before, we had our annual pie day with the Crane Clan. The kids all get to make there own mini pie. Samuel had pumpkin, Ammon had apple, and Gideon had chocolate cream. Thanksgiving was fabulous of course. I love all the foods associated with Thanksgiving!
This week has been a little unusual. Yesterday Raymond's company announced they would be closing their doors on Wednesday. So we are preparing for a new chapter in our lives. It's going to be an interesting ride.