Goodbye 2023

Well 2023 has come to an end.  This year has been a pretty good one I think.  That is until this last week when everyone got sick... This cold going around is brutal.  I think I was more sick with this than I was with Covid.  I had a fever for 3 days. Then I was okay for one day while I went to work. The next day though I was in bed again all day long.  This time I puked once.  Since then I have just been so congested and the cough made my throat hurt badly.  I am getting a little better each day now though which is great.  It is crazy how you can go all year without being sick but then spend the last week of the year in bed.  Anyway Logan also had a fever and a cough and then Colby got it again and had a fever for 3 days.  Yeah for sickness...  Hopefully it all gets out of our systems so we can enjoy our cruise in a couple weeks.  

Anyway I guess one week of sickness out of 52 week is not bad odds. I will definitely take it.  

As I was saying, 2023 was a good year for us.  We had a lot of fun as a family this year.  The year started out kind of crazy with record breaking snow fall for months.  We made the best of it though by building snow forts, sledding, attempting to snowboard on the sledding hill, and learning how to snowshoe.  As the year went on and Spring and Summer finally arrived, we made good use of our Lagoon Season Passes and went to Lagoon almost once a week.  We were able to ride every ride, some of them multiple times, and we also experienced Frightmares for the first time.  This made the summer even more enjoyable.  When Summer turned to Fall and school got back in session, we spent a lot of our time at the kids different activities.  There were many Mountain bike rides, Marching Band competitions, Football games, and music recitals to fit into our schedules.  Winter brought an amazing experience at the St. George Temple open house and Dedication.  Celebrating all of the fun experiences we have had made the year fly by.  It really feels like we just started 2023.  

As I look back at the goals we set for this year, I don't know how well we did.  I think I completed one of the four goals I set for myself.  I did my physical goal of learning how to swim, swimming a mile and completing an Olympic Triathlon!  Learning to swim really took some patience.  It was probably 3-4 months until I really got it down well enough to feel like I could do the triathlon without drowning.  I have kept at it even after the triathlon and feel much more confident in the water than I did this time last year.  Go me!  My other goals really just kind of fell by the wayside.  My spiritual goal of attending the temple more often kind of went flat.  I did go to the temple a few times this year but I definitely can do better.  As for my educational goal of learning how to to family history, yeah that didn't happen.   I didn't get the kids picture books done either.  My journaling was better this year for about 3/4 of the year but the last quarter has nothing.  I guess that one is not a total bust then but there can be improvements.  Next year I need to not focus so much on physical and work on some of the others.

Russell also completed his physical goal of completing a triathlon.  He even did pretty well in the run he was worried about.  

Emily turned 15 this year and became a high schooler.  She is really busy with sports and band and other fun things teenagers are involved in.  She is on the honor roll and has a 4.0 GPA.  Emily's goal for this year was to join Marching Band and have fun with that.  She definitely did that and she learned a lot from the experience.  I don't know if she has decided to return next year but we left that up to her.

Colby turned 12 this year and received the Aaronic Priesthood.  He does a great job passing the Sacrament each Sunday and takes that job very seriously.  He is now a middle schooler and is learning to play the trombone in band.  Colby is also on the honor roll and doing well in school.  He likes anything sports and has really improved in mountain biking this year.  Colby's goal of moving into his own room downstairs did not happen this year but I know that will remain his goal until it does happen.

Logan is 10 and loves life.  He is very social and makes friends easily.  He is enjoying 5th grade and likes being in the portable classrooms outside.  Logan's goal this year was do learn parkour tricks and he has done that.  He loves going to parkour and gymnastics and is a natural gymnast.  He has even learned a back handspring and other tumbling tricks.

Charlotte is 7 and loves first grade.  She just loves school for the friend aspect.  Charlotte loves to draw and play Barbies and dolls.  Her goal of learning to play her Ukulele didn't happen this year but maybe in the future.  She did learn how to play the piano though and is loving her music class.  She is getting better the more she practices.

Brooklyn is 2 and the life of the party.  She is so outgoing and friendly that everyone loves her.  She loves everyone too and considers everyone her best friend.  Brooklyn's goal for this year was to be potty trained and she did it in February!  No more diapers for this family!  Brooklyn is my little tag-along and my buddy. We do everything together.

2023 you have treated us right.  Thanks for the great year! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Farnsworth Family!

This Christmas Break was full of sickness...  Colby gave his cold to Emily who gave her cold to everyone else.  We all had fevers and coughs.  Yeah what a way to finish the year and celebrate Christmas.  Because of this, our Christmas this year was pretty low key.  We didn't do a ton of activities and just did the minimum which in a way was just right.  

First on Christmas Eve, we opened our traditional Christmas Jammies.

We all got matching pajamas this year from Lazy One.  The pajamas all said "Fa La La Llama."  Matching is the best.  Then since I was running a 102 fever, I made all of the kids go to bed early.  They didn't fight too much because they knew as soon as they went to sleep, Santa might come.  They left out gingerbread cookies for him.

The cookies were decorated to look like Santa and Mrs. Claus.   The next morning was Christmas!!  Since I still had a fever, Russell made everyone wait until later to come up and see what Santa had brought.  That way I could get some sleep even though I went to bed early around 10.  Finally we all got up and rushed in to the front room.  All of the kids loved all of their gifts.

Emily and Colby received Garmin watches to track all of their runs and bike rides.  Logan was so excited about his new Heeley's and the fourth book of Harry Potter.  Charlotte really wanted a remote control car and loved the pink Slug Bug she received.  Brooklyn loved her Little People stable, horse, and car but she was mostly excited for the candy in her stocking.

For the big gift this year though, Santa surprised everyone with a 4 day cruise!  We will be leaving on January 15 to go to Ensenada Mexico, and Catalina Island.  The kids were so happy about this.  We even got matching shirts that say "I Like Big Boats and I Cannot Lie!"  We cannot wait to go on our cruise.  Hopefully we are all healed and healthy by then!

After breakfast, it was time to open presents.

This year each of the kids drew names for each other.  Emily got Colby a gun case for his .22. Logan got Emily a bunch of running pants and a hoodie for her winter running.  Colby got Logan a drawing book that will teach him how to draw dragons.  Charlotte got Brooklyn some new church shoes and little Mickey and Minnie beanie babies.  Charlotte got some Fashion Plates to make her own paper dolls.  Everyone was so happy for their presents.

The big gift from us this year was an air hockey table with a ping pong table attachment.

Russell and the kids had air hockey and ping pong tournaments all day while I slept some more.  They loved it and it was a good free find.  

Other than the sickness, we had a good Christmas.  We are grateful for all of our blessings and for our Savior's birth which we celebrate at this time of year.  This year for our 12 Days of Christmas tradition, we focused on the gifts of the Savior and challenged our secret family to remember Christ each day through different challenges.  We decided to do the 12 Days to the Pini family and they said they loved it.  I think they caught us on their doorbell camera but that was okay.  They said they really like the added focus on the Savior our gifts brought them.  I think we will do this 12 Days theme in the future.

Merry Christmas!!

December

Well it is December now and the Holidays are in full swing.  Hyrum City had their annual Christmas party with Santa and we had to go.  Normally they have this celebration up at Hardware Ranch and we get to ride the sleighs and see the elk but for some reason they changed it up this year.  We had a good time seeing Santa that day.  

After that we got to vote on what trees and gingerbread houses we liked the best. There were also cookies and hot chocolate.  The kids want to do a gingerbread house next year to put in the competition.  We will see how it goes.

Tyler and Ashley's baby, Eloise Iona Farnsworth, was born on October 4th this year.  She is so small weighing only 4 lb 12 ounces when she was born.  She is a cutie though and looks a lot like Mavis.  The first Sunday in December was Elosie's baby blessing so the rest of Russell's family came up to Logan for it.

 It was good to have almost everyone there to support Tyler and Ashley. It was a rainy day and their family was not feeling the best so we had the blessing and that was it. A fun story to remember about this day is during the baby blessing, the guys were holding Eloise and she was being bounced a little too much. Russell thought to himself she is going to be dropped. Her head kept going downward and before they knew it, Tyler's father-in-law and Russell felt her slip and they caught her before she fell all the way. From the audience, I looked up just as all of the guys swooped down together to catch her.  It was a first to see this happen. We can all laugh about it now but it was pretty scary at the time. After the blessing, Grandparents came over and had dinner and hung out with us for a bit. 

The next week we took a fun quick trip down to St. George to take part in the St. George Temple dedication on Sunday December 10. It was fun to go to the St. George Temple dedication with Emily, Colby, and Logan.  Charlotte and Brooklyn were too young to go because they needed to be 8 years old.  It was a great experience for all of us. It was the kids first time going to a temple dedication and they all thought it was really interesting and special. 

While we were down, we were also able to see Jason Morwood come home from his Omaha, Nebraska mission.

This was a fun experience with the rest of the family.  We were able to go to the airport and see his plane fly in as well as see him get off the plane.  

We were all excited to see Jason and I think he was excited to be home. Welcome Home Elder Morwood!

Lastly we were able to go to the Morwood Family Christmas party. It was also good to see family at the Christmas Party.  We did a family tug a war with the younger kids, and that was funny to watch.   Then they did a war with the older kids and it was our family verses everyone else.  They made a good try at the tug of war but then the Beaver farm kids took it.  Our kids didn't give up though and made a good comeback. 

After the tug of war all of the kids got together to do the Nativity story.  Cole, Cash, and Logan made great wise-men while Charlotte, Rider, Brooklyn, and Fynlee were beautiful angels.  Brooklyn wasn't sure if she wanted to be on the stage with everyone but then was disappointed when everyone was done and she wasn't up there.  She is funny wanting to be the center of attention but not at the same time.

Then it was time for a visit from Santa.  This was not Brooklyn's favorite part.  She was scared from the time Santa came in but she knew she had to see him to get the present so she put on a brave face and did it.  Charlotte was so excited to see Santa and get a present.

It was fun to see them open their gifts and play with them. Charlotte really wanted a little Christmas Tree to put in her room so that is what she asked Santa for.  She was so surprised when she opened her gift and got what she wanted: a Christmas Tree with ornaments.  Emily got a new Grandpa Beck card game called Toil and Trouble.  We have had a good time learning and playing this game.   Colby got a Lego set of a racing Porsche.  He had it built before we left the party., Logan got a magic card trick set and has been trying out his magic tricks on us ever since.  Brooklyn got a Disney Little People set with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto.  She has loved playing with them and trying to keep them away from Fynlee. 

When we got back to Grandma Farnsworth's house Charlotte had Grandma help her decorate her new tree.  She plans on keeping this tree up all year and decorating it for every holiday.

We had a fun time hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth's house for the weekend. While we were over there, the youngest two helped decorate their tree while we were at the temple dedication. Grandma loves her tree full of bears so the girls had to find all of the bears around her house to put in the tree. Brooklyn thought it was really cool to help. 

When we got home from this fun weekend, we went right into the best part of all Christmas activities, Gingerbread Houses. We save up all the candy we get from Halloween to decorate the houses. This is always a fun thing to do and create.  I liked watching each of them come up with the design. They all get really creative with the candy. 

Even Brooklyn had fun doing her own house this year, her house was the most creative for a two year old.  

Everyone's houses turned out really good. We may or may not have been dealing with sugar rush kids afterward. 

Just before we went down to St. George Colby started to get sick.  He started out with a cold, and it turned into an ear ache.  The doctor put him on an antibiotic for ten days for the ear infection. Colby took it for a couple of days, and then he woke up with a swollen face. 

He looked terrible!  We stopped the medicine and asked the doctor if he was possibly allergic to the medicine. The doctor said was not likely because he would have had worse issues sooner.  The doctor said there has been virus going around that can cause facial swelling. Needless to say he looked really bad. From the picture you can see Colby's lips doubled in size and so did his cheeks. Poor Kid.  After about a week the swelling finally went away and he was better.

Russell got an awesome award at his work Christmas party. Here he is to talk about it: I had a fun time this year at the Fire Department party. It was the first one Ben and I did not have to stress about. 'A' shift did a great job putting it together and the food and entertainment was really good.  The Union has a tradition of giving out Excellence Awards to certain people in the department who have gone above and beyond throughout the year. I was up in the front helping give them out when Ben called my name and told everyone I have been great at being his right hand man with the Union. 

I was surprised when he called my name. It was awesome to get this award and I felt very humbled by it.  

We also had a great time with the activity day boys this holiday season.  For the last activity of the year we had them put together candy sleighs.

After the sleighs were built, we raced them just like a Pinewood Derby.  This was a hit.  The boys loved racing and cheering for each other.  There was really no skill involved with building the sleighs for speed.  They were really just loading as much candy on their sleighs as possible because I said they could take home their sleighs. In the end though, Curtis Dallinga was the overall winner of the sleigh races.  It has been a great year with these boys and we will miss the ones moving on to Young Mens.  Luckily though we get one more year with Logan and his age group.

Just before Christmas Break, the kids had their Christmas concerts.  First was Logan's Choir Concert.

This was a really good concert with some fun songs to listen to.  Logan made his on stage debut as Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks as the choir sang the Chipmunk Christmas song.  He even had a solo singing "I Still Want a Hula Hoop!" a couple times.  The part was perfect for him!

Next the older kids had their Christmas Piano recital.  They all did amazing!  Each of them played a solo song as well as a duet with another student.  There was a ton of talent in this room.

Emily played "Believe" from Polar Express and was one of the best performers in my opinion.  She also played "Jolly Old St. Nickolas" with Ethan McKnight.  Colby played "We Three Kings" and did "Deck The Halls" as a duet with his friend Jace Holmstead.  Logan played his signature song of the year "A Chipmunk Christmas" pretending to be Alvin again.  He also played "Up on the Housetop" as a duet with his friend Luck DeMonja.  They all did such a great job on their performances.

Brooklyn got to sit by her friend Molly during the recital until they got a little rowdy.  Brooklyn is best friends with everyone she sees.  Anytime she sees anyone she has seen before, she yells "There's my friend!"  She is very friendly.  

 Logan graduated from his NOVA program at school this month.

The NOVA program is taught by the resource officer at the school.  The kids learn about how to be safe in tough situations, how to think positively and have a good attitude when things go wrong, and are given tools to use in their lives to be more resilient.  They also talk about what to do with peer pressure and saying no to drugs and other things that are harmful.  Logan really liked the program and said he learned a lot.

Finally Emily and Colby had their Christmas Band concerts.  First was Colby's concert.  This time he was able to actually do his concert and nothing happened to cause the school to be closed and the concert canceled.  So this was Colby's first ever band concert and they sounded really good.  Colby plays the trombone and his teacher says he is one of the better players.  He picked up the instrument really quickly and has learned a lot about playing.

Emily's Christmas band concert was a whole show.  It was the annual "Christmas Fantasy" program the high school puts on every year.  Emily picked up Colby's sickness right before the concert so she was not really felling well during the performances.  We had loaded her up with Ibuprofen to get rid of the fever long enough for her to be in the performance and then she came right back home to bed.  The Christmas Fantasy performed four times in two days so it was a lot for her.  She did a great job though and the show was really good.

Now we were looking forward to Christmas Break and Christmas and hoping the sickness doesn't keep running through the family.

November

 November was a month of banquets, travelling, and family.  We had a good month.

First the Mountain Bike closing social was the first of November.  

These kids have had a great year of Mountain Biking and this night was a good way to celebrate their accomplishments.

As one of the coaches, Russell was the one to give out the awards for the riders.  Emily got the Mountain Climber award because Snowbasin was her best ride and she is solid at climbing hills in practices and races.

Colby got the Track Stand award because he was the one that stayed balanced upright on his bike while standing still.

After the Banquet, we headed down to St. George.  It was a late night drive and we got there at about 2:00 am but we made it.  That morning we headed to the St. George Temple Open House.

This was an amazing once in a lifetime thing for our family.  The St. George Temple has always been "my" temple so to go through it with the kids was priceless.  We were able to walk them through all of the rooms and explain what each was used for.  Then when we came to the East Sealing room in the Celestial Room we got to tell them that this was the room we got married in.  It was cool to show the kids this room and let them know that this was where our family began.  It was a special experience.

The whole temple and the grounds have changed a lot but it is still the special place I will always love.  The changes were beautiful and well done.  A lot of my family was mad at the changes but I thought they were just fine and didn't distract from the special sacredness of the place at all.  They actually enhanced it.

This temple will always be my favorite and I am glad we were able to go through with the family.

The purpose of our trip to St. George this time was for Red Rocks State Band Festival held at the Dixie State campus.  This was the culminating event of the whole Marching Band season and these kids put it all out there on the field.

This was probably Mountain Crest's best field performance of the year.  While watching the show, I finally understood the story they were trying to tell with their performance and I could actually see the waves of the sea moving back and forth and they swayed and marched.  They did a great job.  As the results were being announced, we were all on the edge of our seats.  In the end Mountain Crest took home third place in the 4A Open category.  Good Job!!

The Band did amazing and Emily did so well too.  She learned a lot this Band season and had fun in the process.

We were excited to watch all of her performances and support her in this sport.

Here she is with all of her percussion section buddies.  She said they were a crazy bunch especially the guys but she liked getting to know all of them.

While Emily hung out with the band for the rest of the weekend, we hung out at Grandma and Grandpa Morwood's house.  We also went to lunch with the Checketts because they came down for the band performance too.  It was a fun weekend.

When we got home, we finally had a little break from everything.  Then on Veteran's Day we had more music performances.  First Emily and the Drum line did a little performance during the Veteran's Assembly at the high school. 

Emily was excited to play the snare again.  I thought the performance would be more than just a cadence but that's what it was.  Then I was stuck in the auditorium for the whole assembly.  That was okay though because the speaker was really inspiring and said some great things about veterans.

That night, Logan had a Patriot's Choir Concert.

The concert was very respectful and it was also cool to see the slideshow of all of the veterans in our school.

On November 15 our Primary put on a Pinewood Derby for the Activity Days boys.  The software for the track was struggling so we finally just said forget it and just raced.  This was just fine with the boys because that is all they wanted to do anyway.  

Logan's car was so cool and won the "Wow Factor" award.  His Bat-mobile did have the best paint job and design.  He drew up the plans and cut it out and everything.  He even spent a lot of time sanding it and making it smooth.  He didn't have the fastest car but he did win quite a few of his races.

This activity was a hit.  The boys made awesome cars and had a great time racing them.

The Band end of year social was a hoot.  Each of the sections and section leaders got up and gave "paper plate" awards to each of the kids in their section.  All of the awards were funny inside jokes so there was a lot of laughing.

Emily's award was the Mountain Bike Champ because when she wasn't at band, she was mountain biking.  The Percussion section was given the Barbie Award because of their sneaky trip to the Barbie Movie during band camp.  They got in so much trouble for this and they never lived it down.  Luckily Emily and two other percussionists didn't give in to the peer pressure so they were saved from a little bit of the wrath of Mr. Yoder.  It was a crazy day.  What a great band season.

For Thanksgiving we headed back down to St. George to spend the holiday with family.  We spent 10 days down there and it was so nice to relax and be with family.  While we were there, Brooklyn got her hair cut for the first time.  She was not quite sure about what Grandma was doing to her but she definitely needed a haircut.  She was finally able to see without hair in her eyes.

Also while we were there we got to meet cute baby Monroe!  He is the cutest chunkiest baby.  He is definitely a mama's boy though and loves his mom.  We loved holding and loving on him.

The girls brought down their baking clothes and rolling pins to help Grandma make pies for Thanksgiving.

When it came time to make the pies though, it was Grandpa they were helping to roll out the dough.  They loved it.

Finally it was Thanksgiving Day.  We had a huge gathering at the Morwood house on Thanksgiving.  For the first time in  a long time, all of my siblings were there for Thanksgiving dinner.  We also had most of the grand-kids.  There was a lot of us there.

Dinner was great as usual and we especially liked the endless supply of pies.  It was nice to get together with everyone and catch up on lost time.

I am so thankful for this family of mine.  I sure love them!  They are such a blessing to me.

Since this was the first time in a long time that all of us were together, my mom wanted to get some pictures of all of us kids.

We are a little goofy looking but it's all good.

Later that night we headed over to the Farnsworth's for some more pie and games.

Brooklyn was so excited to see Mavis.  These two played together and ate all of the crackers lying around.  

The next day we wanted to do something to have fun so we decided to go on a family hike through Red Cliffs.

This hike is one I used to do a lot when I was a kid.  Russell also hiked this area a lot as a kid too.  Our kids were excited to see all of the rocky coves and climb on the red rocks.  Brooklyn loved running down the trail to follow us all.  As we got to the end of the trail, Emily, Colby, and Logan were the only ones brave enough to scale the rock wall to get to the other side.  Okay really Charlotte and Brooklyn were too small to get over the edge and there was no way to take Truly so they hung out on the one side with Russell while the rest of us kept going.  The trail ended not much farther up so it didn't take very long.

This was a fun hike and brought back a lot of memories from when I was a kid.  On the hike back to the car, Charlotte and Brooklyn found a few caves and trees to hang out in.  Logan got his shoes wet because he slipped on a rock and fell in the water.  His feet were cold.

Before heading home, we took another little hike to see the dinosaur tracks.  You can see the tracks imprinted the rocks.  It was pretty cool.

We had a good trip down in St. George full of lots of biking, mountain biking, family time, and sunshine.  On Monday we headed home early so that we could stop in Orem and go to the new Orem Temple Open house.

This temple is so beautiful.  All temples are beautiful.  This temple had a ton of beautiful stained glass windows full of cherry blossoms and other flowers.  The kids loved walking through and were in awe at the beauty and peace.

Emily said this temple reminded her of the Pocatello temple.  Both temple do have a similar layout and design.  I really liked the open brightness of the Celestial Room.

We finally made our way home and Emily made it to her Hyrum Youth Council party.  A few weeks ago she had an interview for a position on the Hyrum Youth Council and she found out that she made the council for 2024.  This party was to welcome all of the new members and say goodbye to the ones leaving.  Emily is excited to be on the Youth Council and help with the community events in the coming year.

For Activity Days the boys wanted to do a STEM night and have an egg drop competition.  

All of the boys built different containers to put their eggs in hoping the egg wouldn't break when it was dropped.  For the first round, Logan's egg was the only one to survive.  Then the boys did some more work on their containers and in the second round Logan's was the only one that broke.  It was a fun activity and the boys seemed to love it.  

November was a much more chill month for us even with all of the travelling.  It is nice to just do our own thing sometimes and not worry about doing everything for everyone else.  Now on to December and the Holidays.