And the tree came TUMBLING down!

No we weren't pulling a Clark Griswold and trying to fit this tree into our house to be our old- fashioned Wellington Family Christmas Tree!

On December 1st we awoke to horrible winds and this outside our house. We have worried for a while about this pine tree and prayed that if it fell it wouldn't fall on our house. We are grateful it fell in the perfect way so that no cars or homes were injured in it's collapse! Most of the street was blocked by this tree. One car could barely squeeze by it at the top of the tree.

Because it was blocking the street, the county would move it out of the way (which happened to be on our front yard) and then the owner of the tree would have to take care of the rest. Our cute neighbors were quite worried that we would be unhappy with them and kept apologizing for the inconvenience. It was kind of freaky when they were moving the tree, as I was looking out the window and suddenly saw the tree coming toward our house. I could not see the front end loader that was pushing it. For a minute I thought the wind was blowing it toward our house, until I heard the beeping of the machine backing up. Then I could see it!

Hui arranged for a neighbor and his friend to remove the tree. They took care of it the next day.

Hui's mom helped load the trailer. When they took they trailer away it reminded me of the sleigh after it was filled by the Grinch that stole Christmas.

We had warm front row seats to watch from as they cut the tree apart to haul it away.

Izzy was quite intrigued by all the action.

Soon they had the tree gone and now the street looks quite bare without it. We had several trees fall in the neighborhood from the strong winds. It was a storm that did a lot of damage, especially in Davis County. We feel blessed that no one in our neighborhood was hurt from the falling trees and high winds.

Decorating for Christmas

On Thanksgiving weekend, it is tradition for us to get the upstairs Christmas decorations up. The lights outside are done on Veteran's Day (a day John has off) and are turned on Thanksgiving night. The downstairs decorations are put up before Thanksgiving. I like them up early so I can enjoy the Holiday Season. I was excited to do the tree while Holly was home for the weekend and could help. John and Holly had to get some work done on Holly's car, so I got started without them.

The tree in progress!

The family claims I am way to picky about where the ornaments go and that I will just change them after they put them on the tree. I try to explain that I move some of my ornaments as well because I will find a place where it would look better or we need more color in a certain area, but they love to tease me none the less! When they are feeling frustrated with me I guess they take time out to play with the camera. I do appreciate their help even if they don't think that I do!!!!

They did manage to take a good picture of themselves.

The finished project ....

at least until I decorated the rest of the upstairs and I did some more rearranging. I could make some money taking daily pictures of my tree and put it in a book where you could search for what is different. :)

The happy decorators - glad that the project is done!

Seriously, I love the magic of the Holiday season with all the lights and decorations! At a dark time of the year, I love that we use lights to decorate for Christmas. After all, Christ is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD! I look forward to attending the programs that help me to remember why we celebrate Christmas. I hope this finds you well on your way to a Merry Christmas!

THANKSGIVING

We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving this year! It was especially nice to have the help of both of our daughters in the preparation and cooking of dinner. We also had great help from our extended family in bringing themselves along with some very yummy side dishes and dessert! I love to have family gather for the holidays! This year we celebrated with some of John's side of the family. We missed Brad & Steve's families, but were grateful to have Ross' family and John's mom here.

The girls thought it would be fun to make homemade rolls this year (instead of Rhodes), so here they are rising on the counter. Sorry all you see is them covered, but you can at least see we made LOTS of them. We also had raspberry honey butter to eat on our hot rolls. YUM!

My favorite part of the meal prep is that Holly agreed to cut the turkey off the bones. I am most grateful for this as this is my least favorite part of making the dinner, since I don't like turkey and won't eat it! She even convinced Heather to help by trimming the meat up after she got it off of Bob (that's what she named our turkey this year).

Ross, Grandma, Holly, Heather, and Brian after finishing their dinner.

The other side of the table consisted of me (not pictured) John, Michelle, and Nyla.

A full stomach will make you do funny things. Michelle showing us what her Dad would look like with hair. He is such a good sport.

Enjoying each other's company!

Ross Wellington family minus Michael. We missed you Michael!

Heather and Holly lounging after helping me so much!

Brian waiting for dinner to settle so there would be room for dessert.

John, being his usual crazy self when a camera is in the room!

Our family has much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving season! John has been blessed through 2 major and 2 minor surgeries. (his eye is red from his latest - a procedure on his eye). Nancy has been blessed with patience, love, and support by many while helping John. Holly has been blessed with many tender mercies and small miracles in her move back to Utah. We are all blessed to have her back and closer to us! Heather and Brian are in the process of finishing the basement of their home and living in limited space while doing it. The remodel is coming along nicely - thanks to Brian and his Dad. Heather has graduated from the Paul Mitchell school and blesses all of us with her new talents! Most importantly, we are all blessed to have a testimony of Jesus Christ and recognize His influence in our lives! We enjoy the blessings of the temple which bind our family together forever and we strive to be worthy of this blessing. Our blessings are so numerous it would be impossible to list them all. It is good to have a time of year set aside for thinking of ALL we have been blessed with throughout the year! We hope you had a wonderful THANKSGIVING!!!

October Family Reunion

It has been tradition, since I left home, to go back to Idaho at October Conference time and get potatoes. After having the good, fresh from the field potatoes, it is really hard to go without them! The potatoes you buy in the store are so small and you have to peel half a bag to have enough to make mashed potatoes. I would much rather just peel a few really big ones!! This conference time was no exception and even a lot more fun. David and Claudia came from California this year for David's 40th missionary reunion - had to put that in so you would know how old he is - :) On Saturday morning, we rode up to Idaho with them and met Sandra, Grant, and Barbara at the cellar that Keith works at. We are so grateful to Keith and Driscoll farms for letting us get potatoes every year. Several of Keith and Pam's children were there and we met up with them as well. After getting the potatoes, several of us rode into Aberdeen to go to the cemetery. We don't often get to visit the grave site of my parents so we took this opportunity. It is very different going to harvest since my parents passed away. My Dad loved the harvest! NEEDLESS TO SAY - WE MISS THEM VERY MUCH! After our visit to Aberdeen, we headed back to American Falls to Keith and Pam's house where we met up with Betsy, Russ and their kids and everyone else for dinner. This is the first time that all my siblings have been together since my parents passed away. It felt good to be together - we need to do it more often!!!! (we should have taken some group pictures - what were we thinking!) We celebrated Megan and TJ's daughter, Lily's, Birthday. The guys went to Priesthood meeting and the girls stayed and did what we are good at - chatting. Uncle Alan and Aunt Julia came. It was wonderful to see them again! Thank you Keith and Pam for hosting such a big crowd! I am grateful for all my brothers and sisters. I miss those who aren't with us now, but look forward to the day when we will all be together again. Meanwhile, I will enjoy those that are still here and continue to make memories with them. The Lord has truly BLESSED me with a very WONDERFUL FAMILY!!

(sorry I don't have pictures of everyone who was there, but I did manage to get a few. Keith was always in the other room when I had my camera out. I did get him in some harvest video that I will try to add as soon as I figure out how)

Tiffany Barrus Riggs and Emily Warner

John Wellington & Russ Barrus

Annie Warner

(getting ready to put us to shame by running after dinner)

Steven Warner

A most charming picture of me and Uncle Alan

Pam Warner

Grant Cannon and David & Claudia Warner

Aunt Julia

Uncle Alan

Amanda Barrus, Tiffany Barrus Riggs, & Nicholas Barrus

Claudia Warner

David Warner

Sandra Warner Cannon

Barbara Warner Daniels

Betsy Warner Barrus

A Day at the Zoo with Izzy!

Since this is the last Friday for John with Izzy before he heads back to work, we thought we should do something extra fun! Izzy has really been enjoying the Fridays with Uncle John because we tend to do more fun things when he is around. We have been to see the movie RIO in 3D, visited Build-a-Bear, and went to the park as well as the normal play dates at the house. Today we decided to go to the zoo to see the animals and the dinosaur exhibit. Izzy seemed to be really excited to go and it was fun for us to take her. She kept talking about the dinosaurs, but when we got there, she really didn't want to have much to do with them.

John and Izzy starting out - She really liked the brochures they gave us at the gate.

She was excited to ride the carousel, but when I put her on an animal she freaked out. We decided it would be more fun to ride on the peacock bench with someone else. She really liked that!

Checking out a snake

Toward the end of our time at the zoo, she got a little braver. This is the closest we came to a dinosaur. She really wasn't certain she wanted to look at John for the picture, because she was keeping her eye on the pretend dino to make sure he didn't get her. Luckily, she looked at him long enough to get this picture.

So much to see!

The Mama and Baby Elephant

(in the background - not us. Izzy said we were smaller than the elephants.)

The Giraffes were fun to watch

What would a trip to the zoo be without the picture sitting on the tigers! She didn't want to get off, but I told her we had to let the other kids have a turn. The zoo was pretty crowded today!

Taking a picture of some happy zoo goers!

Riding the train on an animal safari

(as Izzy said .."Whoo - Whoo!")

Izzy - with her new animal (an elephant)

All the way home she kept saying "I love my new animal!"

Izzy got pretty tired toward the end and all she wanted was to get some cotton candy to eat later and ride the train. After we did that she wanted to go back to Nancy's house. After eating some of her cotton candy at my house (we had dino chicken nuggets at the zoo), she wanted to paint a few pictures. Then it was off to take a rest with her new friend. She also got a zoo puzzle to keep at our house and is anxious to do that after her nap!

THANKS UNCLE JOHN FOR A FUN DAY AT THE ZOO!! We will miss our play dates with you! (but we are so glad you are feeling better, even if it means you have to go back to work)