The Prophet has passed away

Our beloved prophet passed away Sunday night in his home at the age of 97. President Hinckley has been the prophet since 1995, the first one Jared and I have really ever connected with and known. The news of his death was sad, but we rejoice in knowing that he is reunited with his dear wife. He was a great man.

I told RJ that President Hinckley had passed away. I was a little unsure about his reaction, he just looked at me confused. I asked if he knew what it meant to "pass away" and he got all excited asking if it meant he was coming to our house. I smiled and told him no and that it meant that he died. He said, "oh that means he is with Jesus now, right. When is Jesus coming to our house? I want to see him too."

From the News Room

Blast Off!

After being cooped by in the house for far too many days, we decided it was time to get out and let the kids run off some energy. What better place to do that than Blast Off. Both RJ and Savannah love this place. They have two indoor playgrounds. One is for the younger age (up to age 7) and the other is a little bigger (up to age 12). This was the first time Savannah explored the larger playground. SHe followed RJ around most of the time until she met another little boy who was maybe only 6 months older then her. Then she followed him around everywhere.






























RJ giving me a weird pose. I can never get him to just look and smile.

















Savannah following RJ into the Playground.













I thought this picture turned out really cool. Savannah was a little unsure about the net in front of her. SHe would run through the tubes but when she got to the nets she would always ask for some help. Once across, she would take off running again.













Our little dare devil is about to jump into the balls. No fear there, she actually just ran and jumped (or rather fell) in.






















RJ and Savannah up in the tube.


















ANd here she is climbing. The little boy at the top is the one she followed around and he loved helping her when she got stuck.


















Climbing again. These stairs were of course a little bit easier for her.















Down the side.


















Another cute photo Isn't she just the prettiest little girl. Jared made a comment the other day, that he is not giving up his shoot gun any time soon.

Doggie Days

RJ and his puppy. Sally is believe it or not, in heat again. Oops, weren't we supposed to get her fixed three months ago after her first heat. I thought it was every 6 months, guess I was wrong. Poor thing was been living in "her room" a.k.a the laundry room for the past week and a half. Maybe this time I will finally take her in. It is so annoying to have to deal with. But the problem is, it cost $100. And aren't we supposed to be saving for passports. Sorry Sally, I guess you are out of luck!

















And here is Miss Savannah pretending to be a dog. I think she is having Sally withdrawals.

Our Magic Tree

Jared bought this magic tree for the kids when he was down in TN. Not only were the kids very excited to watch it grow, but Jared of course wouldn't let us do it with out him.















Watching the tree grow. They of course don't understands the concept of, "It will take an hour." After a couple minutes of nothing, they went back to the TV.


















An hour later we all were pleased to find out that our little tree had blossomed, isn't it pretty.



This tree lasted five days, which is pretty good. We tried to keep it up high, but Savannah (the climber) got to it when we weren't paying attention and knocked it all over the floor.

RJ's random Photos

RJ is always asking me if he could take some pictures. So the other day, I let him. He took many random pictures. Thank goodness for digital cameras. They were all very random but I still wanted to share some with you.

This was his first picture: The plastic ice cream














And here is his next masterpiece: His feet and colored pencil (that really shouldn't have been on the floor)















And no three year old could ever pass up taken a picture of their favorite cereal. Marshmellow Matty's (The Pirate Cereal.)












And last but not least, a portrait of his mother.


Hey, you never no, maybe he will be a photographer someday.

Northern Idaho

I just had to share this LO. Isn't it gorgeous. I did not create it, but they are my pictures. I joined a swap crop where we get a partner and exchange photos and do a LO for eachother. I just loved what my partner did with my photos. These were taken in the fall of 2005 when Jared and I went to Post Falls which is in Northern Idaho (up in the pan handle). It is beautiful up there. Just wanted to share this.

Belguim Update

So Tuesday was a very overwhelming day. Jared left for TN with the idea that we might be going to Belgium to live for a few months in the next three or four weeks. And he was hoping to leave sooner. In TN he met with the Belgium people and find out more info with their reactor. So here is what is happening now: Jared will be going to Belgium for sure to work with them for awhile. He was hoping to leave sooner, but with all the background checks and government documents that is required through his facility, he won't be able to leave until the end of Feb. He will be there for about a week to decided what really needs to be done over there. Once that happens, we will decided if we are all going to go with him and live in Belgium for a month or three. As of right now, we believe we will all be going over there for a least a month, but not until March or April. We will keep you post as we learn more.

PS: our pipes have dethawed, without any problems. Here is a layout I scraped about our pipe episode.

18 month photos

View Savannah's 18 month photos:

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0977105175JCP

Type: Jennifer Wight in as the customer

For RJ's 18 month photos, we dressed him up as a cowboy. They turned out super cute.
We tired the same thing with Savannah. She was very serious it was hard to get her
to smile, but still cute.

Cold weather, Frozen pipes, Belgium, & an indoor slide (crazy long post, I know)

I don’t have many pictures to share from the past week. Nothing too exciting happened, though today was a different story. It started at a quarter to 6 this morning. Jared had to be out at “The Site” early to work on some things for an experiment they are trying to get out. “The Site” is the facility out in the dessert where all the reactor and testing take place. It is about 45+ minutes from our home. The road in the winter is not the best road to drive on. Jared usually catches the bus from the office building, especially during the winter. Anyway, it was well below zero last night and in that cold of temperature, his diesel car wouldn’t start. He tired for sometime to warm it up and even had me get up to help him jump start the car. I offered him the van but he didn’t want RJ being upset missing preschool. So I got up and went to use the bathroom, that’s when we learned that the pipe to the toilet was frozen. This made me quit upset since Jared was in a hurry to get to work and was scheduled to leave that afternoon for Tennessee. The toilet of course disposed of the waste but the pipe to refill the tank was frozen. So we put a space heater by the wall where the hose entered the house and decided to refill the tank with water from a bucket when we needed to, and of course prayed that the pipes wouldn’t bust while Jared was out of the state. Just before 7am Jared decided to take the van. He was already late and couldn’t afford to be much later. I promised RJ that we would call someone to pick him up for preschool, after he became upset at the thought of missing preschool.

At 8:30am I called RJ’s preschool teacher to get the name of the mother that lived close by to ask for a ride. She told me not to worry about it. She was just about to call all the mothers and let them know that school was canceled. The School District had canceled school on account of the cold weather. Many buses had a hard time starting. And even though she does preschool out of her home, she still follows the District’s schedule. So it ended up being a blessing not having Jared’s car start. We didn’t need the van anyway and since he was driving out to “The Site” I would much rather him be driving the van then the car. But we still had a problem with the pipes.

Jared came home just after 1 to switch cars and get ready for the airport. While he was home he figured out why the pipe froze and why we have had on and off problems with the washing machine line freezing. It seems someone had put vents for the foundation right next to the lines for both the washing machine and the toilet so nothing but cold air was hitting those lines. We then moved the space heater outside to blow into the vents in hopes of defrosting the line so we could further fix problem.

(Switch topics for a sec.)

Here is the exciting and overwhelming news. Jared is going to a meeting in TN to meet with the Belgium people they have been working with. Jared will be going to Belgium soon to work on their fuel development. It still hasn’t been decided for how long yet. At first it sounded like we all will be going for a few months and then it sounded like Jared will be going for a week here and week there. Well, when Jared came home this afternoon he told me that it looks like we will all be going and the Belgium’s want us to come now. Of course I am completely overwhelmed by this news thinking that it wasn’t going to happen at all and if it did, it wouldn’t happen till April.

I took Jared to the airport at 3pm to fly to TN. (His car still didn’t start). He has his meeting in the morning and will be discussing more details then. I should hopefully know what is going on tomorrow. Are we all going? When? And how long? And of course, what are we going to do with the house and everything? Any one want a dog?

And about our pipes, once we got home from the airport and library, I checked the toilet and it looks like the line is de-thawed! A friend is supposed to be coming by tonight to help cover the vents so the problem won’t occur again while Jared is away.

So here are some photos from last week of our indoor side. The kids loved it even thought it didn't work too well. The large box came from a futon we just bought for the extra room we built upstairs. Now we have a place for guests to stay when they visit. Too bad I didn't know about Belgium before. Not many guests will be coming to visit now and I could have used the money to get our passports. Jared has his, we knew he was going to Europe for sure some time this year. But now the kids and I need to start looking into getting ours which is about $100 a piece. You do the math.

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Savannah's 18 month apt.

Savannah went in to get her Hepatitis A shot. RJ was happy that it would be Savannah getting a shot and not himself. He was already to be the big brother and hold her hand to help her through the trauma of the nurse sticking an unwanted needle in her leg. It just so happened to everyone's surprise, Savannah watched that nurse do her thing without any kind of reaction. No screaming, crying, pulling away, nothing! RJ was a little bummed. He was hoping to comfort her. But then he remembered that he had asked Heavenly Father in his prayers the night before that Savannah wouldn't cry when she got her shots. He was much more happy when he realized his prayer was answered.

Savannah weighs 20 lbs and is in the 3% for weight. The doctor says he would like to see her gain more, but he isn't too concerned. So I wondered, how the heck am I supposed to get her to gain more weight? She eats all the time. She even finishes off RJ's meals.

She is in the 35% for height at 31.5 inches tall. Looking back she really hasn't grown much since her 15 month appt.

I wouldn't be worried unless she hasn't grown by her two year visit. But until then, she is just our cute little petite girl.

I Love to See the Temple

The Rexburg Temple.
I got this photo awhile back via email. Not sure who took it, but it it a very pretty picture of the, newly finished, Rexburg Temple.

The open house for the Temple is going on this month and we were able to get tickets to an early morning tour on Friday.

The beauty inside the temple is more than words can describe. It was absolutely gorgeous. The wood trim was imported from Africa and the stone and tile was from Israel.

It was wonderful to be inside the temple with our family and sharing our love for the temple with our children. RJ loved the baptistery, the murals, and the chandelier in the celestial room.



They asked us not to talk when we entered the celestial room, since it is a room to medicate and reflect. RJ spotted the beautiful chandelier in the room before we entered it and he made me stop just before entering the room. He made certain that we weren't inside the room because he wanted to talk about the chandelier and knew we shouldn't talk inside the room. So he pointed out the chandelier, making sure I noticed it to. (how couldn't you, it was gorgeous. Over 8,000 crystals.) Once he said what he wanted to say, he told me we could go into the room now, he wasn't going to talk anymore. It was really cute. And he didn't talk again until we left the celestial room and moved on to the sealing rooms.

What a blessing it will be to have another temple in the area. When we were in St. Anthony, we were so excited to learn that Rexburg would soon have a temple. But since we have moved, our temple will be the Idaho Falls temple. But I look forward to coming to the Rexburg Temple once or twice in the near future.

It will be dedicated on Feb. 3.








We went through the tour with My aunt and uncle who live in Rexburg. My cousin Seth and RJ are good buddies. I just loved this photo of the two of them. They look like great future missionaries, don't you think?

Another new dress

This is another new dress Savannah got for Christmas from Grandma Bartley. I just love Sundays when I can dress her in cute dresses. She is such a tom boy, so any other day she would just ruin a dress. And it is also nice to have grandparents who can afford to buy her new cute dresses. Thank you Grandmas!

Driving Motorcyces

We share our church building with two other wards, so every year we switch time schedules. This year we have the 1:00 session. So, we had a lot of time to kill before church today. The kids killed it by playing motorcycles with daddy. Even Savannah got into the fun of it.

Racing Slot Cars

Grandpa Wight brought us a slot car race track, and of course Jared and RJ love it. I haven't tried it yet, but I have had fun watching them play together.

Chocolate Lover

So, I had been playing on the computer and realized that Savannah had been very quite for a while, which isn't always a good sign. I set out to see what she was up to and found her with the chair pushed up to the counter, eating Christmas chocolates from RJ's present he got from his preschool teacher. She was on her third one when I found her. I turned the corner and with a big grin on her face, she said "Hi"

Bottoms Up

We had Martinells with our dinner on New Years Eve. I guess Savannah really liked it she had to have the last sip.

Happy New Year!

RJ and Sally in the Snow

We have so much snow in our yard. It snowed non-stop from Christmas Eve till through the 29th. RJ and Sally our out playing in the snow. Sally loves it and it is so funny watching her running through it. She has really short legs and she just sinks in the snow.

A visit from Grandpa Hawk

Jared's dad came up for a visit. After 16 hours of driving in the thick snow he made it up on the 29th to bring the kids their Christmas Gifts.



RJ is opening a gift from his Uncle Josh who gave him his old Sega system. I was hoping to hold off awhile on the video games. I guess we still can since we are missing the hook up cord. But RJ loves the gift and is so excited to play them.












Molly (Hawk's girlfriend) helping Savannah open her present from Uncle Tony.
















Thanks Uncle Tony for thinking of us. Savannah loves her polar bear.

















Grandpa Wight got RJ the Cars bedding. Maybe this will help him stay in his own bed. He sure loves it.













RJ got a kit to build a bird house from Uncle Tony. Grandpa helped him put it together.















RJ was a pill while his Grandpa was visiting. But he did enjoy the visit and looks forward to his birthday in February when Grandpa Wight will visit again.

















Jared's dad came up to help work on the room upstairs. Jared is wishing he lived closer because he enjoyed his dad's help and all the tools he was able to use. Since this picture was taken, all the framing in the room is complete as well as the installation of the window. The next step is the electrical work and then the sheet rock. After which it will be my turn to get to work with the painting. Almost there.











For Christmas Jared got me a new dishwasher. I went on forever about not really wanting one because I am a tight wade and didn't want to spend the money. Washing the dishes was my break from the kids. But lately it wasn't much of a break and I couldn't stay on top of the dishes. So I was very much delighted when Jared surprised me with a dishwasher. It was truly a surprise, I even surprised myself with how excited I was about getting one.

In this photo Jared is getting ready to remove the cabinets.













The cabinets are out; now where will I put all the stuff that is inside? Still haven't figured it out.




















And here it is. I have a dishwasher!!!

















The kids are waving goodbye to Grandpa. Thanks for visiting and helping with all our projects. Wish we were closer.