A note from Zack 12/31/08

Hey Mom!

It was great to talk to you on Christmas, even though the length of the call was almost twice as long as it was supposed to be...(oops).

Elder Okamoto said that he was going to give the tie to one of the members ( I think he was kidding).

YOU JOINED FACE BOOK??? WAHHHHHH????????? I never thought I'd see the day...

Sis. Carter has been pretty busy lately. Between work, visits with her kids, and church stuff, its hard to visit her sometimes.

Did you get the pictures from Sis. Ashford? I accidentally kept giving her your old phone number, because I forgot that you were using MY phone. lol I figured out eventually though.

I bet its good sleddin' at Uncle Jack's. Did they ever get the snowmobile back up and running or did they sell it? Tell Uncle Jack I said Hi!

Aunt Belva calling me at 2:20 a.m.: HAHA! Aunt Belva is so funny! such a practical joker!

Yeah I figured dad to be a one project a day person. what with his age and all. I wouldn't expect him to do more... :P Maybe if you say that you're going to go do it yourself, he'll shape up?

I think you did play the Havens racquetball one time. It was probably like a year or so ago. If I remember correctly, you guys won, but I wasn't actually there, so I don't know. If I were there, I'd win though.

Tell me: Did the boys actually dance? (that would be kind of a miracle) I think when I get back, you just might be able to beat me on the Wii (if it still works by then) [Wow... Mom being able to beat me at video games....*shudder*]

For New Years tonight, I plan on staying in our apartment. I taught Elder Okamoto how to play chess, so we'll probably play chess till bed time. He's actually pretty good. He wins every once in a while. I finally got him motivated to paint that picture that you wanted with me and Jesus. He said that he wants to paint it today and send it to you by this weekend.

well I got some more emails to do, so I'll talk to you next year!

Love,

Elder Holladay

Emily's Christmas Program

The Heaps family did a great job with Emily's Christmas Program! What an awesome experience to be a part of.

Here is the link to see their blog update and pictures. I will sure miss them!

Program

Funny Dog!

Here's Molly looking over the fence wondering what we are doing.

She climbed to the top of Michael's snow cave and peeked over to take a look!

Sweet Christmas Party

Too many Sweet's to fit in one house, so we have it at a church.

This is Owen pushing the tables around. This boy needs no toys. He is happy to play with a tag off a toy or to jump on the cart the tables and chairs come on, or just to push something around.

This is James wearing the jacket he wants to give me for Christmas!

Then, no party is complete without a ride on top of the tables before they get put away!

My favorite Gift!

I just got my phone call from Zack! It was so great to talk to him, finally! He said there is still no snow in New Jersey, but it is cold and he is staying warm enough and well fed. His ward gave him a bunch of "junk food"(apparently at least a years supply), and some toothpaste and soap, etc. We sent him a digital photo frame with tons of pictures from home on it. He said it was perfect! I also sent some socks and ties and some for Elder Okamoto. One of the ties I sent to Elder Okamoto had Japanese writing on it. I got it from the Missionary Mall, but no one there knew what it said. When Elder Okamoto opened it he read the tie and started laughing and told Zack that I was pretty funny. When Zack asked him what the tie said, Elder Okamoto replied, "Drink Beer!" It's a good thing he has a sense of humor! I am never buying another thing with foreign writing on it. The last time I did that, it was a swimming suit with a picture of a sailor and some French words on it. My niece asked me if I knew what it said. She told me it said, "Do you want to have a good time!" I never wore that suit again without a t-shirt over it!

Anyways...Zack is doing awesome. He is getting used to missionary life and enjoying it. He is teaching quite a few people right now except during the holiday season most had plans and didn't want to schedule any appointments until after New Years. He loves the area he is in because the members are super nice to the missionaries and he is really feeling at home there.

I didn't think we would talk very long because we e-mail every week and I just got an e-mail from him yesterday, but we ended up talking for a little over an hour. It was great to hear his voice again.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, we have joined the Wii club! Santa really hooked the boys up this year!
My favorite Christmas quote is from Spencer:
Yeah! Bubble wrap!

Hope you all had a fun Christmas too! We got a bunch more snow to shovel! The boys weren't up and Dave couldn't sleep anymore, so at 6:30 a.m., he went out and shoveled the first installment of snow removal for the day!

Anticipating my missionary call any minute now!

Snow Fun!

It only took a couple hours to dump 6-8 inches of snow on the car. This is Jake trying to dig out his car. He successfully got it stuck 3 times trying to get it off the street so the plow could get to the edge of the street. Teenagers!

John had an interesting technique for snow throwing. Instead of shoveling it over to the side and dumping it, he would take a shovel full and toss it over his head. Whatever works!

This is our awesome neighbor, Dean! He cleared all the sidewalks near his house (and ours) and helped us and many others, dig out of the snow mess. He ended up going out at least 3 times during the day.

This is a great pic of my foot!
Oh ya, and our snowy dog, Molly. She loves running in the snow!

Holladay Holidays

Jodie's baby, Jamison

Arianne's baby, Boston

Julie's baby, Anna

Buncha babies at the Holladay Holiday party. Then there were these cute kids! I counted over 52 people at Bob and Diane's house. It was a bit of a squeeze, but it was great to get together and see so much family in one place! Thanks for all the great work you put in to this Diane and being brave enough to have this brood over!

Even Grandma had fun!

Here is Arianne and Boston. Both adorable!

Poor Joyce, she got sick. It looks like she is starting to get the chills here and she was really shivering by the time she left. I hope she is feeling much better by Christmas!

Fun times!

We have been busy having fun this week.

Thursday, after a big snow, my lunchosociety friends and I had lunch at Applebees. It started out with a friend, Diana, who was laid up in bed with a bum foot with no way to come down stairs for food. I told her I would trade her a RS lesson for lunch (because I miss talking about the gospel with the sistas). We added our dear friend, Iva and we have saved lots of money on therapy! lol We have some awesome conversations about the gospel and life in general.

Diana has a huge dog, a great daine. She was telling us yesterday that the dog was following them to the front of the house when his harness got caught on on the Christmas tree. The dog, Jack, started dragging the Christmas tree across the room. When Diana heard the commotion, she turned around and instead of commanding Jack to stop or sit, she kept yelling, "Jack!, Jack!" Jack was so excited to obey and come, he pulled harder and harder to get to Diana. Of course the tree toppled over with a few ornament fatalities and the top of the tree landed on her daughter. I was laughing so hard, imagining the whole show and wishing they had caught it on tape.

Today Dave and I had the pleasure of having lunch with my brother, James. James just got back from a fun trip to Hawaii with his 2 kids. He kept the destination from his 8 y.o. and had a great time helping him decide where they were going to go, if they should drive or fly. When they got to L.A., they discovered that mysteriously, L.A. was too full to stay there and they would have to take another plane somewhere else. Nick thought they were going to Las Vegas, so James' friend, was making a big deal of how awesome it was that they put an ocean in Las Vegas when they got off the plane. Too funny!

Racquetball Buddies

These are my racquetball buddies. I play at least one of them nearly every day of the week (cept Sunday). We had a nice breakfast at my house after racquetball today. We didn't look anything like these pics because we were all sweaty from racquetball (except Julie, she was dressed nice cause she didn't play us today), so no pics. Blue shirt is Wendy, black is Tammy and yellow is Julie.

I love you guys! Exercise has never been so fun (or frustrating, lol)! Thanks for the racquetball abuse!