New Year's Eve

The Cotton Family

The Jewell Family

Sis-in-laws

The cousins bringing in the new year

Christmas Day 2009

The girls open presents from Santa!

Christmas Eve 2009

All the cousins getting ready for Santa to come.

Our sweet girls

Grace's Holiday Sing-a-long

Ashley grooving to the music.
Grace's kindergarten class.
Our star!
Hot cocoa mustache after all that work!

Grace and Ashley with their best pals Melody and Jessica.

Our icicle cake

Icicles on our back deck.
Our fantastic icicle cake!
Oh what fun things we can come up with....

Fresh Reno Snow Cones!

Homemade snowcones...watermelon, cherry and blue raspberry....best snow cones in town!

Ashley, Grace and Catalina enjoyed them despite the freezing cold weather.

Our neighborhood birds

Quail in the apple tree.
Blue Blue waiting for some peanuts.

White Christmas again this year...

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.....No I'm not!!!

I think we'll be having another one this year.

I took these pictures early this morning.

Most of the trees are slumping down because of the weight of the snow.

It is so still out except for the occasional snow falling from the trees or

a bird flying by. Just another day of God's beauty!

How lucky we are.

Mother's Tea at School

Me and my girls.

O Christmas Tree!

While it snowed outside, we got our Christmas tree up. Not quite as tall as last year (and because of the snow we couldn't go cut it down ourselves) but it will do just fine!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

And more snow is expected later in the week!

Disneyland - December 2009

It's a small world with Uncle Michael.
Trying to pull out the sword in the stone. We were not strong enough!
What a great day!

Hiroshima, Japan (IETF-76 Meeting)

Miyajima - Itsukushima Shrine
Miyajima - Otorii (Grand Gate)
Eating the specialty on the island...Oysters! Don't love them, but had to try them.
Derek Atkins and I at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial with the A-Bomb Dome in the background.
All over the city they welcomed all the IETF'ers. The mayor of Hiroshima wanted to practice as they want to host the Olympics in the near future.

Thanks to Mark McFadden for taking all the photos.

Halloween 2009!

Cinderella waiting for her pumpkin to turn into a coach!
Happy Halloween everyone!
Tinkerbell about to take flight with a little bit of pixie dust!
Grace is ready for trick or treating....
Does Ashley not look like a miniature version of Cinderella?

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Look what Mima started....now the girls want breakfast on their trays while watching cartoons up in Reno too!

Washoe Run for Education

Hanging with friends before the kid's race.
After Mom ran the 5k, Grace did the kid's fun run!
Here we are with our medals!

Hanging with Mima and Papa

Standing with the fire maple tree.
Celebrating Papa's birthday a little early.