Happy New Year!

First, I need to say that in my 2008 recap I forgot to include a wonderful trip that we took with our friends from church - we had 8 adults and 8 kids. We rented a cabin in Tahoe, right on the lake. It was so much fun. We were able to pull our boat into the dock right out the back door of the cabin. It was so nice! One of our friends brought up jet skis and a banana tube (you pull it behind the boat). Our girls had so much fun! They keep asking when are we going back! Sorry I forgot to include this trip in my recap - you guys know we love you!

Well, we have had a wonderful New Year week. Just about every night we have either had friends over or been invited over to friends' houses for dinner. It has been so out of our norm and so much fun! We are completely exhausted! For us 8-pm-lights-out-types, staying up to 10:30 or 11 pm every night gets to be quite tiring! I am desperately trying to get the kids back on school schedule otherwise next week is not going to be pretty!

Over the last couple of weeks we have been finding more and more of Kurt's cousins with blogs. It has been so much fun to see everyone's families. I come from a very small family. I have only 1 brother and 1 cousin. Thats it! Kurt has a lot, and I mean, A LOT, of siblings and cousins and we have absolutely loved finding each one. I am trying to get everyone on my "Loved Ones" list so if someone is missing, please let me know! Maybe we haven't found them yet.

I will try to post Christmas pictures soon. Our camera is a business/personal camera so Kurt usually has it in his truck. Not to mention that most of the time all the pictures are downloaded at the office so I have to find our personal photos mixed in with all the business photos and get them transferred to our home computer. So hopefully I will get them posted soon.

Exciting things happening at our house:
* Kayla lost her 2nd front tooth the week after Christmas. I told her if she had only lost it a few days before we could have sang "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". I personally think she hung onto that tooth for a reason - smart girl!

* Kayla turns 8 on January 10th - you know what that means! Baptism time! We have been eagerly getting ready for her baptism. She is such a sweet girl and always wants to choose the right. We have truly been blessed with an angel with this girl! She was our shy, timid, dig her heals in, afraid of new things child but over the last year she has matured so much. She has bloomed into an easy going, happy to please, eager to help, willing to try new things girl. It has been amazing. I love watching these kids grow!

* It's home show time! Kurt is currently (as I type) at a home show in Sacramento. Home shows are how we generate most of our business. Much to our disappointment, landscaping happens to be a want, not a need (we just can't understand this logic, ha ha). So in this economy landscaping is not a priority on many minds right now. Jobs are tough to come by so this home show will be a major source of potential jobs. I worked the show until 4 pm today and was pleasantly surprised at the number of people and interest generated. Of course, we did have the best booth (I may be a bit biased but Kurt really does go all out). He has a 20' x 40' area and has: distressed wood arbors, L-shaped outdoor kitchen, overhead lighting, low-voltage lighting, pavers, Country Manor wall, synthetic turf, fireplace, plants, furniture, bark, music playing. He basically puts in a full landscape. People don't believe that we do all that work and then tear it out on Monday. I will have to post pics - just as soon as I get my hands on that camera! Pray for us that jobs will be generated from this show!