Merry Christmas & The Holiday Vacation Plans

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We had a lovely Christmas filled with good things. One of my favorite things this year was new furniture for the back room! We were all very blessed this year. Kirk and Holden both got some camera equipment they wanted so they spent some time this afternoon/evening out taking photos - some of Kirk's photos are here. No snow here but we have had a lot of rain lately, including parts of today.




We ironed out the details for the rest of the week and Jennifer's Wedding plans today so that we were all clear on the plans they are outlined below:

Monday - We are all meeting in the Lobby of Little America at 10 am
Kirk & Lezlee Will Host Breakfast at Little America

Afterwards we will play games and have snacks hosted by Monika & Erik at their home in Bountiful

Evening meal will be Soup hosted by Tammy & Vicki

Followed by the JAZZ game hosted by Wayne & Vicki

Tuesday - Wedding Preparating Day
Evening Dinner at Rodizio at 5pm for the adults - location is Trolly Square

Wednesday - Wedding at 6pm at Midway Home 384 N. 1320 W. (directions are provided on Jennifer's wedding website HERE)

We are looking forward to seeing everyone!

It's been another great week for me. I am feeling so much better. Yesterday in physical therapy I got to ride a bike. I was in total shock. Actually, when he told me to get on the bike I thought he was either crazy or joking around. I also got on a machine to help strenghthen my legs. I am a bit sore today, I can't imagine that since I have been a couch potatoe for over 2 years.
It will be great to see everyone. Have a great Christmas and travel safely.
Monika

20th Anniversary !

It was our 20th Anniversary yesterday, we celebrated with a trip to Sedona for the weekend. We stayed in the most wonderful place and had the best time! We ate a lot of wonderful food, did some shopping, but mostly just relaxed the whole time.

Our little mini-trip started on Saturday morning with brunch at La Grande Orange here in Phoenix - it's one of our favorite little bakeries/restaurants - (if it seems this vacation revolved around food a lot you would not be entirely wrong - I'm on a break from the diet until after the new year and Kirk was on a quick break too - Kirk has lost 40 pounds!...so yes, food seemed kind of more important than usual).

On the way to Sedona we spent the afternoon at Arcosanti. Arcosanti is hard to explain. It's kind of an architects utopian vision of the world. It was interesting to visit and see some of the sustainable world ideas they have there. Mainly it was a lot like visiting a 70s commune that time has left behind. But the ideas and the architectural concepts are fun to learn about.

The place we went to in Sedona is called Adobe Grande Villas. It's an awesome little resort with very large suites and all the services of an attentive bed & breakfast. They fix a 3 course breakfast every morning and when we checked in, we had warm bread baking in our room. Delicious! Our suite had two fireplaces, one next to the tub and one in the main room. The bed was the most heavenly thing I've ever slept in! It was the perfect get-away just before Christmas. I HIGHLY recommend Adobe Grande Villas if you are ever in Sedona!

The next day we visited Jerome for a few hours. Some of you have been there with us before. It's a lot of fun - an old mining town, now mostly full of artists, hippies and harleys (the best kind of towns in my opinion!). We also spent some time at the galleries in Sedona around Tlaquepaque and downtown. We didn't buy any artwork though. There is a local artist here in Phoenix who is letting us come into his studio tonight where we are hoping to pick up a new piece.

We ate ate some amazing restaurants in Sedona which were recommended by the staff at Adobe Grande. It was the perfect get-away for 3 days.

We had a really great anniversary! It's been a great 20 years!

This New Hampshire Life: Act 3 The Aftermath

Our first full day with electricity has been an exhausting one. I woke up with the "smart" but very generous idea of calling the Barlow family and offering our house to stay at if their electricity was still out. Now let me take a moment to explain, the first time I met the Barlows was about a year ago at Chase's first basketball game. Part way through the first quarter I saw this very happy woman and her husband both pushing strollers, one double stroller one single and with three kids in tow and I said to myself "self, they have to be Mormon" they came and sat next to me. I started talking to them turns out that Brad Barlow is from Utah and works at Fidelity. Now three key pieces of information very large "happy" family, from Utah and works at Fidelity...so I ask, "Are you Mormon?" and they said yes and we have been good friends since then Kathy, Brad, Logan, Morgan, Anna, Noah, Ella and Lilly...

Now I digress, after inviting 8 people to come and live at my house (three of are very young twin girls that just turned 2 and Noah that is 3) I realize that my house is a disaster. Now I know most people say that but they say that to be dramatic. But believe me after being in the hospital for 3 days and confined to bed for 3 days and then the electricity off for 2 days my house was a complete disasater. Let's be honest even before the hospitilization the house was pretty bad. And I hadn't been in the basement (which is where I said they could stay) since I had pneumonia over a month ago. Needless to say it was trashed. So I got the kids up (and did I mention I had two other kids at my house that spent the night? Yes, I am crazy) and we started cleaning and we cleaned and we cleaned...until 4:00 and it was finally done. And it was a good thing because it was time for me to go pick up Ken from Boston's airport. By the time we got home I was able to cook dinner sat down to eat and the Barlow 8 knocked on the door.

The Barlows live in a very tree intensive area, they have been told they could have electricity as early as tomorrow or as late as a week from now. They are a great family and I feel very lucky of the 5 different offers they got from people to live with them I was chosen. (see Lezlee my luck is changing, or is it?). You may think the reason we were chosen over the others is because we were their favorites, or they thought we would be good examples for their kids, or even that they look up to us and want to emulate us...but alas it is not so. Remember the three kids under three? They were too afraid that taking them into other peoples home they little one's would destroy the house. But with my house no worries about that. So what is the lesson of this story? Big packages come to those in messy houses! Really it was the basement, my basement is fairly big and has very little in it, other then a bed, big couch and tv's. Perfect area to lock three little kids in.

I tell you this story purely for you to adore my generosity, remark about my kind nature and to certify that "yes Virginia, Jennifer is crazy". Remember I have 5 days until we leave on a cross country trip to get married and I don't even have the invitations printed up. So if no one shows up to my wedding we can blame (pick your choice) the pneumonia, the hospital stay, Ken's father's heart surgery, the ice storm or the barlows!

P.S. Ken's father is doing well....

Let there be light...

I am ecstatic to announce that our house has had power restored! We were very surprised when the lights came on just minutes after I had booked a hotel room for the evening. Earlier in the day we were told it wouldn't be until Monday when our power was expected to be restored so we were doing the jig of joy when I heard the heater kick in and the lights turn on.

There are still a lot of houses that do not have electricity to them. We have a few extra kids spending the night tonight because they were driving their parents crazy. On the way to pick up Steve, Chandler's best friend, we went past 8 houses that had been hit by trees and one house where a 40ft pine had crashed on both of their vehicles. On Steve's street they had 4 power poles that had fallen. And Steve's house had been hit by a tree. Luckily it was a smaller tree and only light damage had occured.

We were very lucky. We had one tree down and then three big branches from our large apple tree in the front broke off, luckily it was on the side that was standing over Ken's Suburban.

Last night we huddled in my bedroom, the outside temperature dipping down to 9 degrees and our house temperature down to 41. But the king size bed slept three of us and Chandler slept on the floor. We put those hand-warmers in our socks and our pockets and slept fairly well. Tonight the temperature was suppose to drop very low again, which is why we had the hotel reservation. You know me, I am not fond of the cold.

Sorry to dissapoint you Jordan, there was no snow. We only had the freezing rain. So not even any fun activities, just really, really, really cold. However, when the sun hits the trees that are encased in ice, it is one of the prettiest things you have ever seen. They look like crystal. Or how Chandler describes them like huge spider webs with the morning mist on them. If you are interested in some of the pictures others have taken they have a slideshow at http://www.wmur.com/weather/18255928/detail.html?widgetId=55963

The kids did get Friday off, and there is a chance that they won't go to school on Monday. The schools have power but they are being used as emergency shelters for those who still don't have power.

Ken's father made it through surgery without incident. Ken says he is doing better but is grumpy.

Thank you for everyones best wishes.

Wow what a week ! :)

Hey everyone ! You probably did not know this but I have my own account on here now so you should see more post's by me soon ! Any way this week was CRAZY ! I had to do so much stuff in school for an upcoming trip to Catalina Island ! It is a program at my school were all 6th graders ( with good grade's ) get a chance to go to Catalina for three day's ! While we are there we do lots of fun stuff ! I am still deciding what classes I am going to take while I am there but I know I want to go to a night dive because there are lots of algae that glows so it is really pretty ! This trip is on January 14, 15 , 16 so it is going to be freezing on land and supper freezing in the water ! I am still very excited though but not as excited as I am for the wedding and seeing all of you guys ! It will be so much fun and this year i see all of the Hays side of the family but I also see all of the Peterson side ! Oh here is a picture of Catalina at sun down !

ICE STORM HITS NH

Good Morning Y'all!

Right now we wish we were in south texas, warm light and without an inch of ice covering everything! The NE is being hit with a freezing rain/ice storm as I am typing this. We are up (all of us) at 4:30 this morning because when the power went out it set off all of our smoke detectors and they would not go off (we learned of this fault last time the power went off but I hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet). Anyway, at four this morning we were all running around pulling fire detectors off of ceilings (the vaulted ceiling in my room was the funnest to get off).

We don't know how much damage has been done yet but I have been listening to tree limbs falling all night and you can vaguely make out the shape of a tree that is down in our front yard. We are lucky, we have a good 40 feet on all sides of our house before you hit the tree line. So it is very unlikely that our house would be hit by a tree. That can not be said for most houses in the area. I was actually surprised we didn't loose power much earlier then we did.

Here when the power goes off, everything goes out. The wells quit working and we loose our water, which means no flushing toilets!

Several years ago before the first time we moved up to NH there was a huge ice storm (which they compare this too) and most power outages lasted up to a week. I hope not because I only have 2 hours left of battery life on my laptop.

Anyway. We are ok. We will be staying put for the time being in the house and not venturing out until all of the ice is cleared from the roads.

Side note: Ken's father's surgery (triple bi-pass) was delayed until this morning, since it is in Indiana it should still happen today.

Until we are able to communicate again....NH OUT.

I am having a fantastic day. In physical therapy yesterday I was able to do 8 new physical therapy excercises. I know that may not seem alot. But I have been going there for almost 2 months, and in that time I had only been able to do 4 phycial therapy excercises. So now I am actually doing doing level one excercises. YEAH!!!!!!!
I went to Jessica's Christmas concert for band. She did great!!
We have celebrated Michael, Jessica, and Ashley's birthday already with a big extended family dinner. It was alot of fun. It is great to be around family again.
Have a great day.

Hey Everyone!

Hey,

Sorry that it has been a long time since we have written, the holidays have been crazy. Nicole turned a year old on November 8th. I made and decorated her a birthday cake, she put her hand on it then looked at her hand and started to cry. Which really suprised me because most kids liked to dive into the birthday cake. The next day we headed to Wanship to hear the parents speak in church, that was a great experience for me, I really missed talking to them.

Oh ya.....to everyone in the Hays family check out my website that I just finished for my Business. Here is the web address http://www.graphicdesigncorners.com/ check it out and let me know what you think. If you would, please recommend me to all your friends. My services go from designing websites, photo restoration, business cards, newsletters, brochures,flyers, menus, and I also design special business projects such as logos. I restore photos no matter how damaged. We can't wait to see everyone.

Kristi

Troy's Wedding Photos 2006

Tammy asked me about getting copies of some of the photos from Troys wedding two years ago. I pulled them off the hard drive and now have hosted on flickr. I am pretty sure I have the setting correct so that you can just pull them off flickr by dragging them onto your desktop to take any of the photos you want for your own use. If it doesn't work please let me know. I have put a lot of the photos into a slide show to display them here, but I don't think you'll be able to drag the photos from slide onto the desktop (though you're certainly welcome to try).

They are roughly in chronological order 1. the temple, 2. Jen's house for the lunch, 3. the reception at the Joseph Smith Building, 4. the breakfast with everyone except the bride and groom the next day.

If you have any trouble getting the photos from flickr, let me know and I can bring the ones you want on a jump drive or something. (my burner on my laptop doesn't seem to be working or I could just burn a disc). For flickr click HERE

We're looking forward to creating new family photos at Jen's wedding this month!

Hey guys

Hey guys, I know I haven't been on here but hopefully that will change. I wanted to upload a font that I made that says Hays, I looked online and created a little more modern vector of our actual dress tartan. I'll upload that later as a background sometime. I think its big enough to use as a background as well. Let me know what you think! Thanks guys!


~Holden

Holden...spending his college time wisely...

Holden is very creative and lately he has learned to do clay animation. Here are two movies he made recently and put up on youtube. We have checked his grades and he is still doing very well so we will try not to worry too much about how much time he is spending on endeavors like these.

Happy Happy Birthday Kirk Dear!

Happy days will come to you all year. If I had a wish it would be a happy, happy birthday to you from me!

Happy Birthday Kirk!
I hope you had a great birthday.

Great Aunts

Life is great. Cory and Debbie put together a lunch for the GREAT
Aunts. Aunt Velma is 90 years old and seems to get younger each time
I see her. She still lives in Idaho next to her son Bobby. She lives alone and
when she want to go somewhere she gets in her car and goes. Except for Utah it is to far away so she takes the bus. The grandchildren may not know this wonderful lady but our children should remember the times Aunt Velma and Uncle Dean would come to West Yellowstone and spend a week or so. They loved to Square Dance at Alices in Island Park. They would play cribage with us and tour the park.

Aunt Jane is doing much better than I thought. The doctor told her two years ago that her heart was just wearing out and there was nothing that could be done. She is on oxgen during the night and sometimes in the day. She keeps scrap books and loves geneaolgy. She reminds me of Aunt Ardell in her looks and actions, but she is even more fun. I believe she is 78 years young.

My mother is doing pretty good. She loves to be with Aunt Velma and Aunt Jane. They are an important hook to the past and to my father. Grandma plans to attend the wedding and the dinner the night before.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving Weekend so far has consisted of a lovely dinner, Holden & Kirk doing the dishes for me (YAY!) washing the dogs at the Wag N' Wash, and putting up the Christmas tree. As you can see from the puffy cheeks in the photo of Holden and Noelle - he's still recovering from having his wisdom teeth out. We hope everyone has a great weekend!

Holden's Home

Holden got home for Thanksgiving on Friday night. It's great having him home again. It's much louder around the home. Not because Holden is loud but because his brother and sister like playing around with him so much. Today he got his wisdom teeth out so he's a little quieter today.

As you know Brennan loves animals and wants to be a zoologist. We were at the pet store the other day and he talked me into getting a pair of ball pythons--he needs to learn to handle snakes if he's going to work in a zoo after all. So I've been spending the last few nights sleeping on the couch. Actually Lezlee was pretty cool.




This week I was featured in a ASU art magazine. You can see the on-line article and one of my paintings by clicking here.

We are very excited about seeing you all in December. Take care.

Kirk

100 pounds? That's crazy

Just to announce that I've finally lost 100 pounds. I'm still working on additional 40 or so to go - Here's my midway photo:

Thanksgiving Turkeys?

Wayne yelled in a quite voice (is that possible) to get my camera and go out onto the porch. I was surprised to see a whole line of wild turkeys parading between the fence and the river. Then one lost turkey came from the front of our yard and was trying to get to the others. Wayne said " Go open the gate and let the turkey out, so he can join the others." I did as I was told, the turkeys didn't mind Wayne. They all turned around and came through the gate into our yard. We took pictures but it was almost dark and this is the only one that turned out. To our great suprise all 15 turkeys came into the yard, flew into our trees and spent the night.

In the morning Wayne got up early to take pictures of them nesting in the trees, but the early bird gets the worm, bug or what ever they eat. Because they were out of the trees by the time he got up.

The funnest story about the turkeys was told by Wayne as he watched a big gobbler try to roosted on Adams weather vein. The turkey would land on the weather vein, then the weather vein would turn around in circles and knock the turkey off, but the turkey would try again. Finally the turkey slept the night on Adams roof.

Public Apology to Monika - Public Thanks to Jen

First off all I need to tell Monika I am really sorry. For some reason I keep forgetting to send her the photos I promised - I took some family photos while we were in Utah and somehow they never quite make it from my hard drive to the email. But I have sent them now Monika! Here's a sample (but there are more in the email):


Also to Jen: Thanks for the note you recently posted here on the blog, I found it very inspiring. A couple of weeks ago they made me the 2nd Counselor in the Stake Relief Society Presidency. I am excited about the new calling - part of my new responsibilities are that I speak with the high council quarterly. My goal for those talks is to be far LESS boring than whatever high councilman I'm assigned with. Today I had to speak and I used Jen's note as the intro to my talk, so Thanks Jen!

Fidelity Layoffs

I am sure most of you have heard of the massive layoff's in the financial sector. Today Fidelity laid-off 1300 employees. I did not loose my job but I did have several very close friends who did. Fidelity is scheduled for a second round of layoff's in Q1 2009 and the next set will be an additional 2700 employees.

As I have witnessed the tumultuous economy and the impact that it has had friends and family I see one common thread, greed. From loan brokers, energy speculators, investment brokers, and the consumer who spends beyond their means and doesn't take responsibility for their gluttonous consumption over-extending their means and depleting resources.

I have challenged my family to reverse the trend of greed. Instead of consuming more then we need we are going to donate two bags of groceries to the local food shelter each week. The local food shelter here is already low on food far before the normal time. I have also encouraged the kids to think of ways that we put our wants aside and help assist on meeting other peoples needs.

Jen

Holden @ College

Holden is enjoying his time at school. He's doing really well and seems to find time to do some pretty silly things like fishing without pants. (Apparently he decided to wade across the river with the pants on and then realized how cold he was, and removed them...in the future I think he could probably ask my dad to borrow some waders, but it was spur of the moment fishing).

He likes his roommates and his best friend Austin is right down the hall so all seems to be going well. We are looking forward to seeing him at Thanksgiving!

I went to a physical therapist and within one minute he knew what I had. It was amazing!! He had only seen it 3 times in his 18 years experience. I now wear a SI belt to keep my hips from moving all around. Once that stabalizes he will work more on my other injury. I get to shock myself 8 hours each day with a TENS UNIT. The fantastic news is that it is working. I just need to remember to take it easy. It could still take 2 years from now to heal, but we hope it will happen before that. Otherwise I will have to decide on an operation, but we hope not.
Monika

Jessica broke her leg

Jessica went back to Primary Children's hospital today to get a cast on her foot. She was inline skating in gym and fell on it. She broke it by her ankle. She also sprained her ankle. Her foot has turned purple with a bruise.

This was taken on Oct. 30th, the day she hurt it. We wouldn't let her go trick or treating. Luckily, Grandpa Hays went out for her.

We are 95% done with the landscaping, but I didn't get pictures of it until the snow came, the da after they finished.

Ashley and Michael enjoying the waterfall in our front yard.

They ere having hat races. Seeing whose hat made it down the waterfall first.