zoe anne! the boys call her annie but we decided not to go with that name, so we gave her the middle name so the nickname "annie" would fit a little. dad thinks we're crazy for spelling it zoe instead of "zoey" but if dwyane wade's parents call him "dwayne" and put the "y" in front of the "a", we can spell our baby girl's name zoe if we want.
I have been locating/reviewing lots of photographs for our family as I put together the Larson History Book that will capture a summary of the life stories of the Lloyd and Effie Larson posterity. So this little series gives you a little pictoral history of the David Larson family over the last 49 years or so, and shows how we evolved to become the Larson clan shown above in our "big" family picture on this blog.
Sara and CJ are here for Christmas and their kids are enjoying the snow (at least Hannah and Charlie - I don't think Rachel and Eric wanted any part of it)! And, the parents are glad they don't have to deal with this stuff in Austin.
And they have also enjoyed visiting with the deer that hang out around here periodically.
Forfeiting our right to ever complain again about our wife's requests to go shopping at any time or place, Delos, James and I drove 1600+ miles this weekend so they could shop at the Nike employees' store in Beaverton, OR., just west of Portland. Since James use to work at Nike, some friends of his got "guest" passes for us to use the store. When Delos asked me to go with them, I was a little incredulous - you want to do what? - travel 1600 miles (round trip in two days) to buy some Nike shoes and sportwear? You have to be kidding!
They assured me it would be a "bonding experience" and, of course they needed my 4-wheel drive truck in case we ran into snow (which we did on the way there). We were gone about 56 hours, from 4 pm Friday to 10 pm Sunday) and spent about 30 of those hours driving.
Well, it was actually quite fun - especially since I decided we would visit some "personal historical sites" on the way home for a little nostalgia and family history lessons.
We left Draper about 4 pm Friday, picked up James in Logan and were on our way. We ran into snow at Boise and had snow off and on from there to Pendleton. Sometimes it was pretty intense making it difficult to see (James did all the driving). Over the Blue Mountains there was substantial snow on the roads but it had stopped snowing so visibilty was much improved. We stayed with the Neals (Holly's parents) in Pendleton, arriving there about midnight, and they were more than gracious hosts. Even though they knew we were all quite crazy, the treated us just like we were "normal people".
We left there Saturday about 10 am and headed to Portland. Much to my dismay, I forgot to take a picture of the store -I know that is an important part of this saga - so later I just took a picture of all the "bags of bounty" they loaded in the back of the truck. I won't bore you with those details other than to say I bought nothing - couldn't really find anything I needed or wanted - but Delos and James combined for over $1000 (I won't say how much over!) of merchandise (everything is basically half-price) so they tell me that is $2000 of goodies so the trip was certainly worthwhile - just look at how much money they saved!
So you can see we had quite a trip and documented a little history while we were at it. It was great fun.
We got the boys' costumes in the mail today. We had thrown around ideas of making our own transformers that actually transform like the ones you see on youtube, but decided it would be too hard logistically, especially since Isaac is supposed to wear his costume to school tomorrow. Luckily, Isaac loves it and hasn't taken it off since he got home from school. He's been begging me to take a video (I've taken about 20) of him fighting, so I thought I'd share his mad skillz with all of you.
Now that Jack is 3, he as a lot to accomplish: learning his ABCs, counting to 20, mastering potty training, and memorizing the Pythagorean theorem. (: Good Luck with all those sweet boy!
My friend Dana's parents live across the street from a "farm" of sorts. Mostly a very dirty old building infested with flies, and tons of goats and rabbits. We spent the afternoon there on Tuesday. There were some sheep and a few cows too, but they really freaked Isaac out trying to eat and lick his knees. I think the boys had fun though, especially holding the baby bunnies. Me? Not so much. I really hate swarming flies and stinky animals.
This cow wouldn't stop trying to eat Isaac's knees. I had to lift him out of there before he totally freaked out, and then his legs were covered in cow slobber. Gross.
Check out what this seven-year-old did to get out of going to church. Click here to watch the video.
Apparently, it was "too hot" to go to church, so he led police on a low-speed chase in the family car. I can't believe how well he drove--you can see in the video that he swerves a little but mostly stays within the lines.
I can sooo see Isaac doing this in a few years.
HI-larious.
While James and I were in Albuquerque we had to go by and see the old house. It sure had changed a lot since we had seen in last, 7 years ago. 
I think the saddest part of the whole thing was the view from the back of the house. I honestly didn't even recognize it when we drove up!! ): 
