Sarah's Happy Christmas

Sarah thinks that any type of party is party for her.

She was really happy to have her own present to open, and even more thrilled with the gift.

Sarah carried her new rawhide bone around for at least 45 minutes. When we refused to let her bury it outside, she decided that stuffing it between the cushions of Jeremy's couch was an acceptable substitute.

Christmas Letter 2008

Our Christmas letter is available here for anybody who is interested! Merry Christmas!

Kevin's Graduation

On Friday, December 12, Keven graduated from the Wichita Police Academy. The ceremony was held at the Friends University chapel. The surroundings were very pretty and the ceremony was lovely. The graduation was also mentioned in the newspaper!

Kevin marches in with the other Police Academy graduates.

Caiden, Kelly, Kevin, Vanessa, Sylvia, Kirk, and Linda after the ceremony.

Thanksgiving Trip to Colorado: A Mini Photo Montage

We made it back to Colorado for Thanksgiving for the first time in a few years, thanks to Kirk's forced time off due to the backup caused by the Boeing strike and Cathy's super fabulous school schedule. It was extremely busy and lots of fun! We got to see several friends who we had not seen in ages as well, which is always a treat.

Dinner at Old C's with the Denver crew. Cathy, Kendra, Tom, Kendra's sister, baby Ethan, Leslie, and Jason.

Kirk and our nephew Caiden take a nap.

Cathy helps Sarah the Wonder Dog say hi to Caiden.

For some reason, we took a picture of the coffee that Dustin, Kirk and I drank...but no picture of Dustin. Huh.

The Breadbox's First Mishap

The Resident Mr. Fix-Its

I somehow managed to blow up the wiring in our kitchen with our vacuum cleaner. I also was not able to switch the circuit breaker back to on, which concerned the engineers of the house. Of course, they like nothing more than trouble shooting a problem, so they spent last evening hanging out with this:

Kirk especially loves playing with the multimeter. Sometimes he'll go around and test things with it for fun.

Look at those big smiles! I bet they wish something would break every day, just so they could fix it!

I don't remember what ended up being wrong, but they were able to fix it. It took several hours and a trip to Lowes, but we have power in the kitchen again.

Kirk's next project is to replace the plug on my vacuum. The dramatic explosion (there was a loud pop AND smoke! ) melted something in the plug. He does not think that there will be any problem with the vacuum. I'm kind of hoping that there will be, so I can get a Dyson.

Rain!

We're getting a lot of rain in Wichita! We have not flooded at our house, but the areas around us have. Our cul-de-sac was really full at one point, but it calmed down so I went to get a few things, not realizing how bad it was beyond our house.
My first stop was Target. I snapped this picture just before I backed out to turn around. (I could not see how bad the road was until I turned to get in, or else I would not have tried it.)
Another picture of Target using my close up feature. Looks like Target is now on lakefront property.
Wal-Mart's roads were not flooded, so I made the rare decision to buy the stuff I needed there. The roads were fine, but parts of the parking lot were flooded, as you can see.

We're expecting more rain today and tomorrow. We have not flooded in the house, and we're crossing our fingers that we stay that way!