Service at the Food Bank

We decided a while ago, that as a family, it is important that we provide service for others. This year we went to the food bank. We decorated and filled goody bags for those needy children that come to the food bank for help. It was a great experience and I think everyone learned how fortunate we are and that we have been blessed with so much in our lives. We took a tour of the food bank and learned the process of donating food and how much it really helps our community.

The food bank has a huge scale, so everyone in our family jumped on to see how much we weighed together. Hahaha! We weighed a TON....literally!

Here is Easton coloring a bag for the food bank kids

Jensen coloring as well, doesn't look to enthused, but I know he had a great time with his cousins

John and Tanner...

Boom using his creative skills...

It was enjoyable to visit with everyone. We need to do it more often, but life seems to be so busy.

The kids table, they enjoyed visiting as well. We are truly blessed with a family that enjoys one another so much.

Shea and Kyle...

Todd and Annie.....

Listening to our instructions....

Anxiously awaiting our project...

It was a great way for us to share in the Christmas Spirit, enjoy our family, serve others, and have gratittude for all of our wonderful blessings.

Thanksgiving with Family is the Best!

Thanksgiving is all about family and about gratitude for all of the many blessings that we have. We are very fortunate to have the family that we do. I have to say that we all love each other, enjoy spending time together, encourage one another, and have been blessed with a great heritage. Thanksgiving with family is the Best! We spent Thansgiving together with our entire family....all 4 Whittaker families, Po and Ginny (Ann's parents) and Pop and Gege(my parents). It was great....we are truly blessed!
All 4 Whittaker siblings....

Boom, Marnie, Pop and Gege

Clockwise....Troy and Cari, Shea and Kyle, Po and Ginny, and Tessa and Easton

Clockwise.....Meg Talon and Jensen, Cari, Clayton and Jordyn, Troy and Pop

Cathy and John

Dani and darling Graham

Clayton, Jordyn, Tayla, and Meg

We had quite the group. It was so fun to all sit at one table!

Shea and Kyle's first Thanksgiving being married

The bird carver....Thanks for having us to your home Todd and Ann. It was a great day and we enjoyed it so very much!

Jeep Liftin'!

After many years of having a lift for the Jeep, it is now lifted. It was quite the adventure! To great young men from Boom's singles ward, came over and volunteered their time to help Boom get the lift on the Jeep. I have to admit, that this post is mainly so Logan can see the progress!

Alan Taylor, our great neighbor and friend was the "Go-to and How-to" guy via the internet. He was a great help and support to the project.

It was quite the project, but one that we were glad was done. I think Boomer had a great time and enjoyed it alot. He even learned some things.

Chaz Nelson and Matt Redd were awesome to come and help and so willing! Thanks so much!

Chaz and Matt....

St George Swim Meet....Go Cavemen!

The Cavemen Swimmers attended a meet in St. George on Nov 5-6, 2010. The men's and women's teams both took third in a meet with many teams. Go Cavemen! Jensen competed in the 50 Free and the 100 Free, and did his personal best in both events.

Shea and I went down to St. George to support Jensen and watch him swimm. It was a great trip and it was very fun to spend time one on one with Shea. We stayed at our great friends the Swensen's and are grateful to them for letting us visit with them and stay at their home. We met up with our friends the Colemans who are also past AF neighbors and we all went to dinner and caught up with each others lives. Always great to have good friends that even though you don't see them often, you alwyas know they are there for you.

Jensen and fellow swimmer and friend, Devon Gethers. Jensen attended missionary discussions with Devon and was there when Devon joined the church. What a great experience!

Jensen and Devon before their races! They were in the warm up pool.

Jensen just prior to his race. Jensen was so nervous that he threw up twice before his first race. Nothing like anxiety before you have to swim!!

Jensen in the front, its kind of hard to see him because of the other big guys behind him. Haha!

I feel his anxiety, I think I would have thrown up too!

Waiting for "On your marks...."

and the horn sounds.....

Diving in....

It was a great weekend and we enjoyed watching Jensen and the Cavemen compete. We look forward to many more years of cheering Jensen and the Cavemen swimmers on!!

2nd Annual Fish Out of Water 5K

Jensen's swim team held its annual 5K on Saturday morning. Jensen, Kim Taylor and I participated in the fun event to help raise money for the Cavemen Swim Team. This was Jensen's first 5K race and he did great! They had over a hundred runners there to support the Swim Team.

Jensen approaching the finish line. He only stopped once to tie his shoe and ran the whole way. He was nervous, as usual, about running because he hadn't ever ran before, but he did great and pushed it hard at the end.

Jensen finished in 28:18. I was very proud of him that he chose to run the 5K instead of running just the mile, which was an option. It did take me coaxing him a bit.

Kim and I ran as well. She is my faithful running partner and I don't think I would exercise half as much if I didn't know she would be there eaiting for me. Thanks for all her support and being there to run with me on Saturday. It was a fun way to start our Saturday morning.

We finished in 29:50. We wanted to finish under 30 minutes...so go us!

Spooky Halloween!

Can you guess who these spooks are? I grew up with these two dressing up for Halloween. My dad and mom would dress up and go scare the people in our neighborhood and ward, but they haven't dressed up for years. My mom decided about a year ago that it was time to dress up again. They make a handsome looking couple. My mom made their costumes and made the bread that they took around to people that they visited on Halloween. My kids thought that it was awesome that their grandparents were cool enough to dress up. Thanks for the memories!

Boom had to dress up for his singles ward Halloween party and we decided that he definitely need a costume with hair. He always takes the kids trick or treating and I get to man the door. This year it was pouring rain so we didn't have many trick or treaters and Easton only went out for a short time because he was soaked from the rain. Easton was Frankenstein, so we decided that Boom could be his creator the "Mad Scientist"

Here is our Halloween crew. Vampires, Witches, Frankies, Hillbillies, and Greasers! It made for a very fun Halloween. We had chili and cornbread and watched our traditional "Hocus Pocus". It was fun to be together.

Frankenstein and the Mad Scientist

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Have you got my costume yet?

It was October 1st and Easton came to me and asked...."Mom where's my costume? Have you got it yet?" I said "E, its the first of October, I have 4 weeks to get it ready. Do you know what you want to be?" He told me that he wanted to be Frankenstein. Great! How am I going to pull that one off. So every day after he asked me the first time, Easton would say "You got my costume yet?"

I found a how to in a magazine and I think it turned out pretty well. He made a great Frankenstein and what matters most is that he was happy!