Shepard Christmas 2009

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Anyone for funny movies?

No babies were hurt in the filming of this movie! Amelia and Chris sent this to us. Enjoy!

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/xgU6UnC6RGa9b7lh

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Merry Christmas from El Dorado Hills

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Girls and Their Quilts

I found some pics from the family celebration in Fremont of Mom, Hillary & Joanna and the quilts Mom made for them. Enjoy!

Mele KalekiMale

Tamale making at Emily's today! A beautiful Hawaiian day. We made 200 tamales. Ole!

The Purple Christmas Tree

Last Sunday as we arrived home from church, we found this on our porch. We are pretty confident that it has found the exact right home. Savannah Frances was the author of the note. We are very excited to have our very first purple flocked Christmas tree. Thank you Savannah and Family!!

The Kitchen

Here are five photos showing the progress so far on our kitchen. Will (who's visit was perfectly timed by God!) led the team of Joseph and Mark in demolishing the kitchen. The tile was a bear!! The cabinets were actually built in place and the back of the cabinets were the drywall. It was a custom job of it's time and very solidly built...a little too solidly for our purposes...right guys?!? They did a stellar job. Phil came in on Friday and took out the old windows and put a new, smaller one in their place. Will continued with repairing drywall and the boys did various jobs including Mark crawling under the house a few times to bring electrical wiring to new places. Such fun!! The last two pictures show what happened yesterday with the beginning of the installation of new cabinets. We've got 6 weeks of construction ahead of us. Some of it just waiting for the next piece to come in. It's all good and we're looking forward to January!!

Little Blue Eyes

If you haven't been checking Alli and Ben's blog then you missed this cutie.

Isn't he great!!
(Double click on the image to make it bigger)

Positively Possum Cute

We woke up to visitors in our backyard. They didn't stay long after this picture.

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An Abraham Apple Hill Adventure

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Bumper Crop

Knowing how I love persimmons, several years ago Paul replaced our (mostly ornamental) peach tree with a persimmon tree. We get a few persimmons a year but this year we hit the big time! Today we picked our first crop (meaning more than one or two at a time). There are more on the tree too. Once I was introduced to how to eat them fresh - cut off the tops and scoop them with a spoon- I was set.

Breaking news!

Clark learned to sit up today! Allison says he does this smile all day long! She also says if he gets distracted he falls over. Well I still do that too sometimes so I think he is great!

Watch this space

I recently was with Emily and she learned (quickly) how to post an entry on the blog. After this weekend I expect she will put some pictures here and a note about the dance recital.

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Don't bother looking-its a practice

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Our Bike Team

Today we, Aunt Julia, Uncle Paul, Uncle T, and Emily all went biking. Don't you love our stylish outfits? :) We biked from El Dorado Hills to Sacramento along the American River for a total of 33 plus miles!!!! We saw deer, wild turkey, and Uncle Paul (yes, Mr. Fit Biker Guy) walk his bike!

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Volleyball has Begun

The preseason has been challenging. The team consists of five returning players and five new players. They've won a few and lost a few more.
You can check out pictures at the website:
http://depts.clackamas.edu/athletics/volleyball/index.htm
Once you're there, click on Team Roster and then Jo's name; click on Photo Galleries and you'll see pics from the home game last week. There are a lot of pics of our girl as she plays the whole game every game. Also made Player of the Week last wk. as she's their "go to" girl :>)
Kinda fun. Happy fall to all of you. Guess you know how we'll be spending ours.

First day for all

Today was a very monumental day at Sarah and Ray's house. Savannah started Kindergarten, Brandon started middle school and Michael started high school. And Mom (Sarah) had her second day of school. Grandma Franny and Papa Rick showed up for pictures and then a great breakfast after sending the kiddos off to school. It makes for a great morning! Michael left early - had to catch the bus at 7:20 a.m. and anyway it is not cool to take your picture for your first day of high school. They all had a good start and have decided to return tomorrow.

Giving it the old Collage try!

I am at the dead end of my summer so I'm spending time learning to do new things on the blog that I was going to do in summer. Where did the time go? Enjoy!
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Sizzle-fest!

 

Julia's playtime

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He's here! He's Really Here!

This is my last day of vacation and I convinced John to take us to the coast for the day. We picked up Joanna around nine and after stopping to replace a burned-out turn signal bulb, we headed to Pacific City -- THE BEACH!! To prove Joseph is definitely here with us and has been for two wks., and because I'm sure his mom would appreciate it, we took pictures!!
The first picture is a mosaic at the entrance to the beach with tiles made by school children. The last picture is Haystack Rock #2. Haystack Rock numero uno is in Cannon Beach a little further up the coast. Too bad my zoom isn't great because there were 2 surfers and one sea kayaker by Haystack. It was a lovely day. We walked the beach and then walked and window shopped.
Almost forgot, chowder bowls at Mo's -- THE BEST!!