Scouts

After his 8th birthday, Luke was extatic to be able to start cub scouts!  Now we have two cute, crazy little cubs!

Visitors

We had lots of fun showing our visitors around North Carolina!
We went to the Biltmore Estate with my parents and Janice and Grandma. After my parents were gone, we spent a day in Gatlinburg, TN.  We also shopped an antique shop, went out to dinner, on a hike, walked around downtown Asheville and the flea market and went to Live After Five at the Biltmore. It's always great having family come visit!

Luke's Baptism

We had a special day last weekend. Our Luke turned 8 and was baptized on his birthday! We were lucky enough to have my parents, Kendall's parents and Kendall's Grandma Moore all come in to town to be there for the baptism!  Not only were surrounded by our family, but many of our NC adopted family attended the baptism. We felt so loved!!

Kendall baptized and confirmed Luke and I was, once again, grateful to be married to a good, worthy Priesthood holder.  Brother Arnold (Luke's primary teacher) gave a talk on baptism and my dad gave a talk on the Holy Ghost.  My mom and I sang a song.  The service was sweet and perfect.  Luke was visibly, giddily excited stepping into the water and I was teary as he received the Holy Ghost.

His Grandpa Andersen gave Luke a baptism journal the morning of his baptism.  This sweet boy spent the day carrying that book around and getting it all filled out.  He got testimonies from his primary teachers and family members and filled in what happened at this baptism and what he felt.  He is a self-starter and self-motivated and I look up to him!

I am so grateful to be a member of this true church. I am grateful that I can teach my children to follow the path back to live with our Father in Heaven.  I am proud of Luke for the good boy he is and for making the decision to get baptized and I am grateful that we can be a family forever!

Hands On

We've had our share of snow days lately.  In fact, I think eleven since we moved here!  At first I thought it was funny and now I'm just getting mad.  We have to make up every one of these days at some point.  In the meantime, we're trying to have some fun on those days off.

We tried a cute little Children's museum called Hands On. The boys favorites were the big bubble sheet that you could blow through and the ramp that you raced your lego cars on.

Winter Fishing

We headed to the nearby Lake Julian to do a little North Carolina winter fishing.  It was beautiful, though we caught nothing.

Anderson Visit

When we moved to NC, we were excited because it meant that we might be able to drive up and visit my sister in Toronto sometime.  Well, right after we moved here, they learned that they'd be moving to Tokyo.  That's not really drivable anymore. Bummer.  However, they flew down to Florida for a vacation before their big move and rented a van and drove to our humble abode in NC to spend a few days with us before flying home from here.  We loved having visitors and found some things to do even in the cold winter temperatures.

We always have fun with the Andersons and are grateful they could make the trip!

We went to the Arboretum to see the Lego exhibits.

The kids were playing a really exciting game on the slide where they had a race to see who could go down the slide the slowest!

We were able to get a groupon for an awesome gem mine in Hendersonville.  Each kid came away with a bag full of gems from their adventures!  So fun!

It was all a little much for Little Leah, so she just napped in the stroller.