A Christmas to Remember 2007 - The Grandchildren

Of course the real story of this Christmas to Remember 2007 was having all our grandchildren with us this year. We remember Ruby singing her wonderful Christmas song at our Sunday sing-a-long and course riding horses with Nana. Conner Dean's total excitement for Christmas from his Christmas stocking to his new bike. Sullivan and his new riding horse of course named Gunney and his Cody Maverick bear. The wonderful happiness of little Orion as seen as he is peering out from his pack. He was like that all the time. Little Jeffrey David and his getting to know everyone and showing his wonderful smile. And for his first Christmas little Owen Dean slept and stretched and started to smile at his Mommy. These liitle ones have made this a wonderful Christmas to remember.

December 29, 2007 ( 2nd Post) of a Christmas to Remember 2007

This is my second post for Saturday, December 29, 2007. I have included a short video of Nana and Ruby riding Gunny together. They had great fun. Afterwards we went to Northwest Trek and saw all the North American wild animals including this elk that was right up by the tram we were in. I thought we had a great group picture while at the park but my camera ran out of battery so I lost it. We also stopped by the famous bakery in Eatonville and had treats before heading home. Later Grant and Brittany left to visit her family in Vancouver, Washington. Again we hated to see them go and have had such a nice visit with them. They were truly a part of making this a Christmas to remember. All the little cousins love their Uncle Grant and Brittany has been so fun to have here for the holidays.

The morning of December 29, 2007 of a Christmas to Remember 2007

So much has already happened this morning that it warrents it s own blog spot. Dave and Jennifer are leaving htis morning so Nana and Pop Pop got to play with the grandchildren for a while. We even have photographic proof of little Jeffrey David's wonderful smile. Ruby got to ride on Gunny this morning with Nana and had great fun. And then a last picture with Jen and Dave as they were leaving this morning. We miss them already but are so glad they came and helped make this a Christmas to Remember

December 28, 2007 of a Christmas to Remember

Today the big event was a hike to the Mashell River just south of Eatonville. Grant, Evan with Conner and Orion, and Jason with Sullivan went on the hike. It rained most of the time but we were dressed for it and had a great time. Grant bought the hot chocolate and I brought the caramel corn for goodies. We also stopped at the famous bakery in Eatonville on the way home. --DAD

December 26th of a Christmas to Remember

Today we all went for a ride on the Point Defiance ferry to Vashon Island followed by dinner at the Spaghetti Factory and then on to Zoolights. You can appreciate what it takes to move around with 9 adults and 6 grandchildren. One of the highligts was Nana and Pop Pop to have our picture taken with all six of the grand children while we wer riding the ferry. Conner, Ruby and Sullivan had a great time running up and down the deck. Zoolights was beautiful but it was a very cold evening.

Carrying on the Christmas Tamale Tradition

Christmas 2007 carried on the tradition of the Christmas Tamales. Jennifer, Camila and I made up two big batches of Christmas tamales on Christmas eve and they turned out great. We have shared several plates full with friends and enjoyed them as a family over the holiday. We have even started a tamale exchage with our good friends the Owens. Here you will see Jennifer and I with all the fixings putting the tamales together for steaming. This is a tradition the comes from Marlena and I serving our missions in Mexico. Feliz Navidad!! --DAD

NANA and POP POP's Chrismas Tree

Nana and Pop Pop are entering an entire a new technological phase with this first blog entry with the picture of our beautiful 2007 Christmas tree. This was take on Sunday evening, December 23, 2007 just after our Sunday dinner and before our evening sing-a-long. Today has been memorable as today little Owen Dean Anderson was blessed in Sacrament meeting. Jason gave him a wonderful blessing and later in the meeting Camila sang "No Golden Carriage" which she sang beautifully and which touched our hearts. We are grateful for Grant and Brittany's and Dave and Jen's safe arrival yesterday evening. All of our six grandchildren are here with us making this a Christmas to remember.

Oh! Chirstmas Tree!

Brit's cute post gave me an idea. I think it would be fun to see everyone's tree. Here is the Godsey family tree. I am just loving this holiday season.

Happy Anniversary #33

Happy Anniversary Jeff and Marlena. Mom and Dad. Your love and commitment for each other and this family is inspiring. Thank you for your wonderful example of kindness and how a marriage should be- happy. We love you.

the christmas teaser

Grant and I loved going up to Puyallup for a day during our visit to my Dad's for Thanksgiving. It was the perfect teaser for the trip up there during Christmas. These are a few photos I took on our walk around Bradley Lake.


The newest, most bundled up Mann, Owen.


Old One-Eyed Orion

Baby Owen!

Yeah!!! He's finally here. Our little family is growing. Sullivan loves his baby brother. Every time he sees him, he lets out a little giggle. It's so sweet to see him be a big brother. He weighed in at 7lbs. 9oz., and was 20 inches long. We love him!

Halloween

The boys got to go trick or treating at Pop Pop's work. They had so much fun. They would try to grab as much candy as their little hands would allow them from the candy buckets.

Nanna and Pop Pop

We recently were in Seaside Oregon for the annual Surf Trip. Nanna and Pop Pop were so sweet the grandkids. Here they are putting Orion and Sully to sleep. Nothing Sweeter in the world.

Real Cowboys wear binkis

So Conner and Sully have been playing a lot together lately. Sullivan copys everything Conner does. It is so cute to watch them.

Marcilyn

I should have know from our trip that Marcilyn was going to become a traitor. It was such a beautiful place she just had to have more. School was the only excuse she could find for going to live there for a full year. Although luckily this time I think you will have all around better internet access. I hope you have an amazing time, I wish I were there with you. Enjoy every moment, we will miss you until your return. LOVE your oldest sis.

Marcilyn

Evan sent out an invitation for pictures of the mouse. This is one of the several self done photos shoots we did. Marcilyn and I always laugh about how un-photogenic we are so occasionally we will try and take a picture. Most of the time we just end up laughing and the pictures are not amazing. This picture was taken while sitting in the waiting room of the hospital anticipating the arrival of sweet Sully boy. Here we are- in all our unphotogenic glory. I love you Marcilyn!

Balloon Fiesta

Last week was Balloon Fiesta. It was a wonderful week of seeing tons of balloons up in the sky every morning. This is our third year, but it's still amazing to see. I have never seen this many balloons in one place anywhere else. It's really a lot of fun. We were in a parking lot behind the balloon fiesta park so sorry about the power lines in the pictures.

Cute Cousins

So, Sully and Conner have become really good friends, and they play so well together. Sullivan gets sooo excited when we tell him Conners coming over. He jumps up and down, giggles screams and just freaks out. It's adorable. So I think we all need to plan on living no farther than an hour apart from eachother because cousins are so important.

Fare thee Well...

…Life is good, and joy runs high
Between English earth and sky…
-William Ernest Henley

A tribute and well wishing to my adventurous little sister on her way to England today. May life be good and joy run high during your stay in England. You will be greatly missed among the Mann Family. We love you!
-Evan

I'd like to invite all those who may read this and know Marcilyn to post there favorite pictures of Marce and wish her well.

Winter is Coming

A couple of days ago I was on the phone and I saw Ruby rummaging through the hall closet. I didn't see what she was doing until I got off of the phone. I died laughing when I saw her dressed like this. It is purely a Ruby creation. I thought it really captured the change in seasons. In case you can't tell, it's a swimsuit and skirt with all of her snow stuff added. It's sort of a goodbye summer hello winter kind of outfit.