Christmas Pictures and Some pics for Kennedy Family

Well, as most of you know (see previous BLOG) we did not make it up to Oregon for Christmas. It was pretty sad and disappointing, there were many things that I (Bryan) especially missed, mainly the family and some traditions. However there were some very special things that happened and made this a good Christmas. It was my first ever White Christmas, maybe a little too white, there was quite a bit of snow in the last week (see some of the later pictures). Because we were planning on having christmas with my parents wer did not really need to do much for Christmas, but with the change in plans that changed, so we pulled out the christmas tree, put on all of the few ornaments that we have and then bought a strand of some pretty cool lights and got that set up really quick. Because of our new apartment not having a fire place we had to come up with something else for us to hang up our stockings and this thank goodness for the "Yule Log" TV station. So here are some pictures of the things that we did. It was a good Christmas, I am just glad that I was able to talk to my family who was in Oregon, spend it with family in Orem and be with my wonderful and supportive, loving, beautiful wife.

So here is our little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, it was a small artificial tree, but I must say that it really transformed our home, there was just something about setting it up and having the lights on that made it Chris-missy.

Danielle hanging up her stocking.

Bryan hanging up his stocking on the "mantle"



This is a picture of some quail that where right out side Mom and Dad's (Alice and Joe Raynes) back door, I was only about 5 or 6 feet from them when I took the picture, there were even a few more than this, it was quite the little flock, or gaggle, or mob or what ever you call a group of quail.

So this is the the part of the blog that has to do more for the California and Oregon family, (Also friends who have not seen our house). Back in July of this year we bought a house and I have really slacked about getting pictures out for people too see. Right now we are living in the basement and when we get to the point where we need it, we will be able to make the short move upstairs. So here are some pictures of the house (the indoor pictures are ones of the upstairs, given to us by Danielle's sister Alison who was the previous owner).

Here is the front of the house, taken the day after Christmas, with all of the whiteness.

This picture is of the driveway, just wanted to let you get an idea of how long it is. I must say that while I was outside shoveling snow I broke one of the ten commandments, I coveted my neighbors driveway (all of about the ten feet)


My car has not moved in a while, but this was after cleaning off and then a sunny day to melt most of it. Emalee wanted to see some picture of the snow because she did not believe that we had snow that actually stuck. Here you go Emalee.

Part of the kitchen of the upstairs house.

This is the front entryway to the house (looking out to the front door) with the stairs going up and a small room to the other side.

Just a picture to end the Blog, this is a picture of us on our annual trip to see the lights on temple square, they were beautiful, almost a beautiful as Dani.

No Oregon for Christmas

This was our trip, snow, snow and more snow. We left really early this morning (around 4:30) and the roads were not great, but not horrible. We made it all the way to Snowville, making good time when they closed down I-84. We holed up in Snowville for about three hours until we had missed our window of time that we would need to get over the Blue Mountains before the really bad storm hit and made things super horrible. So we reluctantly and very depressedly turned around and came home. The drive home was no peach either, but we much would have rather been dealing with bad weather if we were heading in the opposite direction (towards Oregon).
So now we are bummed out sitting at home wishing we were there. We are really going to miss you all up in Oregon this Christmas. Just know we wish we were there, and will be thinking of you!

How many me's are there?

BRYAN KENNEDY

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 195 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

DANIELLE KENNEDY

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 153 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

This was so interesting! We put in tons of Family names. The Raynes name is very exclusive! You should see Alison's name though! I think she wins the cake, but she named her kids very well cause they only had a few other people with their names, and Chancelor had NONE!!! So go explore! It was a lot of fun!

Early Christmas Presents

I had two Christmas on my mission, which is sometimes unusual for a sister missionary cause of how it works out with girls going only 18 months and all, (still SOOOOO jealous we couldn't go 2 full years!) Both were great! Full of the spirit and good people, and amazing food (more tamales than I could have ever dreamed of!) But I never had any gifts to open on Christmas morning! Now don't go thinking, HOW DARE HER FAMILY!! While yes, I do have 10 siblings and should have been showered with letters, but I only ever got mail from my mom and dad and 1 amazing sister Shelly who is so amazing and wonderful that she is going straight to heaven anyways, so she didn't even need the extra blessings! (Those three letters were my favorite, and I am not trying to diminishing them in anyway, because they were inspired every week to write exactly what I needed to hear, and Shelly does need those extra blessings cause she has to store up on blessings cause she has 9 heathen siblings to get into heaven!) Now back to the point, I truly never had any gifts to open on Christmas morning! My mom sent these incredible Christmas packages with all the Raynes Family traditions, like Caramel Popcorn and Chex mix, and TON of presents. So it wasn't her fault. IT WAS ALL MY FAULT, NO ONE ELSE'S!! I hate to wait! I am so impatient! I would open the packages the day I got them, and I didn't even think twice about open all my presents right then! I admit, it wasn't the most pleasant experience watching my companions opening present after present without any to open for myself, but that was my own doing and I knew it! They would warn me but nope! I can be a stubborn one! Just ask any of them! :)
Well, I did it again. I couldn't wait until Christmas and we got two of our Christmas Presents today. I guess I didn't learn my lesson because I didn't even pause before cracking into them! :) To be fair, one wasn't wrapped, and it took my amazingly talented father and my fabulous husband a good part of the day installing it and making it work. The other one wasn't exactly wrapped either, unless you count an Amazon Box as wrapping! But I love them both!!!
Here they are!

My Beautifully Powerful and agile Dyson Vacuum and.....

A WASHER AND DRYER!!!!!

Yes, yes it is true! We finally got a washer and dryer into our basement apartment, and we finally upgraded from our swivel sweeper to a real vacuum! Are we moving up in the world or what!?! he he he
Now I know I am so completely stoked about these two new additions to my home. They will make my life so much easier, and with much less hassle. But my mom is no longer speaking to my dad cause he installed them! (just kidding) She was sad we weren't going to be coming over every week for a few hours to do our laundry, so to save their marriage (also a joke) we promised to keep up the weekly visits, but with less baggage! So THANK YOU DAD! and THANK YOU BRYAN! for my early Christmas Presents. Hopefully I will still have at least one thing to unwrap on Christmas Day!

Memories

This sounds like fun, but could also turn into Blackmail material! :) So be kind! :) Ha, yeah right!
And Please share memories of either Bryan and I or both! :)


1. Add a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you

Farley Family FUN-FEST!!

Yesterday Bryan and I went to the Scera for a two hour laugh-fest that is The Farley Family Reunion. Seeing him do it live was absolutely amazing! He was much more interactive, and once when we it took us (the audience) a second to figure out a joke, he made fun of us! He pulled people up on the stage and gave them prizes (which were coupon from Albertson's or somewhere!) It was Bryan's first time ever seeing it, even on movie, and we both laughed the whole time!! My face hurt from laughing. As we were leaving Bryan leaned over and said, "you know who would love this, .... Daniela" I asked him why, and he said, "because she always comments on how much she loves your laugh and all you did tonight was laugh!"




This man is pure genius! The whole show I kept leaning over to Bryan saying, "Oh this is the best part!" " Oh no! This is the best part!" But truely, hands down, my all time favorite part of the play is the Magic Show. He did add some new things. When the little girl is praying with her hands folded on top of her head, he added a line, it went like this, "Heavenly Father, please bless Hussain Obama, that he can be the ruler of the world like he says." :) it was a crack up I'm telling ya! There was lady behind us that laughed so hard that when we finally went to intermission she leaned over to her friend and said, "I think I wet myself." :) Yup, it was that good! :) he he he



Well, we also found out that he is doing a Farley Family Xmas at UVU this December, and I for one am sure to be there! It would be a blast to have a bunch of us come! So, Come one and come all, be ready for laughs, and bring a change of underpanties!

More Treats than Tricks

Well, it has been a little bit since HALLOWEEN but I have finally gotten around to the blog part of it. First of all I must say something about my beautiful wife, she loves, loves, loves Halloween, it is one of her favorite holidays. To help spread the halloween cheer (fear?), she decided to throw the family halloween party [the parents were in Tennesee celebrating and visiting Denise and Family (who were all missed)] so that everyone would get together. So we decended upon the Compound and decorated, had some Rock Band (thanks to Nate F.) and some treats (that looked like tricks).

This is pretty much the spread for all of the people that came on over, it was a great fun with all the family and friends.

One of the fun things was a Cheese-n-Stein ball that was fun easy.

Gotta have you Mummy (pizzas) and Bloody Skulls cream cheese dip.

We wanted to do some outside stuff so we did a bunch of Jack 'o Lanterns which were pretty fun to make. Chancellor had fun running around.

What the? Chancellor was not exactly sure about Danielle (and her teeth) but it he had to check it out. It was great fun celebrating Halloween with family fun and getting to hang out with my beautiful (and for the day OLD) wife.

Life as a Teacher, it doesn't get better than this!!

So....life as a teacher has it ups and downs, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Almost every time Bryan asks me about my day he asks me, "What was the funniest thing your kids did today?" And everyday I have something to share. You can't go through a day without laughing when you work
kids. So when I got this I had to share it because it is the epitome of the funny things kids do! Enjoy!


The 'Middle Wife' by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday'

'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. 'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

'My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

'And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!' (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there.'

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along..

Last bit of the Family Reunion and our Oregon trip

Well, I found out that if you have a bunch of things to blog about, you should not waste them all at the same time, so I have waited a while before I finished up the sharing of our trip. One of the really cool things we did was to go to the Oregon Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. I was able to get a bunch of really cool pictures, here are some.

I know, I know, to all fishermen in the world it looks like a picture of a bait shop, but it was really cool to see how all these hundreds of fish moved as one all around there tank.

This is Danielle touching sting ray. It is not the yellow thing, it is the tan thing hiding under the sand right at her finger tips. They felt really slimy yet rough and strong.

This is a picture of a crab, yep a crab, but this thing is not small, it was at least 4 feet across. There was a bunch of them in this huge tank.

This is a picture of a lump fish, it was a dark tank, but I thought it was cool how it just came out of the Darkness.

This is one of my lovely wife Danielle touching a starfish, they also had a bunch of other things to touch like sea anemones, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and sunflower sea stars.

I think this crab was just as interested in us as we were in him, or he was planning his escape.

The had a big area that had tons of different seals that were all zooming around, with lots of them swimming around upside down, maybe they are Australian seals?

There were also three otters, and this one was putting on quite a show for us.

And this one is just one of a Puffin with an inferiority complex, or letting us know that he is not a small bird, but the big bird in the area.

This is one I really like, there was a pretty big tank full of this kind of jellyfish.

The family reunion was quite good, it was fun to see family and make new memories, and Danielle got to meet a few more of the extended family that she had not yet met and got to know some better. We were able to have a good time together and have a special first anniversary. The only downside to the whole trip was getting home. It took us 21 hours, because about 1000 feet from the Utah boarder (Idaho side) we got a flat tire. It was 7:30 on a Saturday in the middle of no-where. I put on the spare and found out that it was flat, so we needed to get help and it took several hours to get it, it was almost midnight before someone came, inflated the spare and then took us to a place that would open for us and put a new tire on. It was quite an ordeal, but as my wonderful wife reminded me, it could have been a lot worse.

First Anniversary

Well, it has been one year since Danielle and I were joined together for time and all eternity. It has been a very interesting year, a time of discovery, joy, happiness, some sickness, and togetherness. We were both commenting on how it seems to have been both a long time and also how fast it has seemed to pass. For our first anniversary (because of my family reunion in Oregon) we were able to go to the Heceta Head Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast. We stayed there and also did some other fun stuff.

The day started off with us going to the Yaquina Lighthouse. It was a very low tie so they have had lots of tide pools that you could walk around and discover. These are some of the things that we saw. (Or in other words vacation picture time)

There were lots of these green things. Pretty cool.

There were lots and lots of starfish, I thought they were really cool, this was a tide pool that had several, with a couple different colors.

This one is a little hard to see because of the glare from the sun on the pool but it has some starfish and purple urchins.

This one is a little hard to see, but all of the little bumps on the big rock are seagulls or cormorants.

This was a huge star fish, if I had held my hand up to it while taking the picture (good idea now) my whole hand would have covered the middle section only.

Another one with a couple of different starfish, I guess I have a thing for starfish (besides the yummy goodness of starfish soup)

This is one of a starfish getting ready to dine on the yummy-ness of mussel soup!

A picture of (L-R) My beautiful wife Danielle, my favorite little sister Kristen, my wonderful Mom, and my favorite cousin named David, David.

This is a picture of a tick that started crawling on Danielle, okay, well actually it is a crab that was put on her hand while in it's shell and then got out and started crawling around, and by the way the crab's name is Hermie (the hermit crab).

These are Hermie and some of his friends (L-R) Pépe, Hermie and Lequisha.

Another little crab friend that we found, they are small but they are really quick and wiry.

After visiting the Lighthouse Danielle and I went to Florence and had lunch, then we explored a little around the town, got some Dairy Queen treats and then drove down to the beach, we stopped a little ways up from the beach on a little area that looked over the jetty turns the ocean into the river. Then we checked into the Heceta Head Bed and Breakfast. It is a lovely little light keepers house that was turned into an Inn. They had a nice little garden that included:

ARTICHOKES!!

After checking in and exploring the house a bit we decided to go to dinner, we decided on one place, but as we walked in I almost choked on all the cigarette smoke, so we went down the street a couple of buildings to a nice placed called the "Bay Street Grill" and it was a very nice little place, one of the things that Danielle liked about it was this, if you can't tell what is it, here is a better picture:

Yep, foam soap, Dani loves the stuff, in fact I now have two family members that every time they see foam soap they think of Dani.

Another interesting thing we saw at dinner was the nicest arrest ever made. Dani saw a guy in the restaurant that seemed to be one of the waitresses boyfriend, then he left, as he did a cop stopped him, shook his hand and than began to talk to him. Another cop came up and really animatedly shook his hand and then Dani said she thought he was going to hug him, but instead turned him around and put cuffs on him and took him off. After dinner we went and saw the Dark Knight, in what might have been the worst theater that I have ever been in, but the movie was still amazing, I loved it. Then we went back to the Bed and Breakfast and celebrated our anniversary buy eating the top of the wedding cake that had been frozen and saved, it was actually pretty good, and then we went up onto the lighthouse at about 10:30PM. It was amazing, the pictures don't do it justice at all. It was so amazing it was a bit of a spiritual experience. We saw almost absolute darkness, and then from this center light, pillars of light showing us the way to go, just how we would imagine it when Christ is likened to a light house. Then we thought it was amazing as we realized that the light in the light house is always shining, it is just not that we see its true and full power until the darkness comes upon us.

A picture of the lighthouse from the yard of the B&B.

This is one of Danielle showing how comfortable and luxurious the bed was.

This is a picture of the B&B from below on the beach, quite the house.

This is a picture that has the mists that were coming in off of the ocean, just below the lighthouse.

A picture from the beach of the lighthouse during the day.

Another panoramic view of the ocean with rocks leading up to the lighthouse.

After one year of marriage, I am more in love with my amazing and beautiful wife that I was on the day that I proposed to her at this lighthouse, more in love than the day we got married, and I know that I will be in love with her a little bit more tomorrow. I am a lucky man to have her in my life and to have her as my wife. I love you Danielle, with all my heart and for all of eternity.-Bryan