Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fall 2009

What an amazing time we've had the last few months. So many changes have happened and we had some fun and some stress!
The most important and fun change we've had is Daniel coming home from his mission on September 1st. We were so excited to finally see him again. He was home for a few weeks before he went to Utah County to find a job and start working before beginning school in January at BYU. He is working at the Brick Oven in Provo. His hours aren't great and they are not flexible with his schedule, but it's a job! He doesn't work on Sunday which he is especially happy about!
Braden opened his mission call on August 5th. He opened it up at about 11:15 p.m. He was working that day and Max wasn't home in the morning. He was so excited and we could hardly believe it when he read Brazil Recife. Now we have three weeks until he leaves. He is excited and anxious to leave and admittedly nervous. I am excited for him and so sad that I won't see him for two years.
The other big event and the stress that we "enjoyed" was having an exchange student from Brazil come and stay with us. We chose a girl named Izabella. We communicated with her through email and felt like we got to know her and her family before she came. We were excited to have her come and met her at the airport with a big sign and balloons. Nathan introduced her to all his friends and took her to all her classes for 3 days. She was here for about 8 weeks and she left and is now in Arizona. She could have really fit into our family well, but she wanted a maid and special treatment. Well more special than what we were giving her. She mostly didn't want to have any rules or anyone telling her what she had to do or not do! In fact, she wanted to tell us what to do! It is very good that she is not here anymore because things are much more relaxed and pleasant here now. But what an interesting experience!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Monday, March 16, 2009

Two Moms and Dads

Derek has been asking why he doesn't have two moms and two dads like some of his cousins.  He really didn't think it was fair!  I tried to explain how lucky he is that he only has one mom and one dad and he finally seemed to accept it - until yesterday.  We were sitting at church waiting for stake conference to start and he suddenly said, "I do have two dads!"  I said, "You do?".  He said, "Heavenly Father and Dad"!  Sure enough!  He was pretty excited to realize that he wasn't being left out of the two Dad club.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Water dripping from the ceiling

Last Tuesday in the middle of the night Braden came into my room and said, "Mom there is water dripping from my ceiling." Well I of course was hoping that it was some kind of joke, but when we got down to his room sure enough there was water dripping right down over his bed. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from at 2:00 a.m. and so we gave up, turned of the main water into the house and went back to bed. Once we got up for the day it took a couple of hours to figure out that the water going into the toilet upstairs was leaking. It was an easy fix at the toilet, but Braden's ceiling is half gone now and we are drying it out before we start the big repair. It could have been worse!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Christmas

I know it is February, but I just want to say: We had a wonderful Christmas! Because money has been very tight the last couple of years we have realized that the most important part of Christmas is not the gifts! Having our oldest son on a mission and far away at Christmas has also made us all realize that the most important things aren't things. We all really enjoyed our traditions: Christmas Eve dinner, egg nog, decorating the Christmas tree with the same old decorations, reading about the first Christmas in the Bible. We also thought more about our Savior and all that his birth and atonement means to us! Of course a huge highlight of the day was talking to Elder Barker on the phone. It was so great to hear his voice!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Hurricane Football

We have a such a fun football season with Braden and Nathan. They did a great job and they were very successful. Nathan played all season on the JV team which was undefeated! Then before the last game of the season the coaches gave him a Varsity uniform. Braden played all year on the Varsity team which only lost one game in double overtime to a bigger school. Then the playoffs began and the winning continued. They lost only in the championship game to Juan Diego. It was a great game. We are very proud of the boys!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Hi

Hi family and friends,
I just thought that the Barker Family should "get with it" in this computer age and so here we are!