Chris

Jenny

Mom

We have had a good trip to Southern Arizona.  We decided to come down while we had a chance at all.  We might have a chance later and maybe not.  So we seized the day.  Carp in denim or something like that. 

We waved to Mexico for a minute or two and then headed on to the Mineers.  It was lots of fun. 

Robert I have to tell you that it was really nostalgic to go places that you went and see birds that you saw and maybe even actually the same birds.  It has been good but I knew January wouldn’t be birdy.  I have seen a good variety but not lots of numbers.  Coolest bird was a Bridled Titmouse.  For some reason for me that was the goal bird.  I had a good time with him.  Anyway.

I tell you what Robert my kids love hanging out with the Mineers.  Karen has this set of trains that Zach loves.   He sets up trains of like 10 trains and pulled them all over the house.  It has been lots of fun.  Andrea has been loving it here as well. Things are neat.

Tomarrow or I guess as you read this today, we are going to go hiking with Sam and Don.  We are going to do that one hike we did when we came to Arizona.  Maybe you didn’t do that one because you were pretty young then.  Anyway things are looking like a lot of fun. 

What else can I saw?  I mean say?  Arizona has been pretty sweet.  I think that we should come down here and do a bird bonanza together.  In a good bird time. 

Well that is all.  I hope you have a good time.  I will have pics for you next week.

I love you all.  From Phoenix!

       so here are my thoughts on birds, this weeks special is the ruddy turnstone i cant remember if the ruddy part is correct? but the turnstone is! i have ticked about 15 others but that is the regular passer by’s i am afraid that i may already be in the slow time… well i will get to finish the year in america where the birds are more common so i will just enjoy my time here where they are more exotic!

             well each week i sit down to email wonder where the week went and then ponder about what to say, i always have so much i want to let out but it never seems to come in words so i am ushually very unsatisfied by the time my hour is up! to day i wanted to email a firend but turns out i dont have their email adress? well to bad i guess that is what happens when you delete all your emails after you read them? but look on the brite side that left more time for me to ramble on about things here were you all got to read!

              you know what have found out on my mission, that structure is key to progression, if you have structure you continue to refine it and improve it, if you have none you pass from day to day not knowing all that you are losing! the more structure we have the better every aspect of our lives can be! i have seen this with obedience the lord understood this eternal principle perfectly he new that structure would lead us home so he prepared a very stuctured plan for each of us, telling us down to the minuet what we need to do in this life to be most happy and to be prepared for eternal life with him, then he said you choose we get to decide if we want structure and the realated blessings or if we want out so called “freedom” where we just do and go where ever the wind blows… the fact is that the structure he gave us (commandments and gosepel and plan of salvation) is the key to freedom and our so called “freedom” is the beginning of enslavery! i pray that we will all choose the structured plan our father has prepared that is possible through following our example and savior!

               ok that is all i have

Elder williams 

Jen

Sorry, I hope that you have a happy birthday!

Have a great Birthday!

Chris

So my wife has done a great job on making our family website pretty cool with tons of pictures we took over the holidays.  Sadly I didn’t have any from Melissa’s camera so they are mostly of her house.  That is okay though… Check it out here www.chrisandalison.name . 

Well we have had a great week.  We have only been home for 6 days and are already getting ready to go one yet another fun little trip.  It is to Southern Arizona.  We will leave thursday and come back on monday…That will be a lot of fun.  We are going cause we might not get to go later, and if we do go later we want to scout out the area for the best birding areas we can expect later.  Anyway, it will be cool.

I tell you I didn’t expect my kids to be so relieved when we got home from Provo.  Being away from their own home (well apartment) and routine is hard on them.  They are definetily happy to be back.  They miss their family though.  Did anyone tell you that over the holidays everyone at the roylances and our house got sick?  The only person that never really had anything was Andrea.  Go figure.  The one who gets held by all and would be the weakest against sickness.  Blows me away.  Anyway, she is doing well.  I think that Mom and myself maybe only felt quesy.  But out of about 32 people we hung out with over the break only 2 or three didn’t throw up.  Talk about a plague.  Oh man.

What else can I talk about…

so goals this year for me are to read the standard works.  All of them.  That one is pretty lofty for me.  I think I can do it.

I also want to reach 400 life birds.  I have about 350. 

I also want to get to 300 birds photographed.  Maybe 200 is all I will get cause I don’t even know where I am really.  My goal is to have a good enough body of work that I could do a sweet show.  So we will see how that goes.  To start this off I have already gotten some nice pictures of a Crissal Thrasher, and Northern Pintail.  Just two towards the goal but now only 98 or so to go.  Anyway.

I am doing my thesis proposal in a few days.  This is pretty big for my project, and if all goes well it will be a big step towards getting done sooner than later.  I am working long days to get everything in.  Maybe even longer than you.  This week for sure.  I will be doing about 17 or so hour days to get 50 hours in before we leave thursday.  My oh my.  That is what it will take to be a full time student and photographer.  That is the goal. 

Accomplishments last year for me are having a continual 4.0 in my masters work.  I am number one in the program.  That is kind of a warm fuzzy for me.  I am proud that for 3 semesters I have kept that up.  We will see what happens the last semester.  It will be the hardest. 

One last story, Zach is wearing some of his little kid glasses and so proud, but he has to point his nose up and note move his head or they will fall off.  It is funny to see him walk with them on.

I love you!  I hope all is well.

love ya

elder williams

This has been a great week hanging out with family.  I tell you I have had fun.  My child (Zach) is finally getting better.  That is a relief.  He was a barfy boy.  I almost changed his name to Ralph.  I am his father, I think that I can do that. 

So today Jenny tried to kiss me.  She was shocked that she almost succedded.  It started when she was trying to give me wet willies.  Well that wasn’t really working.  So she was giving me a good buy hug and tried to lick my chin.  I changed position and stuck my tongue out and she was flabergasted to say the least.  It was hilarious. 

Oh I would watch out when you come home for the whole wet willy thing.  You may be in for a double digger or something…just watch out. 

So I am totally going to surprise Jenny buy picking her up from school tomarrow.  She thinks that I am leaving town in the morning.  I decided to give her a big surprise.  So if she reads this walk home the normal way…

Well brother.  We have snow and you have like not snow there.  Enjoy it.

I love you!

Well, enough giber. Have a good week, and good luck with everything! May the spirit be with you!

Jenny

-birthdays
-holidays (sence there are so many in the next few days)
-when school gets out, for you, and me (the 30)
ect. thanks.

peace out!

potteryandwoodturning@hotmail.com

iamcool_really@hotmail.com

i am pretty shore you know the pass word the has to do with my faovorte kind of bug remeber

any way you are awesome and now it looks like i might be home for the summer that means we are going to take over the world so get your self ready!

ok now the last week has been very crazy and very hard! i got a phone call from the mission president and he said my new comp was going to be Elder Baker, told me he wanted to go home and was really not doing good at all that my job was to change his mind and out look on life! then the next night after much prayer and worry over the future i found that he was going home and i would never get my chance to help him? because he went home my trypanionship (threesom) ended and i got emergency transferd back to old harbour where i will be until thursday morning? this moring the mission president called me and said keep holding on we still dont know what is going to happen to you? i will be honest life is hard right now i want to get to work i only have a very short time left on my mission and i have alot to accomplish and i am not getting anywhere? however i know that the Lord is in charge and that soon every thing will be worked out! next week you will hear if i get a companion or if i get tossed into another threesom? pray for me!

well fam i emailed early this week so i did not get to hear from you but i just talked to you so i am not to upset… love you all, until next week later!

Click on the link for the picture, I didn’t have the patients to resize them all. 

I love you all!

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i have a lot of really cool pictures as well but you will all just have to wait to see them likely, for about 4 and a half months then i will get a sweet site for mylelf and post a picture fienza! look for that comming soon in may 2008

well i am not shore about my future only 3 transfers left and i cant stay in this area because it is a three some? so i will more than likely be moving? this makes it hard to stay focused not hard to missionary just hard to work hard at devolping relationships that cant last… my mission is soon finished oh the man who know how to use the compy just came in let me see if i can get some pictures up…  ok they are on the site chris you put them up for me because my time is finished… you are all cool and beef stew

JEnny

              this week our mission president committed us to testifie to 50 people aday aside from our regular activities so far our record is 30 poeple! holy cow it is rough we litteraly talk to every one we can! my mission average for finding poeple per week is about 7 the last 2 weeks it has been double that and it is going up and up i am going to be a worn out well used tool when the lord is done with me! it will be awesome! hey chris i have some sweet shoes for you they are called bank robbers you will love them only you will have to wait until may to get them! sorry uh basically i dont have much to say to you all just that i am looking forward to talking to you on christmas and i hope really hope that mom and dad buy more than 1 and a half hours of phone credit for our christmas? last year my comp talked for about 5 hours and i was jelous… so come on my mission president told us we can take all the time we want christmas is ours!

well love you all and later!

Robert I found a sweet deal on Ecco schoes that would have landed me in a pair for just 70 dollars.  That would have been a sweet deal to the max.   I went back to get them and they were then 97 dollars.  They shanked my janga on that one.  I am trying to decide if that is going to be worth it to me.  I am excited about the shoes, but am unsure of the deal now.  We had decided that a pair of dress shoes for 50-70 was in the budget but new for Eccos at 165 wasn’t.  So I am trying to decide if the 20 over is justified or not…Probably not. That is why my feet are so sad.  Soon however they will be in some nice shoes somewhere…

Well I was also able to make some significant progress towards my conclusion of my masters work.  That is starting to form my committee for my thesis.  A real process trying to get 4 professors together to help me when they only have time for themselves.  It will work itself out…

So Robert, I have several great Ideas for you on the School thing.  The hardest thing for you may be the issue of deciding where to be and getting there.  Mainly if you want a sweet Art school then that will take a serious portfolio effort.  One that you would have to do, I couldn’t really.  So anyway, I will talk to you about that on christmas day, and I think that we can get something set up for you that will not see you wasting time. 

Keven I don’t know if you will read this, but I finally have ordered a camera, after 5 months.  This is a step for me that I am finally comfortable with.  I saved the cash and got a good deal.  The best part was that I got something that I will use to make pictures, not another toy.  It would have been the latter if I got one right after I lost the last one.  Anyway.

So I am also having a lot of fun lately tying flies.  I have discovered that I like to try new things and perfect techniques and things.  I have also come up with a few flies of my own that are sure to catch a million billion fish, at the vise at least.  I wonder if you will still like the tying of the fly when you get home.  I am excited to use that net you made me though. 

Well that is all.  I am thinking as well though that you career desires aren’t a waste by the way.  I am like Jenny excited to talk to you.  Zach will even probably talk to you.  He is getting to be a phone talker. 

Well that is all.  I hope that you are having a great week.  I am most excited this christmas for all the things Alison and I will do for other people.  We have saved 100 dollars to give to people outside our family.  I am excited.  Anyway, that is what we have up our week today. 

Oh, Andi rolled over today.  She lifted herself up and fell over on her side and then couldn’t get back so she just went the rest of the way.  She is getting pretty big. 

Have a great week all!

Chris

Alison’s Wish List (in no particular order)

1)      Clothes/JC Penny gift card

2)      Jewelry

3)      Good book/B & N or Deseret Book gift cards

4)      Illustrated scriptures

5)      Socks

6)      Twix candy bars

7)      John Schmidt or other piano music

      Restaurant gift cards to take my hubby on a date

9)      Assorted cards for giving—thank you or birthday…

Zach’s wish list (if he could type)

1)      Puzzles

2)      Coloring books/art supplies

3)      Magnets

4)      Toy musical instruments

5)      Pull ups (size four)

6)      Diaper wipes

7)      Little toy cars

      Toy rug with streets to drive toy cars

9)      Socks

10)  Clothes

11)  Books

12)  Fruit roll ups

13)  Apron for helping in the kitchen 

Andrea’s Wish List

1)      Clothes

2)      Diapers

3)      Socks

4)      Shoes

5)      Hair ribbons

6)      Anything on the baby isle

7)      Baby walker

Chris’ Wish List

1)       A New bike tire, 26 inch by 2 inch

2)      Watch (durable, time, date, alarm)

3)      Socks

4)      Nice clothes, or gift cards to by some? I would love button up long sleeve shirts…

5)      Year supply of raisin bars

6)      Barnes and Noble Gift Card or a good book

7)      Art Books (

      A snow cone maker

9)      Pocket Planner for 2008 (same dimensions as a check book and shows a week at a time)

10) Fly tying vise (or money towards such)

11) Sportsmans Gift card (for buying flytying stuff)

12) Fly tying lamp…

1. red ipod shuffle or nano
2. my own web page
3. portable hard drive like Chris and Nat’s
4. blanket like mom makes(out of jeans)
5. Webster pocket dictionary
6. every green candle, ones that smell like Christmas trees
7. audio books on cd like, enders game, the golden compass, any of the tennis shoes among the Nephits, the lord of the rings (not the Hobbit) the bourn books, Jurassic park, lost world and so on
8. nice Gerber pocket knive, single blade, not a tool
9. nice trash can, like a expanded steel one
10. DVD tower shelve,(to put my DVD cases on
11. big been bag, like Chris and Alison
12. far side calendar
13. computer games like Othello, or chess or you don’t know jack etc
14. cool fake plants or décor for my fish tank
15. prints for computer nothing fancy, just for school reports,
16. camping trip with Nat dad and Chris(and Robert if he’s home
17. fly’s and fishing license
18. money for school
19. howdy with a zipper
20. black Nike hat, or a independent one
21. only movie I would like for Christmas is the west wing series
22. gun shooting trip with dad and brothers
23. grape juice
24. new apple key board, not wireless
25. computer desk lamp lazier pointer
26. memory cards SD or compact flash