Thought I'd include a few pics of the spec house Shawn and Jason have been working on. After taking several months off to do some road jobs, they went back to work full time on it, and it's been coming along great! Course, it needs to be a bit warmer before the outside will be painted, but here it is in raw form (without rock yet).
opposite side of the house
In the basement living/rec area.

opposite view of the living/rec area

Auntie Carolyn was paranoid (as well as myself and everyone else!) that one of the kids were going to fall into the "hole" in the floor. She was holding guard....
New hardwood floors, thanks to Rob Buckingham. The fireplace on the right is an indoor/outdoor (deck outside)
opposite view
Master bath (a small part of it)
This is going to be a pretty cool feature in the house. Above the fireplace will be a water feature and it will all be surrounded by rock.

ok, we have to admit, we are somewhat redneck (or alot). How many people slide their kids in a cooler across the ice? Caleb loved it so much he didn't want to get out!
Even the cat had a great time on the ice!
...it was ready to use!
and dumping more water to make it smooth (the hose was froze).....
Shawn saw great opportunity in making the pool into an ice rink, so after shoveling... (read above)

Enjoying a little evening story time with grandma and grandpa Sanderson.
Ashlyn has gotten enthusiastic about piano again, and has even taken time to give her baby Annabell doll lessons as well as Cody and Caleb!
Ashlyn has become quite an artist, especially with drawing horses, so we took her to the local ceramic shop to have her make a permanent piece of art.

This picture was actually taken along the lake shore at the polar bear dip. You can see we were NOT participating, but we enjoyed watching the people who did!
These local cars were all parked in a row. These owners really don't get out much! You wouldn't want to be in a hurry when going to work in the morning.
I loved the mirror only sticking out on this one.

In 12 degree weather, at a LOUD snowmobile race, Ashlyn decided she was warm and comfy enough in a "quiet and relaxing" atmosphere to have a nap. That's what I call TIRED!

Chelan has an ice festival here that provides a little entertainment for us locals. There's a little ice skating area, snow sculptures, snowmobile races, a polar bear dip and fireworks. However, if you check out the links below, you will see what a real ice festival is like. If this were a tad closer, I'd make it a winter destination spot!

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2005_hb_if.htm

http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/sandre/harbin_ice.htm

Cody loves to do this and say "my thung ith thtuck, my thung ith thtuck!"

Ashlyn and a new pal
Going out the front door can be a little intimidating at times.... I'm waiting for one of us to be shishkabobbed someday.
Caleb is still not quite fashion coordinated, but I'm not holding my breath on that one...

you can't tell here, but of course, the shoes always have to be on backwards too.
Mommy's top made a perfect dress for Caleb. For some reason, he got really attached to this shirt and wore it several days in a row - he'd go and get it out by himself and put it on!

This was Grandpa Danell's present (a replica old pedal car), but I think the grandkids enjoyed it just as much! An awesome photo prop in a B&W pic for the boys someday I think.....

Uncle Steve trying out the sled run. There's a trail from the house down to the flat that makes a fantastic sled run - only the tree down at the bottom makes it a little more than thrilling to see if your head will miss it as you fly by on the way down! The guys fortunately built up a nice burm (sp?) so we could fly across the flat instead. Even the young kids enjoyed the thrill of speed down the long run!
Cody and Brandon
Enjoyed some good 'ol pictionary
Grandma and Grandpa Danell's

Santa came this year as a flashback in time in his younger version. This is what he looked like before white hair, wrinkles and a big pot belly set in!All the grandkids on Danell side - Brandon, Ashlyn, Jessica, Cody, Megan and Caleb!

Cody and Ashlyn with cousin Jessica
Our new rental house that we moved into right before Xmas vacation. It offers us a little more space, more bathrooms, less storage, but a nicer kitchen and..... a swimming pool! The garage unfortunately is not available for us to use. It's directly across the highway from the spec house the guys are building (so now I get to spy on them!!)

We honestly don't abuse our children! Within a few weeks, all 3 kids managed to have a problem with their eyes - Cody and Caleb's from smacking into things and Ashlyn's was from her cold.

Cody's eye on the mend

A nice shade of eyeshadow??

So this is where I would normally have posted Caleb's 2nd birthday pics, Xmas vacation with grandma and grandpa Sanderson and numerous other memories. However.........I pulled a dumb moment and left my camera out by the pool at the Marriott, later remembered, and it was gone. So some thief got a nice camera and 700+ treasured moments of mine, which mean absolutely nothing to them. Lessons learned......

Anyway, we had a busy time between Ashlyn's birthday, Thanksgiving, Caleb's birthday... then we got the opportunity to move into a new rental house, so we packed and moved in one week, finished late the Fri. night we left for Sequim on Xmas vacation. There we had a wonderful time with family and enjoyed a couple nights at the Marriott in SeaTac. Back to Sequim for a few more days, then at the end of the week, left there and drove to Chelan, stopped for a few hours and continued on to Colville to grandma and grandpa Danell's for New Year's.

Hope everyone had some wonderful holidays and that 2008 has started out happy and healthy.