Haircuts!

These pic's always go in backwards! You'd think I'd learn... Anyway, Jonah and Ezra got haircuts last month. I hate giving haircuts so I usually just buzz them twice a year. Jonah wanted me to shave his head but I told him he'd have to be happy with the shortest buzz I could give... And of course Dirk had to get into the picture too. He thinks he's human, you know. I still haven't cut Grae's hair. He wants to grow it until is birthday (May 4). I haven't cut it since last summer so it's getting pretty long. Oh, the joys of boys and haircuts...

Pre-hair cut. Handsome, don't you think?

All done! Still adorable. Phew!

Random Old Pics From My Phone.

I finally downloaded the pics from my old phone. Here are the highlights. Start at the bottom. It will make more sense.


Grae fishing for crawdads.




We cooked them up and ate them all. The boys loved them.

The boys caught lots of crawdads.

Grae enjoying the sun.

Travis invited us to go camping with him and Cree.

Our first family night back in Arizona. It felt good to be home.

Ashley, Bree and Claire

It was crazy to finally be done. Even though it went fast, it felt like it would never end at times.

Celebrating our last day of school. Todd, Katie, Rita, Connor and Sheila.

Rikki, Derrick and Levi on our double date with our third wheels. (Levi and Easy)

Cameo and Easy on the ferris wheel at Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado. This is the night we told the kids we were moving back to Arizona. Granger and Jonah almost cried. Colorado had been good to us.

Easy had fun.

View of Devil's Head, Colorado

This is the fire tower lookout from the top of Devil's Head.

We didn't get to do much family hiking in Colorado because I was always so busy but this was a fun day.

Me, Jonah and Easy

This was a fun family hike we went on after Cameo got us lost for five hours.

This is one of the only times I felt the "coolness" of Colorado. Colorado is cool. It's just overrated.

My friend Adam and I climbed two 14,000 plus foot peaks in one day. It was really fun.

AZ it is...

Well, we're back in Snowflake and we're staying. Lynn got a job at the hospital in Whiteriver, which is about an hour drive from our house. He's liking it a lot so far and I think it'll be a great fit for him. Once he passed the NCLEX, he "treated" himself to some Trapper's banana cream pie. Man, being away from Trappers for the last year and a half has made us crazy for thier cream pies. Those of you that live up here know what I'm talking about. Ezra enjoyed his pie too!

Christmas was a blast! Our kids are the best ages for Christmas. Cora finally got her dog... We got Dirk, a German Shephard mix, at the local human society. He's been a great dog so far.

Merry Christmas 2009 and Happy New Year 2010

I figure this is better late than never...

2009 began with our family living in Aurora, Colorado where Lynn was attending nursing school to become a Registered Nurse. We spent a lot of time enjoying our new friends in Colorado and living a "scheduled" life... which took quite a lot of getting used to. In March, another little boy was born, Ezra Luke. It's been fun to have a baby in the family again after four years.

The year was pretty low-key. We had to stay put as Lynn was in year-round school but at the end of June we were able to take a week in our motorhome to go see Banff National Park in Canada. It was beautiful and exceeded all of our expectations! Perfect family trip with hiking, sightseeing, horseback riding, etc.

In July we had four weeks of back-to-back company with family and friends coming to vacation with us. We got a lot of use out of our Elitch Gardens Amusement Park yearly passes that month... They were quite worn by the time the season closed.

In the fall Cora started 3rd Grade and Granger started 1st Grade, while Jonah started preschool. All three are adorable and brilliant and breaking world records inbetween winning Pulitzer prizes and normal stuff like that...

In August Lynn and I decided to conquer P90X, which is a diet and exercise program, one hour a day, six days a week for 90 days. We both stunk and sweat our way through it and lasted the full 90 days with awesome results. Seriously, it was hard and I'm proud of us for just lasting.

Lynn graduated at the end of October and we moved back to our home in Snowflake the day before Halloween. Although we miss our new Colorado buddies, it's been so nice to be home. Lynn starts a new job as a Registered Nurse with Indian Health Services on the 17th of January.

So, this year wasn't easy. We had to move to a place we really didn't want to and Lynn had to go to school for a profession he really didn't care to do and we both had a lot of things we worked on but we did it! 2010 has begun with us living in the home and place where we want with Lynn being able to provide enough for our family's needs while still being able to be off half of the week. We're both in better health than we've been in in years and we have another sweet baby added to our home. What could be better?

Here's to a great 2010 to all our friends and family!

New Years Resolutions Anyone?

My new years resolution is to learn to use photo shop. If I knew how to use Photo shop I could have altered these pictures in about 5 minutes but as it was I had to do 3 months of workouts and eating right with P90X.

Seriously though a lot of you have asked to see our before and after pictures and I haven't wanted to. (It seems a little vain to me.) I decided to go ahead and post them though to let you all know it can be done. This is the time of year we all rededicate ourselves to being a little better. I hope we all meet our goals. Here's to a better us this new year. No matter what your goals are and no matter how well you achieve them be happy. Have a happy new year everyone.

P.S. I know everyone wants to see Cameo's pictures but she's gonna have to post them herself. She probably wont but she looks great.

5 Mile Canyon Fun

The boys doing a little free climbing.
Nothing like fun with the cousins.

Ice Skating Snowflake Style!

This is a great little canyon 5 miles from our house. It's about a 1/4 mile hike in and full of adventure. Today the creek was frozen over so we had a little fun walking on water. ( it's not a miracle when it's frozen water.) We had fun with Arianne, Dave, Darce, Kate, Eliza and Dirk, our new dog. More on Dirk later...

Lynn Johnson RN

It is official. I passed my national boards and I am now a registered nurse.

Mexico

Adam looking for good deals
The trip would have been way better if I had spent more time here and less time watching some Mexican guy try and fix my car.

Adam on the beach in San Carlos.

Me and the cool cathedral in Hermosillo.

You can't beat these little roadside taco stands. You will have plenty of time to remember how good they were while you are sitting on the pot.

Sometimes in life you just have to make the most of it. My friend Adam and I took a trip down to Mexico looking for a little fun. We had a little fun but we spent a lot of our time waiting 3 days to have my car fixed. The guy told me it would be done in 3 hours for 3 days. He worked in the middle of a dirt field surrounded by cows, goats, pigs and chickens. He worked on my car for about 15 minutes every hour and literally tore the engine apart to fix the oil pan. (Only in Mexico.) We did get a good chance to mingle with the natives met some cool people and got an authentic view of Mexico. Not the trip we were looking for but we made pretty good lemonade out of it.

Colorado Friends

Home

Just thought I'd put something up here real quick. We're back in AZ and loving it. We miss our friends in Colorado (sniff, sniff).

Cora, Grae, Jonah and Ezra were adorable for Halloween! Lynn even had the haunted house unpacked before almost anything else. We pulled up here, in the Uhaul on the night of the 29th of October. By the morning of the 30th, the haunted house was up along with all the Halloween decorations and a spooky graveyard in the front yard. Can you tell it's Lynn's favorite holiday? Meanwhile the kids are still sleeping in mattresses on the floor....

Lynn is still waiting to hear from the state as to when he can take the NCLEX and get a JOB!

Right now he's off in Mexico with a friend. He didn't call me last night like promised and I was sure he was taken by the Mexican maffia. I was up all night sick-worried about him until I heard from him today. So, because I was so mad at him for not calling I almost put up his P90X "before" pictures for all to see but I decided I'll let him do that himself when he gets back (along with the "after" pictures.) C'mon, I'm not THAT mean.

We are still doing P90X. Lynn took the booklet of exercises with him on his trip to Mexico so he could keep it up. He did all his exercises with weights before he left. We will finish week 12 tomorrow and only have week 13 left. We'll post some thoughts and photos (maybe) once we're all done. It's kinda embarassing to put out pics of yourself on the world-wide web, but we might do it. I haven't decided. Man, we were fat! Well, at least I was but we both look VERY different... It fells awesome to have come this close to accomplishing something so difficult.

And Then There Were None!

No more days no more weeks.

Today was my last day of school. After more stress and more ups and even more downs than I care to remember it's finally over. I really can't begin to express how happy I am. I still have to pass my state boards but I have no more school. I will miss my classmates who have gone through the trenches with me. (Unless you were there you really couldn't understand it). It's weird to think that after seeing them almost every day for the last year plus I will never see most of them again. They are great people and I'll miss them but it sure feels great to be done.

Goodbye, Dear Friend

I love amusement parks. I suppose it was ingrained in me from my youth from our many family trips to Disneyland. When I was young I had heard that many theme parks offered year long passes and from the moment I first was made aware of their existence I have daydreamed about having a season pass to an amusement park. This year for Christmas my dream came true. There have been many good things about living in Denver but it's hard to think of anything better than our season passes to Elitch Gardens. As far as theme parks go it isn't grand but it has just enough to fulfill all my needs. Last Saturday was our last trip to Elitch's. I will miss it but it was cool to go one last time with it all dressed up for Halloween (my favorite holiday). Thanks for the memories and for making a little boy's dream come true.