After the family dinner we celebrated two birthdays. Gary is lighting the candles on his ice cream birthday cake.
Gary has a big smile as we sing Happy Birthday to him.
If you blow out all of your candles you can get your birthday wish.
Laura also has a birthday that we celebrated with another cake at our family party.
We hope that Laura and Gary both have a great year and give them lots of love and birthday wishes.
On Sunday January 17th we enjoyed attending Sacrament meeting in the Sunny Estates Ward where Gary reported his mission in the Nebraska Omaha Mission. He gave a great talk and has been a wonderful missionary. In the evening we were invited to dinner at Mark and Marlene's home to honor our returned family missionary. I like this picture I took of Mark and four of his nine sons. We have some great future missionaries coming up in the family.
Amy went with us to Gary's homecoming. Ray, Fred and Rauna and family and Dad and I all enjoyed the dinner and visiting together.
Mark and Marlene always make us feel welcome in their home.
They have a long table to fit all of us and lots of good food to enjoy together.
It is so good to have Gary home from his mission. He has started school at BYU so we won't see much of him for a while.
Jamie performed another cute number "All That Jazz" from the Musical Chicago at her Musical Theater Performance on January 16, 2010.
I enjoyed the music and the enthusiasm of the dancers.
I enjoyed watching Jamie and taking pictures to enjoy later as she performed in "All That Jazz".
This was a delightful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I am happy that Jay felt like going with me in his wheelchair.
I am happy to see Jamie developing her talents. She is a cute girl and I know will do great things in her life.
Jay and I were happy to be invited to see our granddaughter, Jamie, perform in a Musical Theatre "Best Year Ever" on January 16, 2010. It was a delightful performance of numbers taken from various Broadway productions.
We enjoyed watching Jamie perform "I Hate Musicals" from the play Ruthless. 
The music performed by the live band was great and added to the performance.
It was great to see the children having a good time and developing their talents.
Jamie was a narrator for one of the numbers and did a great job. She is a talented performer.
I enjoy so much my family making it possible for be being able to go to the temple each week
The flowers around the temple are always beautiful.
One week I went with my friends from the Keating Relief Society while Margo's husband stayed with Jay. Afterwards we went out to eat and had a great visit together. It was a wonderful morning.
We invited Jerry, Lauri and her mother over for dinner to help celebrate Lauri's birthday. Lauri's mother is enjoying the Arizona sunshine as she visits from Idaho. Lauri is a great friend.
We enjoyed so much having our five year old grandson Ryan come and visit us while his mother went to the temple.
He enjoyed playing with the tractor his Grandpa got for Christmas and loading the logs on a trailer to be pulled by the tractor. We enjoyed watching his creative play.
Ryan wanted to go out to the stream in our back yard and feed the ducks.
The ducks liked all of the bread that Ryan gave them. 
I finished off the morning with Ryan by reading to him some of the many children's books we have. I am happy that all our grandchildren like to read.
I am looking forward to the New Year. I have been so blessed this past year with my eternal companion of 50 years, a righteous posterity and friends who are all a strength in my life.
My new display above the fireplace shows some of the important things in my life. I have a picture of the temple, our family picture taken at our Golden Family Reunion last July with the words, "The Family is Love that Lasts Forever", a statue of Christ and of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and a picture of Israel that we got during our family trip in 2009.
I took out all the Nativities from our Curio Cabinet and replaced them with another souvenirs that we have accumulated through the years.
Ray, Fred, Rauna and Dale all came to play "Mortensenopoly". This is a fun game that the Hancocks gave them for Christmas.
We enjoyed our game night together while Jay looks on from his big chaair.
Jay's brother Cecil and his wife Sylvia were married the same day we were in the Arizona Temple fifty years ago on December 22, 1959.
My brother Rolf and his wife Jean and my twin sister Leona and her husband Sam came to visit us and brought dinner to share on January 4, 2010. We had a nice evening visiting and enjoying family.
Jay's youngest brother Chet and Evelyn came to visit on Tuesday, January 5th. They always bring something fun to do with Jay.
Chet and Evelyn will celebrate fifty years of marriage on January 20, 2010. They shared with us pictures from their Family Golden Wedding Celebration.
Jay's twin brother Jorth and his wife Peggy also visited on January 5th. They stayed and had enchiladas with us. Our visits with our brothers and sisters have been a great way to begin the new year.
We had this Countdown to Christmas Calendar when our children were small and opened up each pocket.
Later I made another Countdown to Christmas Calendar for our family to enjoy.
Miriam gave me this beautiful wall hanging she made of the Nativity that I enjoy displaying every year.
This Santa wall hanging is another one of Miriam's gift.
I guess its time to box up all of the Christmas decorations and put them in the attic for another year. I love Christmas and the opportunity to reflect on the birth of Christ as I display my collections of Nativities that I have acquired through the years.
I had to take pictures of our Christmas decorations to enjoy before taking them down. We enjoyed so much the 60 plus Nativities that we had arranged around our home.
Our Christmas tree also had lots of olive word hanging Nativity ornaments on it that we purchased in Israel when we visited in March 2009.
The bamboo nativity got the place of honor this year as we anticipated the visit of Roland and Lily Lee from Indonesia.
I displayed the Christmas updates from each of our Children and Grandchildren on the door going into the office so that I could read them again and again.
This Nativity was displayed on the back of the piano on a scarf Melvin's friend in Russia gave us years ago.
We love our Indonesian friends and had a great visit about Indonesia in our home.
Roeland and Lily have taught us so much about service and dedication and giving your all to furthering the Lord's work and building up His Kingdom. Indonesia is so blessed to have leaders such as these great people.
We have known Neil Sundberg for years and are grateful for his marriage to Tina from Jakarta, Indonesia. Their daughter San San attends school at Tempe High where our children attended.
We appreciate Roeland and Lily taking a package to Edi and Lisa Rochadi in Bandung, Indonesia and their children Jay and Lavona. 
It was hard to tell Roeland and Lily goodbye early in the morning of January 4th. We hope that we get to see them again soon.
