Christmas and The New Year

We sure hope that everyone had as enjoyable a time as we did this year for the holidays. Caitlin and I had to work the day before Christmas Eve so we woke up and opened our presents from Caitlin's family. We were all spoiled and are very grateful for all the thoughtfulness put into each present. Next we headed up to Kingman for Christmas Dinner. We had a full house although missed Kera and her family. We had it at the Merritt home and my dad gave my mother a Christmas present early which was benches to go with the table we made last year for mom. We then spent some time all together doing so really neat Christmas traditions and being together. We woke up the next day, Christmas, and had the missionaries over. Dad asked that they read the Christmas Story out of Luke. We then began opening presence and had quite a few of fun experiences. Then true to tradition headed over to grandma Owen's for her gift giving. In all we are truly blessed by all the thought that was put into each gift and we are truly grateful for each and everyone of them, yes even the cars that have sirens on them.  We had to come back for the 28th as Caitlin and I both had work. We were home for all of 4 days and again left to head to Las Vegas to visit Aunt Laura and Uncle Lonnie. New year's in Las Vegas was nice to spend time with Caitlin's family and enjoy big city fireworks. We then headed up to Springdale Ut to see some of Caitlin's high school friends and spend time with the McDonalds. Sunday we came rushing home to go back to the grind stone. Work is going better again and I can see that Caitlin is again enjoying her job. I can sometimes be hard when you don't have control but have to stress about each student. But the Lord gives us nothing that we cannot handle so we continue to go and make a living. Maybe someday we will be on track to start our careers.

BIRTHDAY, I think I still like having them!?!?!?!?

So Saturday I again grew a year older. I woke up to my son and wife and realized what a blessing they are in my life. My wife took Tanner and I out to breakfast at a Greek restaurant that just started serving breakfast. I had a Greek omelet that had lamb and feta cheese and some other stuff that was really good. Tanner and Caitlin had Toast with jam(tanners favorite) and Caitlin had a BYOC(build your own crepe. It was definitely not your everyday breakfast but was a great change in the scheme of things. After ward we went home and put Tanner down for a nap while I went to get my hair cut. We then headed over to a photographer that cost entirely too much but the sitting fee was free because of Presley our puppy. We did that for an hour then came home and got dressed for dinner and the show. We ran out to a friends house, Raelene, to drop tanner off for the night. It sure is nice to have good friends that you can trust. Caitlin and I then went out to Scottsdale for dinner as we had a Goupon to use. It was at an excellent Thai restaurant named, Mailee's on Main. It was exquisite. We then drove 5 mile to a Drive In movie. Where we watched, "The Princess and the Frog" as well as " A Christmas Carol." We liked both even though they definitely had their dark sides as the Princess and the Frog was based in New Orleans where they have a lot of Voodoo and such and the Christmas Carol, Caitlin says that it follows the book really closely and she admired that. Other than that we didn't do much of anything, that is except to go and pick Tanner back up from Raelene. Now to bed to wake in the morning to go back to work to help change the life of others for the better.

Another weekend come and GONE

Why is it that when we are doing things that we truly enjoy it seems that time speeds up and when we are doing things that aren't enjoyable time stops. This weekend was awesome other than it had come and gone before it was here, or so it seems. We took a trip up to Kingman to help out with the Blessing of Rochelle's son Hunter. It was the first time that we were able to see him as he is only a month old. We went up Friday after work and watched a little NFR with my mom. The next day we slept in a little and then went shopping in Kingman as well as Bullhead. We found some really good deals including a suit that was originally around 300 dollars and bought it for 56ish. Also finished up our Christmas shopping that we could and were able to find our Christmas ornaments for everyone. My mother also found some really neat penguin ornaments. Sunday came and we went to Church and had the blessings. Afterward the Stucki family had us over for lunch, which was really good. Then we headed back over to mom and dad's and finished packing and came home to do homework and get to bed. Caitlin and I have a really important meeting tomorrow with the VP of the Apollo Grp.
On another note, Caitlin has finished her first class and is now in math. It isn't her favorite subject but she is much better at it then she would ever let anyone know. I am almost done with my first two classes and doing well so far. I have my final project due next Friday and will then be done with my first block of classes. Then i will only have 6 more blocks to finish my Associates degree and am excited to get to that point and begin my BSB. I will see about pictures of my suit when I finish the hemming.

December Starts

Well another month has com and gone and so far I think that I am doing much better at posting more ofter to keep all updated. We had a wonderful Thankgiving vacation and hope that everyone else did as well. We had the opportunity to go out to California to spend the holiday with Caitlin's family and had an awesome time. We took tanner to the ocean for the second time in his life and he had a blast playing in the sand on the beach but wan't so happy with the 65 degree water that dad(nicolas) helped him to experience. Our family also had the chance to meet our little nephew on Caitlin's side, Bodhi (I hope that I spelled it right if not let me know and i will go in and change it). He is a little bundle of joy and seemed happy as long as there was food going into his belly:) Tanner also enjoys sail boats, although for lack of a jacket we just stay docked. Below are some pictures we took please enojoy.

Tanner was so tired on turkeyday that he fell off
the couch then went back to sleep like so


Mom and Tanner just enjoying the view



"what is all this stuf on my feet?"

tanner is watching the water very closely

Grandma and her girlys with the babies

So caitlin and I are going on an early date this week....we bought special tickets to see NEW MOON at seven o'clock I will update to tell everyone how it is

I guess you could say Tanner was not at all happy about this picture.....but not to worry Santa did make it up to him by giving him a candy cane

Redlobster sat family night

tanner likes the rolls @ red lobster
cait

Fw:

Talk about a load of fun.... We just took Tanner to Bass Pro Shop to get pictures taken with santa...he was absolutely mad as could be and is crying in the picture, I will post it later. Now time to eat a little surf and turf.
On some other new I just bought a new laptop for school and am now able to skype so if anyone would like to contact us and we can set up a time sunday afternoon is the best time

So we had a somewhat uneventful weekend. We started early saturday morning by waking up and letting presley out to go the bathroom. We went out and practiced fetching a little toy pheasant. He was able to retrieve and release on command. We then proceeded to the puppies first vet visit. He did well and everything checked out number one A O K. Next we went to a presentation and won a free trip and 150 dollars worth of food. We finished by watching some movies. By the way G.I.Joe was an awesome movie. Sunday we didn't do much other than some homework and start to clean up. It is just the four of us now, caitlin, tanner, presley, and I. I tried hard as I might but tanner was insistent on being like presley including barking and crawling on the ground and begging.

Well, I guess you could say that was a fun weekend. The only reason that I would say it wasn't is that the whole reason we went to Las Vegas was to go and see the actors kellan lutz and ashley greene. We were able to see them but there were so many people that it drove us nuts. On the brightside we all had fun and I even got a chance to go hunting with my dad for quail we was a blast. Now we are home and katy caitlin and I all have work in the morning so for me it is off to bed

Tonight went to the church for our wards trunk or treat. Tanner had an absolute blast I have some better pictures that I will post later tonight or tomorrow

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Tanner and the normal halloween picture more will be posted later

Caitlin oh so pretty

Here we are at the fair, they had a free petting zoo and Tanner absolutely loved being on with all the animals. His buddy Christian is in the zoo also having a good ol time the other pic is of a kangaroo that the boys were able to pet

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This is tanner being a big boy drinking out of a straw wow, tear, he is getting so big

WOW

So a lot has change and many of you may know this, but Caitlin and I both work for the university of phoenix as enrollment counselors. I am a Health Care Southeast EC and Caitlin was Business and tech until today when she was informed that she would be turning to the dark side, Health Care. I am actually really excited for her as this will give her a much larger opportunity to succeed. We also have some extra people that are living with us for the last month, she has been watching our son, which has been a blessing. Thank you Katy so much. Another thing is that my Lil sis Rochelle is almost to full term with her second pregnancy and is have a boy and Caitlin's older sis Candace had a baby recently also a boy. For me and Caitlin we now have four nephews and 2 nieces. I love our families so much, they have been such a huge support even when it looked like there was no light at the end of the tunnel there they were holding up a spotlight for us. I don't think that we could ever say thank you enough. Oh yeah and Caitlin and I are taking classes and I should finish my Associates degree in about 14 months what an awesome present for me, yea!!! Caitlin is going into Human Services so that she can obtain a career in her dream position of Adoptions agent. I am the luckiest guy in the world, my wife has the biggest heart ever and is ever helping those that cannot help themselves. Love he tons.
Now tanner, holy crap, is almost 17 months but do not tell his mother that. I will post some pictures but i warn you that i know not when and he looks like he is older than he is. I am so glad that he has such a happy soul. He has to be the happiest baby ever.

Tanner and work

So I thought that I would write and tell everyone with Tanner's fascination with reading. He woke up this morning and started to cry because he was hungry. As he begins to motion to me that he would like food to eat his eyes catch hold of a book that was left laying in the front room. He ran over to it opened it up and began to read the book. Now we can't understand what he is saying but basically he say, "blah blah blah" then turns the page, "blah blah blah" then turns the page. It is quite nice to see his excitement about reading.

Work, well it is not all that is was cracked up to be so I have gone and acquired employment at the University of Phoenix. I will be starting there on the 24th at 730am. I am an enrollment counsellor, and so excited that i will have salary instead of commissions. Everything in life has a learning curve and I think that i found my for sales. SUCKS if you ask me. Caitlin has also applied to numerous places. The coolest place, I think, is the University of Phoenix. And the even cooler part of it is that she has received the first email with more to do and fill out. I think that with both us working at the university of Phoenix we will have everything paid off in a matter of 8 months or less. HOORAY

I know and I am not sure that i am sorry

So....life has been so crazy. My little sis graduated from high school. My middle sis found out that she is expecting again for around sept- nov..can't remember. My big little sis came down for a visit and air's grad. Ariel moved out and rochelle and michael are moving to bullhead(why i don't know). I have gained employment at Momentum payment processing(gift card, credit processing, etc) and we will be moving to phoenix within the next 2 weeks. tanner will be turning one in 4.5 days! wow that year flew by. We are traveling down to phoenix this weekend to look at places to live and visit some friends hopefully. and life continues to be good. After tanner's Bday part(530 pm the 9th of June at my parents house in kingman) we will post pictures. I may even show a little bit of a time line to show how much he has changed in just 12 months. I have one more day of training and then i will start my appointments on Monday.

Pictures

SO a lot has happened and i know that everyone that checks this is disappointed in the ability for us to keep everyone updated on how we are doing.....We are good. Still in good Ol Kingman and still trying to get out. We haven't been doing a whole lot other than Birthday stuff for Caitlin Iain Greg(Her dad) and Myself, Christmas, New Years, Family pics, Tanner's Photo shoot and i have been working a whole lot.

other than that i don't know that there is anything to share.....oh yeah tanner is walking now, not real steady but he is taking a couple steps a time. He loves playing bears as he chases and growls at me. No major plans other than an awesome friend bought a ticket for caitlin to fly out to Philadelphia in march. we will wright if anything fun happens and also in a couple days to make sure every thing is made known.