Finished Product

The "Cagon"

Here are a couple of before and after pictures of our dragon. John was able to finish up the details Saturday night and Sunday morning. I have to say, that I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out.

The Biggest Snowman I've Ever Built!

Ok, so not really a snowman, but still in all my years of building forts in the snow, nothing came close to building this dragon. My work sponsors a racecar driver and he decided he wanted to enter the snow sculpture contest in McCall. The sculpture would promote a quit smoking message and promote ProjectFilter.org (my program). The theme for this years contest was fantasy land. So we decided to have a dragon holding a sign that said "my last puff" and have our website on it. So me, John (driver), and 4 of my co-workers headed to McCall on Friday morning to start building this dragon. Oh, I should probably mention that non of us had EVER done anything like this before! We didn't have a clue where to start or how we would possibly pull this off. Luckily for us, Josh has carved an ice sculpture before in Alaska and actually won 3rd place. So he met us in McCall Friday night to help us with the carving on Saturday. But our job was to put a shape to the dragon so that he could start carving details.

I really should have taken a picture of what the "dragon" looked like at the end of the first day. We had people laughing at us as they drove by because I'm sure they couldn't figure out why we were making a sculpture of a cat/dog with stubby legs and a huge tail! I'm not kidding, this thing looked like a mix between a cat and a Boston terrier with the body of a lizard. All Josh could say that night was, we have some work to do tomorrow!

So Josh and I spent some time looking at dragons online (because we forgot our picture at the office). By morning we knew what we needed to do to make the "Cagon" look like a dragon. So we all started carving away. This was the result by 2:00 Saturday afternoon. It still needs some fine tuning, but it was getting too warm to continue to work on it. So John was going to go back in the evening and do some more. He and a couple of c0-workers will be in McCall next weekend before the judging to make sure it still looks like a dragon. I just hope that it doesn't snow a lot or get to warm before they judge. I would hate all the hard work to be for nothing. All in all, it was fun and we learn a lot about what we should do and shouldn't do for next year. Plus we got a lot of tips from the local people. By Saturday afternoon we were getting "thumbs up" from passers-by.

A New Year

While 2008 was a good year for us, I'm glad to be moving on to a new year. A whole new set of positives, negatives and everything in between. I'm ready for new challenges. Hopefully we can get through a whole year without having to change daycares! That would be a major accomplishment!

Baylee had grown up so much. I can't believe she is 5 and will be starting Kindergarten next fall. She is loving her new school (daycare) and is thriving! She is a little social butterfly. She has more friends that I can count and keep up with. She is telling me of somebody new almost everyday. She has been so helpful lately. The other day she was in her room for quite a long time. She came down and told me she needed help with something in her room. When I got up there her room was spotless! She had cleaned it without even being asked. And let me tell you, it was a disaster earlier that day! She had even made the bed and arranged all the books in her bookcase. She is quite the girl and she never ceases to amaze me. My little supermodel!

Tenlee is two. And with that came the "terrible two's". Baylee never really went through this stage so it's been new to Josh and I, but we'll get through it. She is one of the funniest little girls I have ever known. She is so hot and cold with her attitude, temper, etc. You never know what you are going to get with her. But she definitely keeps us laughing. She is quite the little singer and dancer. She loves school and nursery. She is so different from Baylee, but just as cute and fun. I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world! Tenlee had her tear duct surgery the end of December. It went perfectly and we no longer have to clean up her eye every morning. And better yet, I don't get calls from the daycare once per week saying she has pink eye! (even though I had told everybody there several times that wasn't the problem.)

Josh continues to love his job with Northwest Data Technology. I'm still trying to get used to the travel involved, but it's been ok. Now that Sierra lives in the Seattle area, he doesn't mind going up there for work as much. And now we have more reason to go with him.

I'm still working for the Tobacco Prevention program. I love it, but am hoping that one day I will be able to just work part time. Hopefully they will allow me to do that sometime in the near future. We've had a busy year with a lot of exciting projects. I love the people I work with. They are more than co-workers, they are friends.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm ready for the new year. I'm excited to watch the girls grow and learn. I'm looking forward to holding a new little (great) niece or nephew this summer. I'm hopeful that my family will be whole again. I'm ready for the good and the bad.