Wow--I'm Alive!

Well, I was going to send our new family pictures, but I can't find them right now, so check back soon!

Diannah is going to blog!

Di is going on the blog, watch out!

New Glasses!!!

Rachel was excited to get her new glasses. I think she knew how cute she would look!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to say how grateful I am for such a wonderful family. I know we have our moments, but I feel truly blessed to have each of you be in my family. I know I am really forgetful, and am not always the most thoughtful (sorry again Sue!) but I love each one of you and think we have the best family around. I am especially thankful to have parents who love their Heavenly Father enough to serve a mission. I know it's not easy having you far away, especially at the holidays, but I am very proud of you! I am glad that you set such a good example of the importance of service to all of us. I will miss all of you this Thursday (except the Wood's and Dent's of course) and hope that you will all have a happy holiday.

I am also thankful that in just ONE MONTH I will be on my way to see my parents, who I miss so much!

Love,
Kristin

I've never added anything to a blog before, so here is my first try. This is Mike's deer that he shot this year. Oh, we are soooo proud!! har har. The end.

The girls participated in a piano recital this weekend. They played duets, which they will be judged on this coming saturday, and also played original compositions. The video is of Rachel's song entitled "Rollercoaster" and Kelsey's song entitled "Spider Webs". They worked pretty hard on these songs and both will enter them in the Reflections competition.
I do have to apologize for the poor camera work on my part. I was trying to have a steady hand and juggle Sam. She was not to cooperative during this whole recital.

Halloween Party

So we sure did miss everyone who couldn't come to the Halloween party last week! It isn't the same without you! I am working on updating the slide show. . .I can't remember how I did it in the first place! I have to keep up with this! So Teresa did an awesome scavenger hunt, where all the clues were riddles. The kids had fun figuring out the clues and finding the next one. Danalin did a scary story where everyone helped with sound effects (photo with the little signs). My favorite was the forest sounds where everyone picked the name of a vegetable to say softly at the same time. It sure did make for a scary tale! (carrot). Adrianne made an awesome figure out the gruesome body part game where she made the kids stick their hands in a box and guess that the "heart" was a peeled tomato, "eyeballs" were green olives, etc. Some of the kids were cheating by smelling their hands after each one, but it made for some great photos! We also had ghost bowling, and a relay race where they had to dress like a scarecrow, balance an eyeball on a spoon, get wrapped like a mummy and do a "spider" crab walk. We also had some awesome food, super scary! We missed you all and hope you will post your own Halloween pictures on our blog! Send them to me and I will add them to our slide show too! Kristin

Happy Halloween!

On Saturday, we had a fun Halloween party! We had games, food and lots of fun! We were sad not everyone could attend, maybe next year!

Some fancy dancing!!

We thought this was one of the cutest pictures (Hayden says cheesy) from your selection!

Way to go!

A Yummy Meal???

Dad and I had a very special experience on Saturday. We had a beautiful day here in Hungary and we decided to go on an hour long boatride with the Gudgell's, the other couple that is here in Hungary. We went on the boatride and it was amazing. The day was perfect and we got off the boat in plenty of time to get back to the Church for a baptism at 6:00. I had not made my treat yet so I needed a little time.
We were all starving and so we passed up MacDonalds in favor of a "nicer" place to eat. We ate at a very nice restaurant and my cold soup was peach and it was delicious. When we were ordering we couldn't see much we wanted to order and then we saw "fish chips". Of course, being from America we were thinking "fish and chips" and I even asked the waiter if it was little pieces of fish and he said, "yes". Well, the attached picture gives you a view of what we got. A plate full of little minnows, fried up with their eyeballs still there. It was sickening. Neither Sister Gudgell or myself could eat a thing. The lettuce underneath was even lousy. They had put sour lemon pieces everywhere and doused the lettuce in juice. What a disaster meal. Hope you enjoy fish and chips from the Daley Freeze and we are stuck with this. It is evidently a very special dish here in Hungary.
Then it took so long for all of this that we didn't get home until 5:10 and I had to hurry and make some cookies for the baptism. We made the baptism on time but it was a small miracle.
The baptism was the best way to end the day. And a happy way too!!
Love,
Mom

New Job. . .

Hello family,

For those of you who don't know, I have a new calling. I am the nursery leader! I may be a fool, but I am really excited about it. Apparently we have 24 kids in our nursery, I know this won't seem like many to Kruger's and Burton's, but we are looking to split into 2 groups. I think any calling where you get a treat and a nap is cool by me! :)


I am getting excited to figure out more about our trip to Hungary. I am hoping that you who have been will give us lots of pointers so that we can have the best time ever. I am thinking that maybe Lou and Mike especially will have to stay at the apartment our parents found us and walk to mom and dad's every morning before we go so they will be a little worn out and won't kill me. I have been trying to walk further and further every day so that hopefully I won't be the kill joy. I am going to start bugging people about plans so that I can get even more excited every day!


Tell me who has what plans for Thanksgiving? I am kind of assuming I will stay close by, as I am going away for other holidays. . .but I might could be persuaded to venture out. Let me know!



I don't remember if I told anyone that I got a promotion at work. I am now the Assistant Program Manager, which took over a year to get approved, but yeah for me! It means I do exactly the same job, for just slightly more money. Guess it is good for the resume!


Love you all and hope you blog soon.
Kristin

News from Budapest

29 September 2008

Dear Family,

Well, we have finally gotten the blog stuff in English but we still are not sure about how to do it. So, we will see if this works. Today is a beautiful day in Budapest. We hope it stays this way until about the 8th of January, but that is asking for a lot. Dad and I are getting ready for FHE tonight and hoping and praying that our lesson arrives and that we will have a good time. Some of the YSA are dependable, some not. Just like everywhere else.

Our new assignment, "cleaning out the storeroom" is nearing an end, thankfully. We hope that this weekend, at Conference that we will be able to get rid of a lot of stuff, old manuals, VHS tapes (we have tons of them) and the sad thing is that no one watches them any more and changing them all over to DVD's would be a nightmare!!

It looks like you are all getting ready for Halloween and it is a month away. They don't really do Halloween over here but we are going to have a Halloween party this month at one of our Friday night activities. Our last Halloween party went really well so this one should be good too.

We hope everyone is well, that you all know that we love you soooooooooooooo much!!

Love,

Mom and Dad, G and G

Just checking to see if we can do it!!!!

Hi,

I think that we have it down now as to how you do this bloging thing. We're old and slow you know but sometimes we can get things together. Mother (Grandma) and I went with the other office couple and President and Sister Gasser for a walk today at the Margit bridge park. We had a great time. They are taking out the flowers getting the park ready for winter, but it was still great. The last time we were there was with Teresa, Brian and their family. It brought back many great memeories. We love all of you and we are greatful to be serving in the missionfield at this time. We are do great!!! Thank you all for your support!!!!

Love,

Dad and Mom G and G

Parliment

We thought Parliment was one of the prettiest things to see in Budapest.

To market, to market!

Our children, which take after their dad, really liked going to the market. They had a lot of fun thinking about which "treasures" to buy and then buying them.

Vacation Planning Help Needed!

Hi everyone, Dents, Burtons and I are trying to plan our European adventure over Christmas. If you would blog the coolest things that you saw while you were there, that would help us make sure we catch all the right stuff. Please include pictures!!

This is a picture of Bran Castle (or Dracula's Castle) in Romania. I haven't been there, but maybe we could go!

This week. . .

I everyone. Thanks for writing on the blog. I think it will be fun.

This week I am working on cleaning my downstairs apartment, looks like I will be finding new renters soon! I hope I can get some good ones, I have been luck so far.

On Thursday, Teresa, Danalin and I went to see Cats the musical. Let's just say, it was not good. I think that it is the strangest musical I have ever seen. We kept waiting for the story line to kick in and it never did. So Danalin was on one side of me, yawning so much that her head was about to snap off and Teresa was on the other side laughing so hard that she was crying. I think her favorite line was "A cat is not a dog." Anyone looking for more cat wisdom should definitely see the musical. I still don't know what a Jellico cat is. . .

We are getting excited about our Hungary trip. There are so many things to see that we will have to make some hard choices. I have started a mom and dad wish list so we should be able to hook them up with some items they are missing from home.

Hope everyone has a great week! Remember if you can add a photo with your blog entry, it makes it a lot more fun. If anyone needs help let me know. Mom and dad, I am not sure why yours is in Hungarian. I think that if you log into your google account first, that might help. Keep me posted!

Any of you localish types let me know prefered days for the Halloween Party and maybe if we want to go to Frightmares at Lagoo this year.

Love you!

Message from Wildings

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is good. Hope your head gets feeling better mom. Maybe you shouldn't be getting on ladders for a bit!
We have been busy as usual. Our FHE now is at the soccer field every Monday. Hayden has soccer games on Monday and Saturday and then on Tuesday he has a 2 hour practice. Thankfully their team is so much better this year than last. It was painful last year! I think they are at the top of their bracket this year. Syrena has dance on Tuesday which is at about the same time as Hayden's so Brian and I go different directions!
Today the kids had to be at the school at 6 am. Fox 13 News had us as the cool school of the week and they did several different segments with the kids. Hayden was kind of a camera hog. He was always within a couple feet of the news guy! I'm pretty sure they will be crashing early tonight.
I'm back to my swimming, book and card clubs so we are staying busy. I hope you all have a good day!
Love,
Tree

Check out the vidios by clicking on this link: http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=F71DFA5D1AED489C1FBBE87F02011F13?contentId=7454971&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

I saw Hayden in the 1st and 6th clip, but the orchestra part was also awesome!

911 CAll

Check this out http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2BKcGP41E4

What's up in C.S.

We have had a crazy week this week. What am I saying, every week is crazy around here. Monday Rob jammed his finger and it's twice the size of his others. I taped his fingers together and now he looks like he is sporting a claw. Oh yeah, he was playing football. Then Wednesday he came home from playing soccer, and we think that he might of pulled his hamstring so he is hobbling around. He looks like a train wreck. No more sports for him.

Josh got an elaborate response to an invitation to homecoming which involved a huge stuffed duck and some plastic eggs with alphabet letters inside, being left on our front porch late last night. It was fun.

Jared's wound from his bike wreck is healing and he is getting around better now. No more hobbling. He is loving the Mandolin he got for his birthday and has been working on some new songs.

Rebekah has been starting band (she is now playing the trumpet), choir, battle of the books, and girl scouts. I think she loves being the social butterfly of the family.

We are excited to have our tickets for Budapest, we have been looking into things that we can do. No real concrete plans yet though.

That's it for now.

Kristin's Halloween Costume

I think you should be a cup of fruit,
including the favorites, banana, strawberry,
and not to mention an orange. Speaking of which, how
do you think the oranges are doing? I guess since we
haven't heard anything about it, we can assume there
will be a good harvest this year.

We want to blog too!

I guess we are set up and ready to go. Today I rode my bike 13.5 miles and then had to grade tests all afternoon, which ruined my good mood. I am over it now though. We are trying to get everyone in bed, so I will write more later.

What's up with Dan's fam

I loved these pictures! The Wood family reunion was a highlight for our family this summer. My kids loved going up to Logan canyon to camp with their cousins, even if they did have dirty feet! The summer ended too soon for us and soon after all the reunions and camps the kids found themselves back at school.


Kelsey just loves Junior High. She loves traveling from class to class because it makes the day go by so much quicker for her. Her favorite class is Drama and least fav is math. I think that math will always be her struggle in life. Maybe Carter could tutor her!! Just kidding Kels. Rachel started fourth grade and loves her teacher Mrs. Buchanan and Riley thrives in her second grade class with two teachers. She has an a.m. teacher, Mrs. Garrett and her p.m. teacher is Mrs. Monroe (Adrianne's running partner). Sam is finding that life is really boring at home with just mom and she is always so excited for the girls to get home.
We just recently went up to Logan to visit Danalin and Mike. We bought their truck and left them with the blue Subaru for Danalin to use when she is in CA. While there Adrianne did a half marathon and currently is planning to do a full marathon in January in Arizona. We will be there to see Di and her family so the invite is open to all to come cheer me (and possibly Dan too) on and invade Di's home at the same time. Im sure she wont mind!!! It is the Martin Luther King weekend. We will be there Jan 17-20.
As Kris said, Halloween is approaching. This year Kelsey is going to be a bat, Rachel a pirate, Riley is to be the ice cream cone, and Sam is the dog if that costume is still good. I think that the only ones I need to make is Kelsey's and Rachel's for now so let me know if anyone needs a costume put together.
I am so excited to have this blogspot and I hope that the rest of the families will get on here to give updates and family pictures. TTFN

Quote

Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. ~ Henry Ford

Welcome to the Wood Family Blog. Hope that you have some good stories to share. Be sure to post a photo, we like pictures!