Christmas Morning 2008

Christmas morning brought it's usual surprises and fun. We want to share it with you..... John got this great book 501 Must See Movies. We've all had lots of fun with it and you can borrow it if you're in need of some movie to rent advice. We all attack our stockings first. They are the only free-for-all of the whole day. Toothbrushes, candy, and little things are all in there.

The big stuff now begins, but this year we did it a little different. The packages were all numbered, no names, and we had clues that matched the numbers to tell us who the packages went to. (we did this once when I was a kid and I was in charge of the list and I lost it - it was open the gift and then mom would tell us who it belonged to - a disaster!!!) We had a great time with it. My mom and dad came over and had fun laughing at the clues and seeing what we all didn't know about each other. I think this may be one we do again next year!

Emily got a cape cod bracelet which is a family thing. My mother, sister, Aly and I all have them. She's finally part of the "in crowd".

Aly got this nice church coat. She picked it out meaning it fits, she likes it, and I don't have to return it this week.

Michael got the Wii he's wanted for a long time, but we all get to benefit from it. The big family game this year was Rock Bank 2, and our family has been rockin' ever since it was opened. Crazy... fun...loud...fun...silly...hard.. fun. We all love it!

Bad picture...but cute girl. Melissa got this vest. I worry so much about her being cold that she got lots of get warm stuff, this vest, long socks, a long Sunday coat, she should be set.

Most of all we had a terrific family day. Lots of time spent playing, laughing, singing (UGH!!), sleeping, and eating. I love these winter days, when all of my other responsibilities can take a back seat and family, motherhood, and a love of Christ truly is the focus. These are some of the blessings I'm grateful for now and always.

Christmas 2008

My favorite part of Christmas every year is Christmas Eve. Our family has several traditions that are fun but always made the evening magical to me. To start we eat Christmas Eve dinner with candle light only...that's pretty magical when your a little kid.

Then we move to our talent portion of the evening. Melissa was our only participant this year, playing "Away in the Manger" for us all. But as everyone gets older they are more reluctant to show off.Next we move to singing carols. This year Aly played the piano and Emily led the music. We are a first verse only family so we do sing several songs.Now for the funnest tradition of all.....the Nut Gift! Mom makes pudding for dessert and places a hazel nut in just one dish. We all choose our dish, youngest to oldest, and dig in at the same time. Usually there is lots of bantering and betting on who will get the nut, who deserves the nut, and just who is the nut! As you can tell, Emily was the nut this year winning the 'extra' gift which was a bottle of sparkling cider. She also is awarded the big cow trophy that one of my brothers won in 4H one year. She will place her name on the bottom and proudly display it all year. Next year she's required to bring it to Chirstmas Eve to see who the new 'nut' is.

After the nut gift, my father always reads the Bible account of the first Christmas. After hearing it so many times, I believe that I've about got it memorized...how about you? Isn't it the best! This year John read to us out of the Book of Mormon the account of the Saviors birth. It was a really nice touch which I hope we continue.

We move to the gift opening section of the evening now. This year we started with mom and dad opening the wall hanging Melissa made them. She started it while she was in the hospital in Denver and finished putting the last button on after they opened it that night. It takes a lot of work, but it is a treasure. I think you can see it ok here.

And finally the kids open their gifts from my mom and dad, and they always open pj's. The most common but most desired Christmas gift of all I believe. You can't tell but Aly, Emily and Michael all got University of Wyoming bottoms this year. It's my mother's subtle way of letting them know where her vote is when they decide where to go to college. (Aly's already failed - but you can never give up hope she'll change her mind!) They are all holding up the ornaments they get from my parents also. It was a great evening, I loved every minute of it, and cherish the memory it has already become. We were especially blessed to have Julie Ann, Greg and Jenny with us this year. They got to see our madness up close and we hope they are still our friends. What a great beginning to a great Christmas break.

Oh yea...Thanksgiving was in there too

Here are some fun pictures of our family Thanksgiving celebration in Burlington at my sisters. She did a great job and we had so much fun. Everyone of my siblings and their families were able to be there plus Jessa and Lukus, Aly's college friends. As you can tell, Josie, the newest member of our family was the hit of the day.

Johnathan, Pam and Richard "shooting the bull" as usual. You could call that a great Gerrard (my mother's family) tradition. We've had some real loud and rousing discussions at the annual Gerrard Thanksgivings in the past.

One of my favorite pictures of the weekend. Jessa, Josie, Johnathan and Aly all enjoying eachothers company.

And my beautiful sister-in-law Krista getting her turn with Josie.

Mom, John and Gregg doing their part to clean up after dinner.

Aunt Veda and Greg reluctant to leave the table and call it good for the day.

The cousins: Kyle, Taylor, Kennedy, Scotlyn, Erin and Emily

Kennedy and Scottie patiently waiting to start on seconds!

All of us - the Gerrard cousins- who could be there. It was always a tradition that my mother's family got together for Thanksgiving every year. We are lucky that some of us still live close enough to do it. We miss David and all of Uncle Clyde's family....but maybe someday!

At Long Last..

I've missed a month...a busy month...so I am going to post lots of pictures. I have to do it for my own journaling purposes, (and now it is public knowledge that journaling is not one of the things I excel at) so it will be long. Here is the Bernhisel's last month in review:

Emily sang in her school choir for their Christmas concert. It was great fun and well done. I'm so glad she enjoy's singing so much.

Melissa had her first Middle School chior and band concerts. She plays the clarinet. She was so excited to participate in what she considers the "big time" stuff. She reminded us about it daily and was dressed long before the designated time...it's fun to love music.

Here is Michael at the same Middle School concert playing his saxophone...he was ready 5 minutes late and was glad he only had to do band and not choir. Although the loves the band, the choir just isn't his cup of tea. Next we went to Michael's 8th grade basketball tournament...He played hard and loved being on the court.Bryce, Shane, Michael and Brady took a break during one of the games. You can tell this was one of the easier games.And here is our great team with their 3rd place plaque. Top row: Bryce, Bill (Michael's cousin), Kirby, Jake, Dalton, Brady and Michael Bottow row: Shane, Cannon, AnthonyThe mighty 8th graders who have played so well together these last 3 years!And, of course, the one we love to follow on the court and off... Michael. We had a great weekend with these boys and look forward to many more fun athletic weekends in the future!

Michael turns 14

There are lots of birthdays that come, and many have lots of significance, but I usually don't think of 14 as one of those significant birthdays. Well, Michael turned 14 recently and it was the hardest birthday he's ever had for me....why...who knows, but I found myself ready to cry several times. He can't drive, can't date, can't start some new and exciting activity that requires you to be 14, but he really seemed older somehow to me. It may be that he's finally taller than me, it may be that he works so hard around here and is so helpful to me that I realized his days with me are numbered, or it may be that I'm just getting so old that I realize my kids are zooming by. I don't really know, but Michael has definitely been a blessing in our home. He's a tease, responsible, kind, and believe it or not sensitive to other's feelings (it must be being raised with so many crazy girls). Well he's a one of a kind and we're so glad he's ours....so Happy Belated but Remembered Birthday Michael!

We're still here

Ok - I admit I've neglected our family blog for a bit, but not because nothing is happening, but because the volume of what's happening is a bit overwhelming. I had a Stake Young Women's Auxillary Training this past week and it took up a lot of my brain space - and when you are working with limited brain space - it can really hinder everything else in your life. The training went well - but I work with such great ladies that it's hard to fail. We presented next years YW theme "be thou an example", showed a video clip of President Monson's council about sugar beets about making sure we go back to get the "ones who fall off the truck", ate some delicious desserts, and gave out these boards that Michelle B had made for each ward. They turned out so nice, she always does great work, and the wards were very excited to take them home. They were chocolate brown, long, with the metal on them, underneath had "be thou an example" and the metal was surrounded by "faith, spirit, word, conversation, etc". I would show you a picture, but alas, I gave them out before I thought of it. If you're in need of a YW prop, you now know where to go- Michelle !! The best part of the meeting though, was when I was off the hook and the ward leaders shared their "successes". Good ideas were exchanged and feelings were tender. Wow - do I ever admire and love these ladies!
Ok - that's Sally's life. My children had some great happenings this week. Emily had her post volleyball banquet and received lots of awards. Top blocker, Most Improved Player, and more to name a few. She had a great season and we are glad her volleyball career ended on a high!

Michael had more basketball, fouled out at a game (we still don't know exactly how many fouls he had that game), and was ordained a teacher by his father. It was an extra special evening since his cousin Bill Despain was ordained a deacon the same night. These boys are together everyday and qualify as each others brothers since neither of them have another brother. And yes, they fight just like brothers too!

And then to top off our week, Melissa went to her first baptism at the temple. John went to do the baptising, Michael and Emily went as youth from our ward, and I went to see the wonderful moment. It's our family tradition to have John be the first to baptise our children when they are 12 and old enough to go to the temple. It was great watching the last of this tradition play out. Yes it brought tears to my eyes and my heart was full. If only Aly had been there it would have been completely perfect!

And here are the girls with Aunt Meredith - she's in YW's with them and they love having her. A GREAT Week at the Bernhisel mansion.

Halloween in Casper

It seems lately that we've been living weekend to weekend. That's what happens when you have kids in sports and your husband is a coach... we really do have more in our lives than sports, but our usual blog will be the sports update around here.

Here is Emily with Kelsy V., the co-captains, meeting with the Sundance captains to discuss the rules of the tournament. It's always sweet and good before the game starts! We lost this game, but won the next one against Lingle-Fort Laramie, and then lost to Tongue River in 5 games. Boy was that game a great one, with Emily hitting at her best and the rest of the team really working hard. We thought we had it at one point, but then you know how tournamet goes.I really wanted a good picture of a team huddle - they happen so often and this was a "happy" one.Not to be out done, John and Melissa worked hard at announcing the games live over TCT. Melissa took this picture so she's not in it but she became an expert at all those volleyball terms like "shank", "kill", "block", and "dig". It has taken me 7 years to understand this game, but Melissa has got it already. And now that I understand volleyball, our family looks to be done with the sport. Oh well, maybe some future Bernhisel will take it up and I always have neices!!!

Michael also had fun playing 2 basketball games while the rest of us were gone. We hated missing them -and it always seems that he makes those great plays when we're not there. Why does that always seem to happen? He made a couple buzzer beater shots, scored several points each game, and was king of assists as usual (at least I think he's king). His coach bragged on him a bit to us when we got home, which made us feel great that he's trying so hard , and bad that we missed it. You never win!

And last of all, we may have missed Halloween this year (Melissa and I went to High School Musical 3 that night in Casper) but we had a special visitor a little early so we wouldn't feel bad. Megan Weinand came by and made our night. She's Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notredame movie. We gave her enough candy to last her awhile and it made us feel good to still be a part of a great holiday. So although we're late, HAPPY HALLOWEEN.... and have a fabulous November (my personal favorite month of the year).

What a weekend!

We had an great Thursday through Saturday that we can't wait to share. It all began Thursday evening with Michael's first basketball game of the year. He's waited anxiously for this year, you know, the big 8th grade Middle School sports year, and couldn't wait to get on the court. His team did well as we had all hoped and Michael had a great game. Of course, we think that Michael is a fabulous player, no prejudice there, but he did score several points and had lots of assits. They won by a lot (I can't remember the score, but it was big). It looks to be a great year for RMMS.

Melissa is on the student council and got to sell concessions at Michael's game. She actually enjoyed the job and will be doing it again this season. Unfortunately, as the mom ,you feel like you need to buy junk when your child is the one selling it. Everything your children do seems to cost you money!!!

Then John took off for Cross Country state in Sheridan and Melissa and I drove down to Lander for Emily's regional volleyball tournament. I'm still so excited about our volleyball team that I'm shaking just typing this. They got third place and qualified for state. The last time Rocky Mountain qualified for state was 2003, and that downer info can really stick in your head. The girls really worked hard, and with 6 seniors on the team, it all payed off. My voice is a little worse for the wear today (lots of yelling encouragement) but boy is our house one happy place to be.

Here is our awesome child going up for a kill. Yes, I was yelling "That's my girl" over and over during these games.Here is the whole team looking very excited. Emily is a team captain along with Kelsey (who is holding the trophy placard with her). This is a great moment!!And these are the 6 seniors - the girls who stuck it out all four years to get here when it really mattered most to them. To make a great weekend even better....Emily got to meet Josie for the first time. Johnathan and Becky came to watch Emily play and we got to enjoy the baby. She is growing so fast and is just adorable. My highlight was walking around to show all the people from Rocky my beautiful and precious neice. She is a keeper.