Christmas & New Years Catch up

The holidays went by way too fast so here is the update of the last month. We had a great holiday season and hope you did as well. It was full of fun traditions and time spent with the Twede's & Cassity's.

Annual Girls Night Out with the Cassity Women. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory followed by Christmas shopping at the Gateway.

Baking Christmas Sugar Cookies and Candy with Grandma Schofield

The Pettingill Family Christmas Party. One of my favorite family traditions over the holidays. The best part is singing the 12 Days of Christmas with about 80 other people

Pettingill Family Christmas Party

Making Ornaments at the Cassity's. This is one of my favorite Cassity traditions. Every year we make new ornaments to decorate the tree. They started this tradition in 1984.



Our Christmas Tree, and yes there are one section of lights out!

The view from our house Christmas morning. On a clear day we can see all the way across Utah Lake to Pleasant Grove. It was a little snowy this morning.

Christmas Breakfast at the Cassity's

Ben & I wearing the scarfs made by Grandma Schofield. She made over 200 scarfs this year for all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Christmas at the Twede's. We missed having the Clarks home this year, but they were enjoying the 80 degree weather in Dubai.

New Year's Day all the Twede girls (that were old enough) went to see Twilight together. It was a blast!

Happy Thanksgiving...

This year we were with the Cassity's for Thanksgiving and decided to celebrate it at Bear Lake. It was a fun weekend away from the holiday rush. We were able to relax and enjoy spending time with the family playing games, watching movies, taking walks on the beach and sleeping a lot. THANKS Pam & Dave for GIVING us another great weekend at the Lake!

Angie & Mike playing Wii "Ultimate Band"- Angie recorded all the female vocals for the game so it was fun to see the finished product.

Mike & Dasha shooting targets


Ben posing with a Colt 45 while practicing target shooting with the boys. He did the best with his shotgun and the clay pigeons.


Pam & Dave taking a walk with the dogs on the beach

Happy Haunts...

The Cassity Clan in front of the Haunted Mansion decked out in our "Nightmare Before Christmas" attire

This year we spent Halloween in Disneyland with the Cassity Clan. It was such a fun time to visit the park! It was great to spend time with family and re-live past memories and good times. One of the highlights was riding Splash Mountain for 45 minutes straight(11:15pm to Midnight) with Mike and Angie. There was no one in line so they let us ride it over and over--we took turns being in the front seat and we rode it 5 times over with out getting off. We laughed so hard and got so so so wet. THANK YOU to Pam & Dave taking us on this great trip and for your overwhelming genrosity. We really appreciate all you did to make this trip happen and can't thank you enough. I have really enjoyed becoming part of this family tradition! It is always fun when we can take a step out of reality and learn to be a kid again, and what better place to to it than DISNEYLAND!!

Professional Pin Traders

Inside "Its Tough To Be a Bug"

The 3 Mouseketeers

Waiting in Line for Splash Mountain with Mike and Angie

Ben inside a Candy Corn "O" at California Adventure

Only 3 Weeks Until Disneyland!!!

Disneyland has become a yearly tradition for Ben and I since we got married. The first year it took a lot of begging on Ben's part just to get me there, but ever since that 1st trip I have grow to love it as much as he has....well maybe not quite to that extent. We not only enjoy the park time when we go, we also get to visit families from Ben's mission (Arcadia) and our friends the Robertson's. We have gone on 6 Disney trips in the last 5 years including Disneyland Paris (Ballroom Tour) and DisneyWorld. We are about to make our 7th trip with the Cassity family on Halloween and we are really excited!!

2003 -Disneyland Paris with the UVSC Tour Team, waiting in line for Indiana Jones (in Paris its a backwards rollercoaster)

2004 -Mickey Mouse Cassity

2005- Inside the Carousel of Progress

Christmas 2006- The Cassity Fam outside Small World

Christmas 2006- The Whole Family

2007- DisneyWorld: Animal Kingdom with Everest in the background

2008- Soaked from Splash Mountain

The State Fair

This last weekend we went to the Utah State Fair with our friends the Russell's and some of the Twede clan. We had a great time seeing the stinky farm animals, worlds sharpest knives, biggest spas, and being serenaded by Elvis impersonators. The only disappointment (for Ben, Benjy, Mike & Carlie) was not getting their deep fried Fair food. There was about 50 people in line waiting for the deep fried Twinkies, PB&J, Snickers, and Oreos.

The same size as our backyard


Ben & Will

Brayden & Rayce

Benjy, Natalie & Will

Carlie & Camille

Lez & Lanie

Twede Family Pictures

This is a little late, but I wanted to post some family pictures we took while the Clark's were here. There are 32 of us now so it is a rare occasion when we are all together especially with Dawn & Scott living in Dubai. These are some of my favorites...

The Twede Clan

Mom & Dad

The Clark's

The Twede's

The Greenwood's

The Larson's

The Helm's


The Cassity's

Twede Fam at Bear Lake

This last weekend we headed up to the Cassity Cabin at Bear Lake for the annual Twede Family trip. We stuffed 28 people in a 4 bedroom cabin for 3 days and everyone had a blast hanging out with cousins, riding the wave runners/tube, and playing games. We had great luck over the weekend with loosing 7 items in the water and on the beach and finding them all. For details ask Darren- he lost most of them. There were also a lot of "firsts" over the weekend. We got Mom out on a wave runner and taught Carlie how to drive one and how to drive a 4-wheeler. Mom and Dad also took their turn at playing the Wii, and everyone survived having our dog up there with us. We had a great time and have looked forward to having this the be the last summer trip before school starts. Dawn, Scott, Logan and Cam we missed you! Thanks to everyone for their hard work in making the trip a blast, and thanks Pam & Dave for letting the Twede Zoo crash at your cabin!

Lanie Blaise on the beach

Carlie's hot new bod!

Rayce at the Helm

The Larson's

Twede Girls

Mom and Dad out for a ride

Dad & Jacob

Tate & Spencer

Everyone off the Lake!!!! When we got going she asked where the break was?!