Merry Christmas 2009

For myself to look back on later I am posting my 2009 family Christmas Letter and card. For those of you that didn't get a Christmas card from us this year I either didn't have your address or just plain forgot to send you one. Most likely I didn't have your address in my address book and my brain wasn't working enough to think to ask you for your address. Sorry! We still love you and hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Merry Christmas from the Williams! Hopefully you can click on the crossword puzzle below and have it be bigger. If you want me to have your address to add to my book leave it as a comment.

We finally have an answer

My awesome dad is color-blind and because he is color-blind his daughters are carriers of the color-blind gene. My oldest sister, Jamie, did not have any boys and since boys are typically the ones who get to be color-blind she has no color-blind children. My sister, Tracy, has 2 boys and 2 girls. Both of her boys are color-blind. Then there is me and my sister, Tera, who both started out with girls and now have boys that are old enough to try to figure out if they are color-blind.

It has been a game with us to try to figure out ways to test our boys while they were younger. We would take bright red or orange toys and lose them in the grass or ask if two things looked the same to them. It was hard because they have been learning their colors so you didn't know if they would say the wrong color because they couldn't see it, or because they just got the color name wrong. When we would compare the two boys it looked like TJ was most likely color-blind, but Corban was either a good guesser or I was pretty sure that he wasn't color-blind.

I have wanted to use the color-blind tests for Corban but he doesn't know his numbers very well yet and all the tests I have seen are numbers. Well, my cousin used the following picture on her blog for something and it hit me that Corban would either be able to for sure tell me if he could see a boat or not. So, this morning I called him up and showed him the picture.

He couldn't see anything but a "rectangle full of dots." So, I got online and found the following two pictures that use shapes and asked him what he saw. On the first one he saw a yellow circle and nothing else.
On this one he saw a yellow square and nothing else.
So, there you go. No more wondering and guessing if he can really see the "right" colors or not. My son is definitely color-blind. And it's okay and it's good to know. Tera, now you can use these to test TJ and you can know for sure too!

Gotta love those genes! Thanks Dad!

My Man

I realized that I just kind of mentioned in the last post that it was Bump's birthday on the 30th of last month and left it at that. Well, I can't just leave it at that and thought I would share a few fun pictures of the man I married and tell you a few reasons why I love him so much!

The reason that Brayden's nickname is Bump is because he was supposed to be born in February and decided to be born in November. So, when his dad saw him for the first time he said that Brayden was so small he looked like a little bump on a log. So the family started calling him Bump or Bumper and when I met him in high school that is the only name he went by. Most people didn't even know his real name.

This picture was taken when Bump was a few months old. Don't you love the hat?

This picture was taken in 1979 when Bump was about 4 years old. Isn't he just the cutest thing? His mom made that little suit for him.

Bump's best friend growing up was CJ and they spent many summers up at CJ's family's ranch in Oakley. This picture was taken there.

Bump loves and has always loved basketball. His dad played in high school and college and instilled a love of basketball in each of his boys. Too bad he was such a short kid. . . but that didn't stop him from being fast and a great shooter.
When we met in high school Bump and I were about the same height, seriously! Here is proof - I could never hold him like that now! This was our first high school dance together.
Oh, how styles have changed! This was Homecoming in 1993. I had graduated the year before and this was Bump's senior year.
Bump was called on his mission to the Colombia Bogotá Mission. He left in January 1996. While in Colombia he got Typhoid fever and some other things and got pretty sick. He ended up getting a new call to the Texas McAllen Mission and served most of his 2 years there. He was an awesome missionary!

I was able to be out on my mission at the same time as Bump and what a great way to grow closer through shared mission experiences! Bump got home on December 20th and we were engaged on Christmas, 5 days later. We were married 6 weeks later on February 6th. I thought he looked so dang handsome on our wedding day!

Bump is a huge fly fishing fanatic. When we were first married he would use any excuse to be up fishing. We spent many weekends up in the Uintahs and on other rivers throughout Utah. It is a passion of his and he has had wonderful opportunities teaching others to fly fish and seeing and living in some amazing places because of the talent that he has.

I am pretty sure that I can speak for him when I say that the greatest part of his life now and the thing that he looked forward to the most after we were married was having kids. Bump is the absolute best dad and loves spending as much time as he possibly can with me and the kids. He appreciates them like I never could. I love watching them interact together and to see the kids excitement when their dad walks through the door after work. They know how much he loves them.

He would hate that I included this picture of him, but it's just so him. This is my man. He's the guy that loves video games and goofy t-shirts and can make even the grouchiest person smile. He is patient with me and loves me even with all of my faults. He is happy and good and is such a great example. Happy Birthday, sweetie! Thanks for all the fun!

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

I have been terrible about posting and now that I am finally taking the time to sit down and post I can't find my camera. . . grrrr. Oh well.

We had such a great weekend! Thanksgiving was spent this year with the Wright side of the family and we met at my brother, Lee's, house in Centerville. For pictures of the day you can look here at my sister's blog. It's always a fun and relaxing day when we get together with my brothers and sisters. We had less than half of the family there because everyone lives so far apart, but it was still fun to be with Lee and Trish, Tracy and Steve and Jared and Casi. We missed you Mom and Dad (in Washington), Jamie and Marty (in Nauvoo, IL), Dave and Julie (in California), Tera and Erick (in Germany), and Thad and Kim (in Boston [is that where you are now, Thad?] and Georgia)!

My brother, Dave and his family were supposed to come in from California, but at the very last minute their 2nd daughter had a fever. They took her in to get things checked out, just in case, and found out she had H1N1. Dang it! They couldn't come and then when we called to wish them a happy Thanksgiving we found out that Dave was also sick! Hopefully nobody else in the family gets it!

On Friday we woke up and put up our Christmas decorations! A little early? No, we do it on this day every year. When else would we find the time? We didn't get our Dicken's Village up yet, but got our tree, outside wreaths and window candles up along with all the other inside things. I will post pictures another time (when I find my camera). We had a good day and got a lot accomplished.

Saturday we woke up and got the kids dressed and ready then headed to Bump's parents house. We dropped the kids off there for the day and headed to the BYU/Utah football game in Provo. My little brother, Jared, was able to get a few extra tickets and it was so fun to have a day away from the kids cheering for our favorite team! We went down early and did some tailgating in the east parking lot of the stadium. I say we went down early, but not as early as my little brother. He was there at 7 am with a few other guys. We had some great BBQ'd bratwurst and watched some other football games with the provided tv and satellite dish. It was a bit cold, but we had a great time! Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa for watching the rugrats for us!!

So, how was the game??? Well, if you are a true fan you would already know and be glad of the outcome! BYU should have won by a few touchdowns, but they decided to keep it close and exciting so they let it go into overtime before they took the win! Hooray! We were definitely on the edge of our seats through most of the game and couldn't have guessed what the outcome would be at any point. I am just glad that we came out with a victory in the end!

Sunday Quincy woke up with a fever and so Bump and I had to do a little switcheroo since I was teaching Gospel Doctrine. He was in meetings early, then conducted Priesthood and then came home. I went and got a few things from the library and taught my class then met Bump outside where he had the kids in the car so he could be there for the start of Sacrament Meeting. It worked well and it is something we have done before. Bump spent the rest of the day at the church doing tithing settlement and I had a pretty relaxing day.

Monday was Bump's 34th birthday so he took the day off and we just hung out at home. He got to relax and play some Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. It was a great ending to a fun, fun weekend!

I can dream

I haven't been anywhere like this before, but right now. . . I want to be there.

Or there. . .
Or there. . .

. . . anywhere without screaming kids, laundry, phones or responsibilities. Where the sun is shining and you have nothing to do but relax. Not to stay forever, but just to have a little break. Doesn't that sound nice?