Friday, January 29, 2010

Ben's Book!


Ben received a box in the mail yesterday, in which were 10 copies of his book! It is beautiful! He has worked so hard and for so long on this (over 6 years!) and now it's finally here. Hooray! You can see more at Amazon or at the University of Nebraska Press.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

In the news


Lincoln and I made the newspaper this week! The kids are sure we're famous now. I'm pretty sure we are too. The photographer caught us on our way to pick up the kids from school. Fun!

Clayton student of the month

It's such a blessing when things come together for your kids. Especially when you've seen them struggle. Clayton is having a great year in school- due in most part to having such a great teacher. Last year was a struggle every day- so to see him happy and doing well feels really good to us all. I'm just so glad for a positive experience.
This week he was chosen as the student of the month for his class. Big time "bucket- filler" for Clayton. Yeah! We love you buddy.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Bahamas and an Alen Invasion!



Ben and I went to FL/Bahamas for the weekend. Ben had a conference that he was presenting at and then we took the weekend and went on a cruise together. We had such a great time. We had uninterrupted conversations, we caught up with each other, we laughed and reminisced, we got to go to the temple together, we planned, and we made some great memories. We were hoping for a chance to also enjoy the sunshine but apparently the Pykles are destined for cold weather-those who watch the news will know that it was the coldest it's been in FL this past weekend since 1939. Yep, 1939! It was so cold and stormy the second day that our ship was not able to dock. There were 30 foot waves crashing on the beach which meant we could not leave the ship or even go outside. And when we docked in FL on Monday morning it was 29 degrees- only 4 degrees warmer than Potsdam. Talk about crazy luck. HOWEVER- we still had a great time, ate great food- and Ben won the "Chicken-Leg" contest-doesn't get better than that, trust me!
  • the closest we came to the water
  • showing off the short sleeves we totally regretted wearing when it started to rain on our motorcycle ride around the island
  • the Orlando Temple
Of course the whole thing was made possible by favorite Auntie Liesl and James who were the absolute BEST babysitters in the world! The kids had a great time (when they weren't throwing up all over-this is called "going above and beyond" in babysitting) and the highlight of the weekend was "Alen Invasion". You can watch the magic below-HYSTERICAL! We have laughed till we cried and watched it again and again- thank you Liesl and James-you were truly amazing!
One word for this past weekend- PRICELESS! Thank you Liesl and James.


Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009:

Our Christmas Eve tradition of acting out the nativity-joined by a few of the YSA's from China. They thought the whole thing was pretty funny but especially got a good laugh from Dad being the donkey. Quite frankly, we're all getting a good laugh. And the kids loved the matching, fleece pajamas. It was no small miracle that mom got that one done this year!

Christmas Sunday
And Christmas morning was great. Don't they look excited?! (maybe a little sleep deprived as our day began at 6:00am) It was a great day to just be together-good memories.