The Christmas Px in Progress

As many of you know, it is a Barrand tradition to do a zany Christmas picture in costumes that reflects what we've done in the past year and includes all the fam....even those who can't be there that year. So, we thought....what's been the big deal this year and our easy answer is....two missionaries in the fam! Austin going to Canada and Tiana in WV. What kind of px can you do with 2 missionaries. So we came up with this......Cannibals with the 2 missionaries in the cooking pot. The first attempt of this px was shot with an assortment of ametuer camers and photoshopped by my dear friend Anna Roedel on a mac at CTU. It meant combining 5 different shots and a background. Turned out fuzzy and we can't see Jensen. So, since this might be our last px, we will be trying again.....

The Blizzard of '06

18 inches of snow and snowed in for two days. Talk about a white Christmas! Mark was smart enough to have me get groceries the night before it hit! Oh joy! School was closed, everything was closed. I wrapped presents, I got homework and grades done. When it was finally over at 1:00 today we went out to dig out. Our neighbor across the street has a nice snow blower machine. We've got Austin the hos machine. We were 2/3 of the way dug out of the 3 car driveway when our our neighbor to the right drove up with his big "machine" and finished the rest. (he owns an excavating company)

The Last Mission Call

Austin was playing WOW at 7:30 pm at CTU. I kicked him out and told him to go home. Mark had been phoning and phoning. It's only been 10 days since he submitted his mission papers electronically. We called all the kids and had them all on speaker phones. Austin called girls he knew, neighbors in and opened the envelope......Toronto Canada West. My Dad's name is Keith and we named Austin after him....Austin Keith. And, that's where dad served his mission. Cool huh. While I'm SO excited for him to go after this long 7 months of preparation, I will miss seeing him in the tutoring center at school and having him sit in my chair in my cube. I will miss seeing his awesome artwork in the glass cabinet in the foyer. I will miss seeing him eat 8 pieces of pizza when they bring it in for finals week. I will miss our Sunday walks when Austin hails the strangers in the park "How's your day going?" I will miss the way Austin "helps me" decorate the Christmas mom, oh, I mean tree. I will miss seeing Austin wrestle anyone anywhere he can. I will miss this very fun boy in a big man's body. I hope the Canadians feed Elders lots of food. Austin will be happy then.