February 09 Highland Post

Dear Friends and Family,

I was reminded this month of how grateful I am that I don't travel as much as I used to. I traveled 2 of the 4 weeks - once for a full week and the other time for only 3 days. I am soo grateful that travel for me has become fewer and further between. I don't have any sort of "medallion" or special status anymore, and I no longer have piles of frequent flyer miles - but I'm OK with that. When I came back from the last trip Emma was very emotional and I spent some time calming her down... I'm also grateful to have kids who actually miss me. I suppose it would stink to have them prefer me gone.

One of the big things we did for Christmas this year was get ski equipment for everyone in the family. It just sort of seems wrong to not SKI here in Utah... Idaho simply can't compare with the number and proximity of SKI resorts here. It is amazing to drive 25 minutes and be able to ski really large mountains. One of the resorts here has a "ski free after 3" deal and you can use the bunny hill for free. It is perfect for teaching kids. You go up around 1:30pm, ski free on the bunny hill for a couple of hours and work with the little ones, then between 3 and 4:30 you can get 3 or 4 runs in on the mountain. It is quite nice. We also purchased some discount passes for 5 adult (12 and over) ski tickets at Sundance. So, Lareen, Logan and I went one Saturday and I was able to work with Lareen quite a bit and she's hooked. She really likes Skiing (YIPPEEE). I've also had a couple ski days for work that I've been able to enjoy, once with Jarom up at Brighton. I think I've gone skiing more this month than in the past decade. I'm lovin' it.

Lareen is in charge of all of our ward (congregational) activities - Christmas Party, Halloween Party etc. She is doing such a great job and is going to bring a tradition we had in Idaho down to Utah... a Chili cook-off. It was one of the highlight activities that we had in our Caldwell ward but here in Highland they'd never done anything like it. I think we'll do it in February. Should be fun. Lareen is also starting to get more tech-savvy - she has a facebook profile and has actually updated it a few times. I'm very proud of her. :-)

Logan turned 16!! She has had 2 dates in the 2 weeks since she turned 16 - both with nice boys in our ward and both very "low key". We had a combination birthday party with 2 boys in our ward who also turned 16 around the same time (one of the boys, our next door neighbor, actually turned 16 on the same day). They got together and invited over 30 youth and had the party at one of the other boys home and we brought the ZAGGbus for the kids to watch movies in. BTW the ZAGGbus has been redone since the fateful crash through the boxes that you may all remember from last summer. It has been completely gutted and is now a rolling theater with an incredible sound system, a projector and theater seating. Anyway we watched a movie in it, they played RockBand and Mario Carts on the Wii, we had pizza and plenty of fresh veggies and fruits (thanks to Lareen) and had an all-around GREAT time. It is wild to have a 16 year old... I'm so grateful for the type of girl she is too. I couldn't have asked for a better child to set the example for her younger siblings.

Jarom is taking guitar lessons from a boy (one of the two dates for Logan) in our ward who is quite good on the guitar. It has renewed a musical desire in him. He loves choir in school and has even sung a solo in one of their concerts, he wrote a song yesterday on the piano, and he's loving his drama class and would really like to pursue more musical opportunities. I loved my experiences in the 3 musicals I was able to participate in and I think Jarom will really enjoy being in musical productions as well.

Hannah is such a cute little lady. Her Beehive class (for Young Women ages 12-14) are quite the group. They get together and make cookies and treats, and just love to get together and giggle and have fun. She has great friends that she is enjoying and it has been very interesting to watch her start to change from being a little girl to a little lady. She still enjoys going downstairs and playing lego's with Emma (thankfully). Emma would be very sad if that were to stop. She hasn't played with her dolls much lately though, and she spends much more time listening to music and dancing. If she had Jarom's courage she'd be quite a dancer... instead she's a "private dancer" (but she's still pretty good).

Emma loves her turtle (tortoise) named - Master Ugway (from Kung-Fu Panda). She loves listening to music and dancing wildly with Hannah and friends (sometimes we've had a whole bunch of girls just dancing and jumping around our house with the music cranked up... it is quite a sight. Great exercise. Emma also got straight A's last semester and we are very proud of her efforts there. Both Emma and Hannah are learning the violin and both are taking lessons from a neighbor and friend.

We are grateful for our blessings. During these times of economic unrest when so many of our friends and family members are facing challenges, we are so grateful for the opportunity to work and enjoy the work that I do. We are thankful that we can be rebuilding our food storage that we depleted during the many months that we were unemployed in the fall of 2007. Lareen and I both feel a real sense of urgency to rebuild our food storage and are grateful for the opportunity to do that.

Love, the Packer's