January 06 Greenleaf Post

Dear family and friends,

It's been a wonderful year and we are very excited for the New Year.

Last month Lareen and I went on our first cruise. My parents and siblings had done it once before and Lareen and I had been unable to join them (during Emma's pregnancy) and this time we didn't want to miss out on the fun. We all went on a 4 day Carribean Cruise and in early December. It was so fun to spend time with my siblings and parents in the warm sunshine of the Carribean. I had been worried that Lareen might get seasick (since she gets car sick sometimes) but she was AWESOME! No problems there even on the last day when the seas got rough and there were a lot of people getting sick (including all of my sisters). Lareen was great. While we were gone Lareen's mom watched the kids for the first few days and then our "adopted grandma" Grandma Linda and her daughters Breanne and Aaron watched them for the end of the week. It was great to have good people help that we can really trust. Lareen went snorkeling for the first time and we really enjoyed that, we also went parasailing and that was really fun as well. In the end we have great memories and have decided that we will definitely be wanting to cruise again. I've already started trying to sell Lareen's parents and siblings on the same idea. We have tentatively planned on going together in 2 years. So we are saving up again.

The season of Christmas parties and Christmas fun was, well very fun but very busy. Unfortunately we were so busy that Lareen and I were still shopping on Christmas Eve to try to get things ready. That part was less than fun. On Christmas day our Church Choir gave a really nice presentation. Choir practices are in our house so Logan, Jarom and Hannah all joined us in the Choir. They did great! I was very impressed with how well even Hannah learned her parts and sang out with courage and gusto. Jarom had a nice solo as a shephard boy and he stole the show. He stood up front and sang out beautifully. Lareen and I were supposed to be singing background "oohs" and we were struggling with our emotions on that. Jarom is not afraid of being out front and that helps.

Christmas day, after church we packed up and left for Weiser to spend the night. We had Christmas dinner at Lareen's parents and spent Monday playing games and chatting while the cousins had a great time playing together. We had planned on sledding but our snow melted away due to huge amounts of rain.

We have been getting TONS or should I say GALLONS of rain since Christmas. It started right before Christmas and has been flooding all around here. The county next to us has been put in a state of emergency. A young man from a Nampa stake was killed in an accident when he was sucked into a drainage culvert as he helped his neighbors. It was a very sad and unfortunate occurance.

I need to get to my meetings. We are grateful for the opportunity we had to obey the Prophet and read the Book of Mormon as a family this past year and have truly felt the promised blessings in our home. We intend to continue with our daily reading habits in 06.

Brian & Lareen Packer Family