Happy Birthday

Wishing Jenny a Happy 30th Birthday! May your day be as wonderful as you are!
~jen and her boss~

Happy Birthday Tristan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR TRISTAN

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

THE CAKE IS SO GOOD....

SEE, MY NAME'S TRISTAN....

Wow, the little guy is already 2.

Here's news from the travelers

Hopefully Anita will post on this Blog when they reach their destination. This is just a quick
up date of where they stayed the nights. They left Phoenix on Monday morning and had lunch
in Prescott Valley. Their trailer had been brought there on Sat. when the Marjanen family got
together there on Sat. So on Monday they had lunch in Prescott, hooked up the trailer and
forward Ho!

First night was in Panquitch, Utah, which is southern Utah.
Tues. night was in Butte, Montana, and I think it was a little chilly.
Wednesday night they spent just north of Calgary, Alberta.
Thursday night they were in Fort St. John, British Columbia.
Friday night they were in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. No cell or on-star!
From there 1,100 miles to Palmer, Alaska.
Arrival there?

one more

I won't keep boring you with pictures of Trina, but Diane wanted me to post this here. It is so fun to have a newborn of my own again to photograph!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Wishing each and everyone of you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

(I'm hoping to be off of work tomorrow and have Thursday and Friday off as well.)

I hope you find plenty to be thankful for and enjoy your holiday!

Heather

Going away party

Today we had a going away party at a park here in AZ for Jari & Anita and kids. There were about 90 adults there plus kids. We sang a few songs, had cake, and talked. These are a couple of pics from the park.

pics of Trina

Here are a few Pics from Thursday night. I went and picked up Lindsey and Kierstyn and Brought them to see Mom and Trina.

Packing for the trek north!

Candle lit dinners Thurday evening!

Our storage containers ... the one on the left is completely filled.

Duke wanders around not knowing what to do.

Jari is busy building a cover for the only trailer we are pulling.

News from Arizona!

Grandma and Grandpa Kuoppala received exciting news from Arizona. Frans and Jenny had
a 9 lb. 1 oz. girl at 5:17 p.m. today, November 15th. No name decided as of now. Looks like
Alanys but has hair like Kierstyn. We can be thankful all went well. Lucky Grandpa K
can get to see her on Sunday. dk

Marjanen Madness

I've sort of copied/changed/added red to my blog from Bebo ... for those of you who aren't Bebo-ers! Wish I had some pictures to put on here. My camera chews batteries like there's no tomorrow. Kids took the rechargable batteries and probably pitched them at some point. Need to battery shop today. Will try and add pics later today!

* Frantic on Sunday evening because I totally missed the e-mail from the movers .. said I had to return it within one day .. it was sent on Wednesday. Jari spent some time on the phone Monday. Containers arrived yesterday about 11:30!

** Utilities. Start them there, stop them here. Have "letters of credit" faxed from one place to another so that they can fax to yet the third place. What on earth did this world do before fax and e-mail?! I think everything is now done in that department .. should be powerless/phoneless/gasless (might be a nice road trip eh?) on Monday! Add homeless to that as well!

*** My last day of work Monday. Hard to believe that I can now remove all those user names, passwords, log combinations from my memory bank. I still don't know how I feel about being unemployed. I've only been working 2 - 12 hr days a week. There have been some incredibly helpful people at work, some very kind people ... there will be new ones elsewhere! Today a trip to Employee Benefits: when do I get my PTO check??? I have scrapped buying things here. Am shopping up there. I think I have enough PTO bucks to get me a new couch. :)

**** Back patio is full of boxes .. we were hoping to empty some of it last night. We were able to put most of the HEAVY stuff into the containers last nite .. now to fill in around them. Would have loved to get more in there last night, but we need mattresses in there. So the plan is to empty this house out on to the patio and then fill the containers on Friday. Would really like to use the washer/dryer for several more days. Denise Wuollet offered to pick up my laundry and bring it back to me already done. I'm trying to wash and pack! Yesterday I was actually ironing before packing ... finally realized how dumb that was ... it did give me a good excuse to try and finish the last of James Patterson's Beach House tho'!

***** Missed all the good winter jacket sales over the weekend .. don't know what I was doing instead!!! Bummer!!! That's on the list for after Friday night. If I have time before .. great .. if not, it can wait. Brock got a jacket from Blayde yesterday that is super cool. Not for COLD weather, but it's a start!

****** Our Alaska road map book that lists every gas station/hotel/restaurant is missing. Am seriously hoping that I didn't pack it in a box somewhere. I wouldn't have done that .... or would I? I found it!! Under a pile of mail I'd tucked in a corner. Nearly had heart failure when I saw the pile. Nothing but junk in there .. we're good! :)

******* Jari took the truck to the dealer yesterday morning. They're trying to see if they have a block heater somewhere in town for his. Mine has one! Who woulda ever thunk! Truck will be back today we hope. Trailer got new tires yesterday. My check engine light is back on again. :( Sometime mine needs to go back to the dealer yet again! And ... he isn't a block down the street like Jari's is.

scrapbook

Diane, here are the scrapbook pages. I hope you can see/read them fine, becuase it took forever for me to upload them! I (with the help of caroline jacobson) did this book for jari and anita, and gave it to them last night. It is an 8x8 book. I had fun doing it! if you click on each one, it will enlarge it so you can read it. At least it does on my computer! Frans also made a DVD slideshow for them of pictures from us and ones we collected from a lot of their friends...turned out really nice










I have really been dreading this move for a long time now...yes, I am happy for them, but at the same time, part of me was hoping that it wouldn't ever happen! I started taking pictures for this album last fall, and it seemed like the time would never come for them to go, and that was fine with me! Now it's here, tho it still seems kind of unreal, as I'm sure it does for them too! I'm sure we will realise even more after they are gone how nice it is/was to have some of the "kuoppala" family here! You tend to take things like that for granted!
Anyways, I guess that's enuf rambling!
Happy sunday to everyone, we are off to the marjanens for "thanksgiving" as soon as frans gets home from church!
Jenny

snapshots!

there hasn't been pictures on in a few posts so i thought i would post a picture or 2 of the 4 little girls...Mom was taking them so the ones that she has, they are looking at her. Have a good weekend!

-debbie

Hello from St. Paul

Just wanted to stop by and say "hello". Jen and I are hanging out in the lobby of the Kelly Inn by the Capital waiting for Julie Redman to show up to join us for dinner. I'm here for yet another meeting, only a few more to go over the next few months.

Deer hunting was this weekend. I got a small "button buck" Saturday night. I have a tale to tell on my deer hunting expedition, but won't go into details to bore all of you - needless to say - 6 deer around the stand, one deer down. Shawn got a 6 point buck Saturday night and a 3 point Saturday morning. Monday night, he got a doe. He was hoping it was bigger than it turned out to be. Thank goodness we can each get 5 deer this year as I'm not sure what he got today!!! One of our friends was injured and can't hunt this year, so he's hoping Shawn will get him a deer.

Well, Julie is here, so I'd better run. Take care!!!
Heather and Jen says "hi"

Marjanen Household News

News from our house:

Last weekend we had an offer on our house that we were working at counteroffering. Monday evening we had a family look at our house and Tuesday they made an offer. We accepted it on Tuesday and are looking forward to closing on November 19th if all goes according to plan. The family has 2 girls who go to school with our girls .. will be a nice addition to the cul-de-sac and hopefully continue to keep it a "quiet" place to be. Inspection is scheduled for Wednesday .. will see what they have to say. Am hopeful that it won't be too lengthy a list as we paid for an inspection ourselves before we listed the house originally. I think this means that we are down to 3 weeks and 2 days to pack our house and have a place to live up north. We are excited!!!

Yesterday I slowed down the packing process just a little bit. :) I went in Friday morning and had a laproscopic gall bladder removal. Came home today (Saturday) at noon .. slept part of the afternoon .. and have been listening to a good book on tape and working on Anna's quilt all evening. Now I think it is time for some sleep. Plan to chill out and relax until after the inspection is completed on Wednesday. As long as that goes well and they don't have any major problems with our hosue ... Alyx & Brock can help me start packing.

That's it from here for now. Just wanted to update those of you who read this blog and haven't heard the house news.

Have a great day all!

My Moose

For those of you that I haven't shown this to.... Meet "Honk, the Moose". My newest pet. Not really my pet, but I'm hoping that she does stay around. Someone was hunting at my house this weekend and claims that he saw "your moose" in the woods. I'm very excited. Hopefully, I can get another glimpse of it and a better picture.

Missi's shower

Sorry that I'm so late in posting. I've been a bit busy and haven't had time to spend at work posting pictures....
Missi's shower was a lot of fun. We had a great "brunch". Thanks to all of those that brought the food. It was great.
We went through the process of the wedding at the shower. 1st we needed the bride:

After we had the bride, we needed the "perfect man". Everyone worked diligently on their "play doh" men with Missi judging which was the "perfect man"...

After the bride and the perfect man were created, everyone wrote vows. I don't have any examples of them with me, so can't write what they were. After the vows, we knew there would be gifts. In order to remember 50 years from now on who gave what... we practiced with a pan full of items and the "memory" game.

Missi got to open her gifts too....

Wedding weekend

Rehearsal went well. Surprise that Liz was a reader for the wedding; hadn't heard that before.
Met the groomsman from Detroit. Went to David and Jody's for the grooms dinner which
consisted of a variety of pizzas, salad, pop, coffee and,of course, Diane's cheesecake. Very few
took salad but am glad Mitchell did. Ivan and Missi passed out gifts to attendants, parents,
etc.

The day of the wedding was beautiful. Couldn't have asked for anything better. As one of
the ushers ended up in a cast it was a nice touch that Ivan did some ushering. Also missing
was one of the bridesmaids as she had to go to an uncle's funeral that day. Wedding was
very nice; I guess I was too nervous to cry! The flower girls had looked at wedding videos
taken by their parents so they'd know how flower girls should act. They did a good job as
did the ring bearer but he was younger so laid down once in awhile.

Was nice to see a few at least from our side of the family at the wedding and reception.
Delicious food. Chicken was raved about by people who generally don't eat chicken.

Went to Missi's parents for gift opening Sunday morning. They certainly got a nice variety
of gifts. Then to Randall's for the father of the groom's 70th birthday. That was fun. Will
anxiously wait to see the video of the skit. dk

Happy Birthday Isa

Happy 70th Birthday!

Thanks for all you have done and for all that you are! May your day be filled with only love and happiness. Wishing you the best today and for many more wonderful years to come! I love you!
~jen~

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Alyx,
Happy Birthday to you!

Wow, 16!

Heather and Shawn

Happy Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday, Gary!
I was thinking of you, but things were busy for me all day. Hope your day was great and all that you wanted it to be!
Love,
~jen~