Beach Bathroom

Hey Everybody!
I made the bathroom by the garage into a beach theme. The wallpaper gave us absolute fits because we trimmed it too close, but now it looks really nice. I use turquoise towels and put the kids' pool toys in the basket.

One more thing...

This is for those of you who have not seen Benjamin "live". We miss you and love you!

Love, Wendy

It's a busy time at the Kollers

As always, this season is very busy at our house, but I thought it would be nice for you to see a little of what we've done and how we look-our how the kids look-I'm not sure if there are any pictures of me since I'm usually behind the camera! Busy, busy, busy-for sure!

Also-FYI-I've had steroid injections in my SI joints, and my pier formis muscle (I have no idea how to spell that one) and am now able to walk pretty well-I even vacuumed out the car! Life is good! I like having control of my life again!

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Kollers

My house at Christmas

We've had a lot of fun this year decorating-you can't see all of it, but I don't know if I'll ever get a better picture-Mom, I hope that you like these!

Love you!

Wendy

I just had to do it...

Lyssa-this is for you!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1550992083

It was totally fun and I encourage our entire family to do the same-too bad they only allow 4 faces-it would have been fun to elf our entire family at one time! :)

Love you!

Wendy

Merry Christmas

You have to see this! You will laugh your head off. Merry Christmas from the Tribes!
Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below. Or copying and pasting in your URL space.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1473469854

This elfin' greeting brought to you by OfficeMax®.

Christmas Lights

Wendy wanted me to post pictures of the house with lights on it, so here they are. She said she would do the same. Her house is so lovely this year that people stop when they drive by! Wendy, let us see!

Putting Up Christmas Trees

I guess I'm getting in the Christmas spirit, or at least in the mood to have the trees up. I put the big tree downstairs this year and bought some new oversize balls. I decided to put some blue on it to go with the couches. I am really pleased with how it turned out! The blue has some turquoise in it, which made a fresher-looking contrast with the red and gold.

Everything below waist high is unbreakable, so when Alyssa brings her dogs, there can't be any catastrophes. At least not if we get them tied up! The trees, that is!




Guess what! After I put the downstairs tree up, I found the nutcracker ornaments which had been lost for several years. They needed a tree all their own, so I put up a tree in my office on top of the filing cabinets. It has the straw ornaments from Germany, the olive wood ornaments from Israel, the nutcrackers (bought in Germany but made in China, of course, because I am too cheap to buy the real German nutcrackers,) and the Turkish lanterns.

Justin's video

More pics of the Kollers

Pictures of Benjamin's blessing, trick-or-treating at Daddy's work, and Hayden beginning "the training" (not going so well, by the way).

What's going on at the Koller's

New baby, doctor's appointments, Halloween, shots for everyone, preschool for Justin, the list goes on and on, but I thought that I should show you a few pictures-since I finally downloaded them to the computer (actually, Chris did it). Love you all! Wendy

Rob's project made the front page of the paper

So last weekend Mom, Dad, and Kim came up to Logan to help with a community wetlands restoration project that Rob organized. Thank you! It made the front page of the Herald Journal! link

I'll put up pictures if I ever download them from my camera :)

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch in Layton . . .

Kim is busier than a one-armed paper hanger, but tonight she came racing into the house after her church meeting in a hurry to "read stories to Justin & Hayden on the internet." I sneaked into her room and took this picture without her catching me! Notice she is showing the pictures in the book to the boys over a video conference on her computer. Love, Mom

So, I'm on a roll now

So, I saw this commercial on the Army channel and thought you all would like to see it too. It makes me more than proud, honored to be part of the Army family. You all should too, as you are all part of the extended Army family. This is also somewhat of an explanation as to why I am staying in Tennessee while John is away. I love you all and hope that you take the time to watch this movie. Oh, and I saw another one that was super cool too. So here are the links for the videos. (Shelley, something on my computer wouldn't let me just add the link, so just copy the URL everyone).

Army Family, Army Strong commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5RIHo5rh3c

Army Strong commercial that is really touching:
http://www.forscom.army.mil/reeng/1-G8/G8_Army_Strong.htm
click on the high resolution link on the lefthand side of the screen

Love you all! Families are strong. Army Families are Army Strong!

take two

Apparently, I am a little technologically challenged. Here's the website to the video, or you can go onto youtube.com and type, "remember me". It's the first viedo on the page that says, "I need to know" on a green screen. Here's the website:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

cool viedo that you all should watch

Hey there everyone. I was looking for package ideas for John and happened upon this video that is about soldiers. It will totally make you cry but it's worth it. I hope you all have a great week and are actually looking at the blog. ;) Oh, and here's the website where I found a cool list of items to send to John if you want to make a package too.

http://thefuntimesguide.com/2005/09/soldierpackages.php

Love you!

John's in Iraq (but right now he's in Kuwait)

Hello all! Well John's officially deployed for another 415 days, but who's counting right. These are pictures of him right before he got on the bus and left. He is currently in Kuwait training for three weeks until he goes to Iraq to provide protection for the battery's Colonel and other high ranking guys. I really don't know much about what's going on there, but I did get a chance to talk to him today. WAHOO!!! I also received an email from him stating that we could send him packages and mail; The address he gave me was in Iraq and he's in Kuwait so I'd recommend that if you are sending him a package to leave out the perishables until further notice. We really appreciate any support everyone could give him while he's away for so long.
I'm doing well in the land of hillbillies. ;) Really, it's quite nice out here and I've been making lots of friends who are in the same situation I am in, so it's going well. I can tell that there have been prayers on my behalf so thank you. Aussie and Sugar are well. They sure seem to play a lot and get into more than their fair share of mischief. Sugar needs to be trained still, but that's something that I plan on doing in the near future.
Life is good, I have my good days and my bad days but so does everyone else. I love you all and would love to have everyone write john emails or send packages. You are the best.

Here's Johns email:
liberalmocker@yahoo.com

Here's John's address:

2LT John Tribe

HHB, 1-320th FAR

2BCT 101st ABN DIV (AASLT)

CAMP LIBERTY

UNIT #43081

APO AE 09344-3081

We love you all! God bless America (and my soldier)!

Cooky Graduates from Nursing School

The GREAT NEWS is that Cooky graduates tomorrow from Nursing School! Classes are not finished until around Thanksgiving, but she will walk tomorrow.

Way to go, Virginia!





Ceremony is in the Provo Tabernacle Saturday, October 13 at 10:00 a.m. She didn't really invite anyone, but you're all welcome to come. Mom and Ralph and I are going; so are all her kids. We are all so proud of her!









Afterward we all went to The Brick Oven in Provo for pizza. If you were there a really long time ago, it was called Heaps o' Pizza. We had a great time.

Marilynne Update

I have to tell you the sad news that my Aunt Marilynne, King's sister, passed away this afternoon at Charley's house in Kansas City. She was 89. She was the funnest aunt in the world, opinionated and feisty. It's interesting that Dad died almost exactly one year ago tomorrow, on Friday the 13th of October, 2006.

We Are Scattering

It seems our family is scattering all over, away from home. Larry is gone to Oregon for 9 days for his conference, Lys is in Tennessee and John leaves for Iraq next week. Wendy and Chris and boys are in South Carolina, Heidi is in Orlando. Troy and Angela and kids are of course in Detroit, Shelley and Rob in Logan, and Aaron and Becky in Salt Lake. My Mom came to visit, and there's no one here but Kim and me! Come home, my fly-away children!

Mom Started New Job

I started a new job last week. I am teaching choir half time at Central Davis, the same school where 4 of you kids went to junior high. I teach 3 classes every afternoon: General Music, Boy's Choir, and Concert Choir. I've had 2 days with students, and so far it has been pretty good. The other choir teacher has been there for years, and she teaches in the mornings. The cool thing is that if I want to be gone, like to Wendy's next week, she will take my classes. I will do the same for her when she wants to be gone. I guess you would call it a job share. This is what I have always wanted to do: job share a junior high choir position. So far, I really like it!

Ranger John

Well it's official... John has graduated from Ranger school and is now a Ranger. WAHOO!!!!! We are so excited and I am so proud of John.
It's been a long year and a half of schooling for John and he is beginning Airborne school on Friday. All of Johns family came and we even represented with Kim, Wendy, Justin and Hayden coming from the Hensons. It was super hot, but really cool. There was a show before the graduation demonstrating what a Ranger learns and does; it was very exciting.
Thanks to Wendy, Kim, Justin and Hayden for coming it really meant a lot to us and made the experience so much more fun.
John and I decided that since he had some free time we would go on vacation to Orlando. It was a fast and super fun trip. We went to all the Disney parks (Animal Kingdom excluded) and went to both Universal Theme parks. John has a friend that is a paramedic for Universal so he gave us passes for free. Way fun.
We're loving being together again but nissing Aussie. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Shelley, Rob and Jasper for watching over him and making sure he doesn't cause too much mischief. We love you all andhope you are doing well. Have a great week!!!!

You too can be a star

Have you ever had a song that just stuck in your head and you couldn't remember what it was or who sang it? If you have a microphone on your computer, you can now sing it into http://www.midomi.com/ and it will find it for you.

You can also record yourself singing any song you like. I'll pay any of you a dollar to put a song up.

Summer in South Carolina

Talk about a fabulous summer so far! I've been in South Carolina with pregnant Wendy and her fun family for about a week and a half. We've had SO much fun! Alex Leffler came over for a week and we've had a fabulous time! I'll be honest with you, the first few days, I was so hot from the humidity that I didn't want to eat or drink anything. However, the breezes have kicked up quite a bit, and life is good now.



As you would expect, Justin and Hayden can't put down their light sabers and we've laughed a lot together.

Last night, for the fireworks, Hayden was so impressed! He kept saying, "BAM!" every time a firework went off. That's a boy after my own heart, I'll tell you what. When they were over, he was so happy, he said, "I"m proud of you" because he couldn't really express how he was feeling. It was so fun to see the 4th of July through kids' eyes. Justin only covered his ears a few times because it was so loud. Lee Greenwood, the singer who sang, "Proud to be an American" also came! What a fabulous day it was! We also had a pancake breakfast at Wendy's ward. The mayor came as well as a lot of military dignitaries. Hurray! :)

Check out my photos on my flickr account. We've gone to the beach, to the Magnolia Plantation, to downtown Charleston and the battery, to Cypress Gardens, and to the festivities for the 4th. I wish you all were here to share this experience with me. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimhenson/show/

Pool Craned Over the House!

Today the pool arrived! It had several major hassles and it took them 5 hours to do the job, but it now sits in place in the back yard!

Notice that there are two pools on the truck. Unfortunately, ours is the one on the bottom. It was loaded that way at the factory in California for safer transport. Our pool contractor was not happy!





After much discussion over who would take responsibility in the event of a mishap, it was decided to first crane the top pool onto our front yard. (This pool is going to Park City, or they would have just delivered it first.)

Notice our pool in the background is still on the truck.

Larry had to bend the weeping cherry out of the way.






After they got the other pool out of the way, they lifted our pool off the truck.









Here you see our pool flying over the top of our house. Because the distance was too great for the weight of the pool (2800 pounds, Ralph!) it had to be set down in the back yard of the house next door.

The neighbors have been great to allow us to drive on their new sod (ruined), turn off their sprinkling system for 2 weeks (in 100- degree heat), and take apart and cap their sprinklers so the trucks could drive over them. Tonight we told them that we aren't going to charge them for their half of the fence. Seems only fair . . .



After they put the other pool back on the truck, they moved the crane so they could lift our pool into its' hole. Finally!












It's in! Hooray! Neighbors keep coming by to see. The guys across the street had a beer party with their friends to watch the show!

Zachido Barachido

How much stuff can you fit on a La-zy-Boy? Well, according to Justin, this is his list. (and what he put on the chair)
1. Mommy 2. Justin 3. Hayden 4. Shivers 5. Lightsabers-4 of them 6. walkie-talkies-2 of them 7. one compass 8. one map 9. 2 toy guns 10. 1 chain (to catch the monsters) 11. one toy dagger 12. 2 swords 13. Mommy's magazine that she was reading when all of this started.

We then go on our "safari" in our Safari Jeep. Justin looks at the map, decides where Africa is and uses his compass to find out which way to go. We're off. It's a little bumpy on the road, so Justin picks up his walkie talkie and calls up his friend "Zachido Barachido" to smooth out all of the bumps and holes in the road. Hayden answers on his walkie talkie and says, "Awright" and on we travel. We soon come to the monsters. Out come the lightsabers, and Justin holds off the monsters until Mommy and Hayden can shoot them with the guns. Justin ties up the monsters with his chain, and then we enjoy a nice leisurely ride back to our house with the monsters in tow. We never do use the dagger and swords, but I'm sure we'll try again soon.

A Dangerous Book for Boys

This book seems to have been a hit. It's written for boys... What every boy should know :) Mothers are talking about it here... http://mother-talk.com/wp/?p=70

Or check out the book's website.

Digging Our Pool!

Last week they started digging our pool. First they dug out a flat place. Then they spray - painted the shape of it on the ground, plus 6 inches all around. It will be a fiberglass pool, all in one piece like a giant bathtub. A big semi truck is hauling it here from California. Hopefully it will be delivered this week, and a crane will lift it over the house. Then they hook up the mechanics (filter, heater, vacuum). Next they start to fill it with water and at the same time put sand around the outside, keeping the levels even. Last comes the concrete around the edge.






The digger used a transit to figure out exactly how deep to make it.


They carried 20 dump truck loads of dirt out of the back yard.







We hope it will be finished by the time you all show up for Shelley and Rob's wedding!




The last picture is the finished pool hole, looking from the fartherst corner toward the house.

Baby name wizard

Check this amazing thing out, all you baby makers... http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

Try this

Google the phrase: Insane devil woman. Then hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

The guys at my work think they are funny :)

Check my blog for a bit more... http://shelleylyn.blogspot.com

The Cruise

I have been meaning to get these pics together and finally did. Here is the cruise that Tyler and I and James and Vicki went on May 28th - June 1st. We went to Catalina, California and Ensenada Mexico. We had a great time! It was so nice and relaxing. I highly recommend cruising! And no we didn't even get sick! It was great! Check out my blog for more fun stuff we have been up too. www.grovesfam.blogspot.com
Love you ALL!!
Love Laura

Our Cruise!

I'm almost there...

Well, I am so close to finishing school, that I can almost taste it. I am just trying to bide my time until then and bow out gracefully (not working too well, but that's okay).
The good news is that John has successfully passed, "Mountain Phase" in GA and is now actually at Eglin AFB doing, "Jungle Phase." If he passes this last phase successfully, I could get to see him in about two weeks!!! WAHOO!!!!! It's been since April 26th and it'll be nice to be like a real married person again. ;) If you would like to send him a letter, you can send them until June 30th. His current address is:

2LT John Tribe
6th Bn, RTB
RN#352m Company C
6069 Walkers Lane
Camp James E. Rudder
Eglin AFB, FL 32542

I love you all and look forward to hearing from you or seeing you soon. By the way, I am totally jealous that you all are doing fun things and I am stuck in school. Have a great week!
Alyssa

help me choose

Any suggestions on which of these three photos are best for our engagements? I have others if these all bite... be honest, it's ok to say "Shelley, you should really photoshop those wrinkles out"

Larry & Kerry Trip to Hawaii & Alaska

June 1, the last day of school, Larry & I got a military hop to Hawaii! Here we are on top of Diamond Head, an extinct volcano overlooking Honolulu, which you see in the background.












This is how we got here!
























We went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. there were thousands of fish of all colors, about the size of my hand, and a few larger ones. that was the highlight of the trip!










Removing the pig from the roasting pit at the luau at the Hale Koa. We ate all kinds of strange things, like seaweed salad, fresh tomatoes and raw salmon. The fresh fruits and roasted meats were great. Poi is awful. It's kind of like cold oatmeal that's been blendered up to mush, but not nearly that good!






This picture is the Hale Koa where we stayed for 2 nights. The next 4 shots are all from our balcony. What a view! Larry has wanted to stay here for years, but we could never get a reservation. This time we got cancellations. Hale Koa means "House of the Warrior."











View of Hololulu and the gardens around the Hale Koa












View of the Ocean













Night view of the city is so beautiful












Looking directly down from our balcony. the pool was heated to about 80 degrees. We were so busy, we didn't get to swim here very much!











In Alaska, we took a "26 Glaciers" cruise on this catamaran, the Klondike Express. Because if was a catamaran, it could go faster and we went 135 miles through the deep fjords to see the glaciers. We saw hundreds of sea otters and several bald eagles, a mountain goat and a few moose. Larry loved it!













Glaciers are actually blue!











We got to watch several aerial refuelings en route. We laid on our stomach in the very back of the plane, and looked out the little window in the floor to see our plane "pass gas" to the plane below.