The Family

Our New Year's resolution is to have a family picture taken, professionally. Not at the end of the year, not at church after tithing settlement and not by a member of the bishopric (not that there is anything wrong with that). And yes Allan is actually wearing a suit. I realized this week that of all of the hundreds of pictures we have taken over the last year we do not have one with the entire family. Sad but true. Given the high price that quality photographers are demanding these days, we are taking donations. There is an account set up at Zions bank under our name if you wish to contribute.

Christmas Day

We woke up Christmas morning with several inches of new snow. This was on top of the other 2 storms in the last 3 days. It was nice to see snow falling on Christmas Day.

The kids have historically been late sleepers on Christmas Day. However this year the 3 were up at 6am. Keanu eventually rolled out around 7am. I thought 6 am was a respectable time for getting up on Christmas morning even if they didn't get to bed until 11 the night before.
Keanu was funny all day. As we were getting ready for dinner he was sitting on the couch in the living room with his blanket and eating a plate full of cinnamon twists while staring at the lights.

The kids asked for fried rice for breakfast and I made it after Round 1 of opening presents.

For those of you who don't know we started a tradition a couple of years ago of opening the presents in rounds. There is a lot of excitement in the morning and it can get a little overwhelming so we open presents throughout the entire day. One year we didn't finish up until almost 9pm. It makes it seem like there are more presents and we never hear 'is that all?' Also pieces to presents are less likely to get lost or accidently thrown out. The kids also seem to like the suspense. Today we wrapped it up (no pun intended) around 2 o'clock because Cynthia had to go into work later on.

We also try and have 1 big present for the entire family that we open last. This year it was a bag of cat food. The kids figured it out pretty fast what it meant. Because we live in a rural area with a lot of mice we have been kicking around the idea of getting one for some time. A neighbor mentioned to Cynthia this week that she had 2 of them she wanted to give away. So instead of getting one kitten we got both of them.

Kalea's Piano Recital

Kalea begged Cynthia for months to take piano lessons and she finally relented and gave it to Kalea as a birthday present last month. Why a child would beg to take piano lessons is beyond me; however Kalea isn't exactly a 'normal' child. She performed her recital at a care center here in Nephi tonight. Since I could not get away from work for 30 minutes and travel the 1/2 mile to watch, (I have had lots of emergencies the last couple of weeks and today was no exception) Cynthia was nice enough to take several pictures along with a short video. Her piano teacher happens to be the primary president as well.

Kai's School Christmas Program

Kai's grade performed a Christmas program last week. The entire grade was part of a choir while several groups of students performed a variety of numbers in between songs. Kai ended up in a group with 5 other boys doing a musical number dressed as reindeer. As I was watching his group performed I couldn't help but wonder if these boys were the 'rowdy' guys of the grade. After the program I was talking with the parent of one of the boys and casualy mentioned it. Her eyes got big and she said, "Yours is wild too huh!"

I'm pretty sure this first picture is of Kai and his lady friend. In this picture she is looking pretty darn happy while she is talking to him. However Kai tried to downplay the picture by elbowing me in the ribs. He says he can't remember her name..yea right

Funny

I thought this was a funny picture because of how serious Cynthia looks. She was explaining to me the flash on the camera was broken and the problems she was having with it earlier in the day. I picked up the camera, said abracadabra, pushed the button and it worked fine.

The Annual Cope Christmas Party

We attended the annual Family Christmas Party tonight. I heard it was some sort of family tradition, but wasn't sure because it was the first year we have been invited. We started off by having dinner which was followed by several well choreographed activities by grandma. She had the kids write Christmas cards to send to the solider overseas and quilt tying to be delivered to the Women's Crisis Shelter. The evening ended in singing Christmas carols at Cynthia's grand parent's home. For the benefit of the neighbors all singing took place inside the home. I was worried there might be a safety issue if the singing was done out in the open.

Several of the kids sang Feliz Navidad with grandma.

Here is proof as to why the singing was done inside.

Thanksgiving 2008 World Tour

The problem with having Thanksgiving so late this year is that it crowds a bunch of holidays close to one another. This year we decided to have our own family dinner the day before. However we decided to invite some neighbors for our Wednesday feast. I had taken Wednesday off and pretty much laid around in bed/couch all day. When it came time to eat I was more tired than normal and even fell asleep on the floor while our neighbors were visiting with us. I am wondering if doing nothing sometime makes you more tired than doing a lot. Cynthia teased me a little and told me that I wouldn't be able to sleep that night. I fooled her. I crawled into bed at 9 and woke up at 7.

We had dinner with her parents on Real Thanksgiving Day. And it was especially nice because only 3 of the 8 kids were there! There was plenty of food, no spilled food, no long lines. On Friday we went back up and made Christmas Tree ornaments. I had planned on riding my bike up and just meeting Cynthia and kids up there. However, I soon became aware how cold and windy it was, plus I haven't ridden in a very long time, so I chickened out. I rode around Nephi and then drove up later.


The kids made gingerbread ornaments on Friday. The biggest problem we had so far is that Keanu will take them off the tree and bite into them thinking they are food.

We also put up the tree, stockings and lights outside. I asked Cynthia if maybe it was time to upgrade and get a bigger tree. She flatly said no. She also said size doesn't matter...

Saturday night Kai's class was singing at the lighting of one of the parks in town. It was followed by the first annual Nephi City Light Parade. Santa was the Grand Marshall. This picture of Santa on a fire truck took me back being 8 years old and living in New Jersey. I remember waiting each year for Santa to drive by our house on top of a fire truck and give us those little candy canes that were usually broken in several pieces.

Keanu sleeping...again

I swear this kid can sleep any where, any time...

Kai and RADD Kids

Kai and Kalea particpated in a program called RADD Kids that runs through their school. It's aimed at teaching them how to be safe. It's taught by local law enforcement and the kids learn among other things how to defend themselves if someone tries to hurt them. We were able to watch both kids do their programs but only remembered to bring the camera for Kai. Kalea said she hated it because it scared her, Kai on the other hand had a blast. He admitted to me later that night that the best part was "kicking that guy in the nuts". I wished we had taken pictures of Kalea with her class because her size becomes more pronounced when she is with several of her friends.

Taylor made the front page of the Paper

Taylor was recently on the front page of the local newspaper. She was singing at an open house for their brand new school that was just completed 3 weeks ago. All of the 5th graders were asked to sing. If you click on the title it will take you right to the online version of the paper and she is in the 2nd row, 6th from the left.

Kalea's 10th Birthday

This past week Kalea celebrated her 10th birthday. She started the day out by getting a bunch of presents from the family and ended it with another ultrasound of her kidney. That's the way I dream of spending my birthdays. I thought the kidney issue would have been done a few years ago, but I guess with a new doctors they like to be thorough. She had some friends over for a little get together on Saturday which was quiet and low key. While the girls were doing their thing, Kai and I were stuck in the basement cleaning out the storage room and putting in new shelves.

Trampoline

We have now joined the ranks of most other Mormon families by purchasing a 'gently used' trampoline. If spirituality could somehow be measured in terms of having a trampoline we are now approaching perfection. If we really wanted to to be at the top we would have bought a brand new trampoline and had it placed in a hole that was lined with bricks and grass. With a 1/2 acre to landscape and over 500 cubic yards of dirt that needs to be removed, the hole (and perfection) will have to wait...

Halloween

Taylor dressed up as a witch; Keanu went as a dog, Kai went as a BYU football player (which right now isn't very scary) and Kalea went as a Denver Broncos cheerleader. I tried to get Cynthia to dress up with me, but decided at the last minute that she was too cool for it. Not wanting to give the neighbors any more ammunition as being the village idiot, I went as the dutiful father. We drove around in the truck with some friends so we could hit the really good houses in Nephi and ended up at 2 different ward's Trunk or Treat. One of the local doctors was giving out cans of soda along with candy. Score!

To avoid any sort of arguing with the candy we put it into one giant communal bowl.

Camping

The kids are moving into a new school next week and as a result were given a couple days off from school. So we decided to go camping, well just me Kalea and Kai. Cynthia hates camping period and Taylor doesn't like to sleep on the ground. However they came up and had dinner with us and then left.

I wish I could say this was Kai's Halloween costume, but this is how he looks whenever he camps. How he manages to get a goatie made of dirt is anybody's guess.

Some Old Pictures.

I found some old pictures on the camera that I thought I should stick on here. Cynthia tries to stop by to see her grandparents whenever she is up in Spanish Fork. We were able to get a few pictures of them together during one trip. It's funny but if you asks Keanu what grandpa does, he leans his head to the side and pretends like he is snoring. I guess Cynthia's grandpa has a slight case of narcolepsy.

Another Trip to Cedar City

Cynthia and I took a trip down to Cedar City this weekend without the kids. Some friends of ours were getting Sealed in the St. George Temple and we wanted to be there with them. We drove down after Cynthia got off work Friday night. When we arrived we stayed up late talking with the Barricks (who we stayed with) and the Christians (another couple couple who also drove down) and it was nice to catch up on the comings and goings since we moved. Saturday afternoon we met with the Iversons in one of the Sealing Rooms after they finished taking out their own endowments. They chose Saturday to be Sealed because it was their 1oth wedding anniversary, which I thought was not a bad way to celebrate 10 years of being together. I first met the Iversons a couple of years ago when I began home teaching their family. I enjoyed going over and visiting with them. Over time as we got to know them better they became our friends. I've always liked Mike because is the kind of guy who seems to have something to smile about. Cynthia told me 2 months ago they were planning this and I made sure to circle the date on our calendar.

We also went to Sacrament Meeting in our old ward and other than a few new faces, it felt like we never left. This was my first trip back since the move and it was as relaxing as we thought it would be. As we were leaving both Cynthia and I talked about how much we miss Cedar City and would have like to have seen more people.

This is Cynthia and Amy oogling over some new jewlery they were looking at getting. Actually Cynthia wanted to get something for her sister and sister in law who were watching our kids for the weekend.

We came across a fairly large spider while in St. George and one of the husbands caught and was going to bring it home as a pet. We found it swimming (or drowning) in a pool. It was pretty freaking huge!