Halliday Family Blog

Today we went and did a little shopping with Mom and when we came back home, their mission call was in the mailbox!  We were SO excited!  The problem, however, is that Dad was out on a job a long way away and couldn’t come home right then.  That said, the call sat on the kitchen countertop all day unopened!  😐  It was amazing how calm Mom was all day.  We would have been jumping out of our skin.  They decided that they would open their call at 6pm when Dad got home.

We all met at their house, got all that weren’t there on the phone, and they opened their call…  Tokyo Japan!  🙂 🙂

They were so excited!  That is where Dad served his mission and where he really wanted to go back to!  We were all almost just as excited as well!  They go into the MTC on October 4th and will be gone for 18 months.  They immediately started doing research on it and reading up on what they needed to bring, etc.  That’s only 3 months away!  They have a lot to do to get ready.

Congrats Mom and Dad!  We’re excited for you and know that you will be great missionaries!

We had a laugh today…  This morning, the photographer that took the family pictures called up and asked if we could bring Benjamin over to do a photo shoot!  🙂  She loved Ben and how photogenic he was on Monday.  We met her at her studio and she took us over to a park with a pond.  A little girl about Ben’s age was part of the shot as well.  They were so cute!  🙂  She had him dress up lick Huck Finn (overalls no shirt and no shoes) and gave him a fishing pole which he absolutely loved!  She put him on a rock and got some pictures of him casting into the pond.  She then put the little girl by him in a cute sundress and took some more pics.  She also got some shots of his fishing pole over his shoulder, her holding a bunch of flowers, and them holding hands walking in the grass.  It was adorable and we couldn’t stop laughing!  🙂  She then took them over to a farm where they got pictures with a little pony, sitting on a fence, and other shots.  She’s going to send us a copy of the DVD with all the photos and we can’t wait to see it!  I think that Angela and I had just as much fun watching them as anyone else did!  🙂

Today Mark got set apart as a missionary and he will be going into the MTC tomorrow.  It’s hard to believe how fast time has flown!  Angela and I were married before he was born and so I’ve been in the family longer than he has!  🙂 

There was quite a crowd over at the church to support Mark.  Good luck Mark!  We know you’ll do great!  Well, it looks as if Mom and Dad won’t get their mission call before Mark goes into the MTC!  They have been waiting a couple of weeks and were hoping that they could open their call before Mark left.  Oh well.  Hopefully it will come before we leave!  🙂

Today all 47 of us went to a beautiful location in Salmon Idaho to have our family pictures taken.  A professional photographer was hired and she sure earned the pay she got today!  🙂  We first started out getting the entire family pictures taken, after which we did a bunch of pictures of just the grandchildren with grandma and grandpa, the kids, kids and spouses, and just the “outlaws.”  🙂  We then all had separate family pictures taken and individual pictures taken for everyone.  It was crazy keeping everyone together, but we did it.  Here is just a sampling of the family pictures we had done…

Were very impressed with the results!  We bought the copyright from the photographer and she gave us a DVD of all the pictures.  There were around 500 of them.  After we got done, she approached us and said that she absolutely loved our son Benjamin and asked if we would be open to having another photo shoot with him.  We were very surprised and said that he would probably love it.  We’ll see if she calls!  🙂

Today as we were driving from Angela’s sister’s house to Mom and Dad’s house in Salmon, ID, we came across a family posting a sign on the intersection of the highway and where Carla lives.

Only in Idaho!  This isn’t a sign you’d see posted up on the streets in Illinois!  Turns out that this is an annual thing where people get together and eat the things!  😐  Yuck!  We had a GREAT laugh about this!  I know that there are tons of other weird things like this around the country, but we don’t run unto them every day!  🙂

Today was a pretty busy day!  Angela and I got up early and attended a session at the Ogden Temple.  It was nice to be out of the cares of the world for awhile.  While we were there, we ran into Ted File!  He and his wife Joan moved from Naperville a few years ago and we hadn’t seen them since.  It was wonderful to have a chat with him and catch up on what they are doing.  🙂

After we got back from the temple, we piled the kids in the car and drove down to Bountiful to see Angela’s Grandma.  She’s in her 90’s now and we try to see her whenever we can.  We had a great visit with her and she seems to be doing very well right now.  We wanted to take pictures as we always do, but she was being stubborn and wouldn’t let us, so we “snuck” some anyway!  🙂  We don’t know how long she will be with us, and we wanted an updated “Sarah” picture (all first daughters in the family are named Sarah and has been so for many generations).

We then went over and visited Aunt Mary (Grandma’s sister).  She is not far behind in age and is struggling a little bit with her heart.  We like to go see her whenever we make it out to Utah as well.  She is always on the move and we caught her just going out for her morning walk.

After we visited Aunt Mary, we drove back home to North Ogden and had some lunch, after which Angela and the girls went with Grandma to see Toy Story 3.  Dad and I stayed home while Ben took a nap.  It was great to chat with Dad for a couple hours and just hang out and relax.  He’s doing much better now that one of his heart valves has been replaced and he is on a strict diet and exercise plan.  We were quite worried there for awhile.  The idiot surgeon released him from the hospital when he shouldn’t have been and he almost died of congestive heart failure before he could get back down to the hospital.

Tonight we celebrated Mom’s birthday and Mom and Dad’s anniversary.  We had cake and ice cream, and relaxed outside in the yard.  The weather has been absolutely wonderful!  Some people complain that it is hot, but having the weather in the mid-70s and hardly any humidity is not something to complain about!

Brittany has been Facebook friends with my cousin Carli for quite some time and had been dying to meet her.  She came up with Uncle John to join in the festivities.  It was great for her and Brittany to finally meet each other!  🙂

It was nice to catch up with Uncle John and Carli.  It’s amazing how fast time flies!  The last time I saw Carli, she was about 3 or 4.  Now she’s 19, graduated from high school, and looking at colleges to go to!  Yikes!  It’s hard to live so far away from our family because we don’t get to see extended family very much at all.  Fortunately, on this trip, we were able to see a couple of my aunts and uncles as well as cousins at church and when they stopped by.  We wish we had more time to do that kind of thing, but when you are only out once a year, it’s tough.

Today we had a nice, relaxing day.  We slept in, had a long breakfast, and then got took the kids swimming at the pool (with their cousins) while Ben took a much-needed nap.  The pool was pretty busy but we were able to find a perfect pool-side table where we at lunch.  Zach couldn’t wait to get into the water, but was very frustrated and teary-eyed when he was a hair too short to go on the water slide.  He soon forgot about it and turned into a fish!  We couldn’t get either he or Andy out of the pool!

The kids spent most of their time in the lazy river just relaxing and splashing each other.  The girls got worn out before Zach did so my sister stayed with Zachary and Andy and let them swim for another hour or so while we packed up and went back to the house.  We relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Dad made some AWESOME pork chops on the grill and we ate them up!

The kids are very worn out and will sleep GREAT tonight!

After driving almost 1500 miles, we arrived in North Ogden, Utah today to see my (Kirk’s) family!  We got up early and started driving to get a jump on all the semi trucks on the roads.  We finally saw rocky bluffs and mountains after 2 years!  We got some good pictures!

It was great to finally roll in and see Grandma and Grandpa Halliday.  They were SO excited to see us!  My Sister Chantelle and her husband Shawn came down with their kids and we hung out and relaxed.  It was nice not to be driving anymore!  🙂