SMILE!

Our good friend Jenn Taylor took pictures of our family last fall at Thanksgiving Point. Here are some of the pictures she took.

More Random Pictures....

Snow, Snow, and more Snow

Utah is getting pounded with snow. For the past two weeks, we've had a major snow storm every 2-3 days. The biggest storm delivered over 18 inches of snow. Other storms have added anywhere from 3-12 inches each time. School even closed early one day because of bad snow conditions. The kids are having a ball, but for those of us that don't own a snow blower or a snow plow, the snow has been a nightmare. I keep getting calls from the Bishop with a list of people who need help removing snow. I can't even stay ahead of the snow at our house, let alone the rest of the neighborhood! I've made fast friends with an Elder in the ward who has a large tractor with a great big plow on the front of it. I call him every few days to recruit his help with digging out people in the ward. He can't do sidewalks with his rig, but it sure helps with driveways. He did have the nerve to take his family on a cruise that lasted 5 days. I sure missed him while he was gone. He got home last night and I had a list waiting for him -- poor guy. He's very happy to help. He spent 6 hours out on his plow after the biggest storm. He typically does every house on his street. Unfortunately he doesn't live on our street, so we don't get the benefit. He does, however, come up to our street on an "as needed basis".

Christmas in February

No, we're not still celebrating Christmas in February...we're just posting our Christmas pictures in February. The cord for our digital camera mysteriously disappeared 2 months ago, so we haven't been able to upload any pictures. We finally got a new cord, so here is the Brown Family Christmas...a few months late!

2007 Christmas Greetings

Christmas Picture....

Christmas letter - click to enlarge...

Our good friends, the Murdochs, turned us on to a really fun website called JibJab. The website let's you upload your own pictures, then inserts your faces into fun holiday videos. Our kids insisted that we make a few videos. They had so much fun watching themselves in these silly videos. We sent the videos out on Christmas Day to our family in the following email:

Dear Family:

Merry Christmas!

Our family made some special holiday memories this Christmas season and we were able to capture a few of these moments on film. We wanted to share these precious moments with each of our family members to help bring you some holiday cheer.

We hope you enjoy!

VIDEO #1: Decorating the Christmas Tree is always a highlight at the Brown home. Do you have this much fun decorating your tree?

VIDEO #2: We have received alot of snow in Utah. We have had great time sledding, making snowmen and.....having snowball fights.

VIDEO #3: For those family members that don't celebrate Christmas, we have included a special tribute to Hanukkah. Who knew Hanukkah could be so much fun?

We love you all and hope you have a wonderful Christmas Day!

Love,

Mark, Holly, Packer, Holland, Cannon & Harper Brown

Magical Christmas Morning

Holland's face says it all...it was a magical Christmas morning. As usual, Santa left an impressive display. All of the kids' dreams came true.

According to tradition at the Brown's house, all the kids have to wait patiently on the stairs while dad turns on Christmas music (it has to be Andy Williams' "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year") then dad makes sure that Santa really did come. After these important procedures are completed, each child gets to come in one by one, starting with the youngest. Santa doesn't do any wrapping, so all the presents sit on display for the kids to see.

Annual Nativity

On Christrmas Eve, all the kids participated in the Harper Family's Annual Nativity re-enactment.

Cannon was Joseph. We were short on girls, so we recruited the Harper's neighbors to join us so we could have a Mary.

Harper was a beautiful angel.

Packer & Holland were wise men, kings, sheperds, drummer boys, etc . (along with their cousins Dax, Dace, Ethan & Jackson). After the Nativity, we all went Christmas Caroling.

Visiting Santa

Santa made an appearance at our ward's Christmas breakfast and at Cannon's preschool program.

Pax did a great job of training his little brothers and sister on how to get your list to Santa. In year's past, our kids have gotten mild cases of "Santa Fright". They have always been willing to sit on Santa's lap, but then they freeze up and forget to tell santa what they want for Christmas.

Pax made sure that didn't happen this year. He had everyone rehearse what they were going to ask for before getting on Santa's lap. All the kids did as instructed and were able to convey their important information to the jolley old man.

Harper asked for a doll, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony.

Cannon asked for a Flying Lighning McQueen and a Gun. The gun was a surprise to us all. After getting over the shock we narrowed it down to two things. His cousins, Travis & Weston, have a Nerf machine gun that can shoot about 30 nerf bullets in about 3 seconds. We also discovered that the Flying Lightning McQueen has the ability to shoot small bullets. We're relieved to know that his idea of a gun is pretty harmless.

Holland wants a Wii and Packer wants a Sony PSP

These last pictures are from Cannon's preschool program.

Cathedral Cove and the falls at Rapaura Watergarden

Yesterday, Saturday, we invited the Turpins to join us in touring the Coromandel Peninsula that is about 200 km south and east of Auckland. We began at the water garden and then spent most of the day at Cathedral Cove. We understand that Cathedral Cove is the location for some of the next Chronicles of Narnia scenes. The beach is spectacular! Next we visited the Hot Water Beach near Mercury Bay where there are multiple hot springs that flow under the beach and can be exerienced only at low tide. If you dig a few inches into the sand, the scalding hot water will flow freely.

Extreme Makeover

This last weekend, Holly had to run to the store and I was out shoveling the snow. The 5 boys found this to be the perfect opportunity to give Harper an EXTREME MAKEOVER without any adult supervision.

Packer, Travis, Holland, Weston & Cannon literally gave Harper a complete makeover. She had on a new outfit that Holly had just purchased. Her hair was all gussied up. She had lip stick plastered on her lips that extended to her ears. She had eye makeup of some sort smeared around her eyes.

The best part was that the boys had sprayed what must have been an entire bottle of Holly's perfume all over Harper's body. The perfume had little sparkles in it so Harper really shined! I swear I could smell Harper from the garage. In fact, it has been almost a week, and several baths later and I still smell a residue of perfume in her hair.

When I walked in to find Harper all made up for "The Ball", the boys were in the process of trying to attach very large, dangling earrings (not clip-ons) to Harper's ears. I arrived just in time!

Once again, the boys had a great time playing with Harper. She has the best bodyguards (and make-up artists) on the planet!

Christmas Luncheon at Abergine Restaurant - 2007

All of the senior missionaries couldn't fit around one table, but we were seated with some special friends. Jan Malloy, dressed in red on the right, is not a missionary. She is employed as the secretary to the Director of Temporal Affairs. She is a former nun and her conversion story is included in Hartman Rector's book, "No More Strangers." The older couple next to Jan is the Roeuche's. He is the Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency. He has been a stake president, mission president, and temple president. They are in their mid 80s and they've been told that this will be their last mission. They have served in Europe and Hong Kong. The Turpins next to MelRae are wonderful people from Centerville. We drove three hours up north to watch them run in the half marathon last month. Both finished!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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We walked the 150 - 200 yards from our apartment to Takapuna Beach and I removed my shoes for a run in the sand and water. You can see our Mon Desur apartment building in the background and the Pohutukawa trees in the foreground. The Pohutukawa tree is nicknamed "Christmas Tree" because of their beautiful bright red flower that blossoms in early December and then turns a rust color before falling to the ground in late December. There are many people enjoying the beach by walking, running, swimming, kayaking, boating and wind surfing on this Christmas day.

We will spend our Christmas afternoon and evening with Elder and Sister Hans Sorensen and their family. We were with Elder and Sister Condie for dinner three nights ago and will be with Elder and Sister Baxter on New Years Eve. These three members of our Area Presidency are great friends and are doing their best to help everyone feel the Christmas spirit. All of them have joined us in our fasting and prayers for Sheryl and they are rejoicing with us as we express our gratitude for all of the miracles that Sheryl and Lon have received during the past three months.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love David and MelRae

Hon Winnie Laban - Minister of Pacific Island Affairs

We drove to Wellington a week ago to meet with Winnie Laban. She has been a Member of Parliament for many years and was selected as a member of the Cabinet (Minister) about three months ago. We have met with her on four or five different occasions and she is a very good friend of ours, and most of all she is supportive of all of our activities. I scheduled the visit to get her perspective on the challenges facing the Polynesians in New Zealand and to get her support in promoting some of the family values programs that we will be taking to the various islands early next year. Her responsibility is limited to domestic issues, but the Polynesians in New Zealand have an excellent understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the their friends and relatives living in the Islands. She was most helpful and I may even invite her to join us on some of our travels to the islands.

John Key, Member of Parliament - National Party Leader

I'm pictured with Anthony Wilson (Public Affairs Director in New Zealand), Elder Condie, and John Key. We are in Hamilton where John was the VIP speaker who turned on the Christmas lights after a very nice Christmas program that was presented by local stake members. We visited with John and two other Members of Parliament for 45 minutes before the program. The National party (Conservative) is the heavy favorite to defeat the Labour party in next falls election and if so, John will become the Prime Minister. He is a very bright, capable and quality guy and could likely serve as the PM for multiple terms. He was an investment banker for Merrill Lynch in New Zealand, Sydney, London, and Singapore and has worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of NY and has completed management studies at Harvard. We are working to assure that he is a good friend of the Church in New Zealand.

Soccer Honors

Just thought we would add a quick note to let you know about some recognition that Crew received this week. As mentioned before, his high school soccer team did fairly well this year and as a result there was some recognition given out. Crew received Defensive Player of the Year for his team. He was also named to the 4A All Sunset League Team (which is the league they play in) and then he was named to the All Northwest Region Team. He was one of two players from his team to get this honor. We are very happy for him and what he has been able to accomplish this year.

Kick off to Christmas

This past weekend was our official kick off to Christmas! We had a great weekend and did alot of fun things to get us in the spirit of the season.

We started the weekend by waking up to find a foot of new snow. The boys spent hours sledding, snow boarding and playing in the snow. It was cold, but it didn't bother them at all.

We then went to Aunt Annabelle's for the Annual Cookie Party. Each boy made a pan full of personally decorated gingerbread cookies. We had a wonderful lunch and had a great time visiting with our Brown cousins.

After the cookie party, we went to the Festival of Trees at the South Towne Expo Center. The boys all agreed that their favorite tree on display was the Star Wars tree. The tree had 238 Star Wars action figures as ornements (see photo below). The tree was topped with a life size Darth Vader. We also saw a super hero tree, a transformer tree, BYU tree, and more. We also ate cinnamon rolls, watched Chirstmas perfromances and participated in several games/arts and crafts in the kid zone. We always love to go to the Festival of Trees.

Our cousin on the Harper side, Ethan, also spent the night and participated in these fun events with us.

Happy Birthday Sheryl!

One of the highlights of our Thanksgiving holiday was when all of us gathered in the Wardrop's den to talk to Sherly & Lon and to sing Happy Birthday to Sheryl! As Lon declared, November 22, 2007 is Sheryl's new birthday, since this is the day that the stem cells were implanted back into Sheryl. It was so wonderful to talk to both Sheryl and Lon. They are both so positive and full of faith. We are all truly grateful that everything is going so well in China. What a perfect day for Sheryl to have her 2nd birthday...on Thanksgiving day.

We love you Sheryl & Lon!!

Here's a note to Sheryl that Holland wrote all on his own while we were on the phone with them in China....