More Snow!

Today church meetings were cancelled because of the snow! I can't remember that ever happening in Utah before. The Bishop and some young Aaronic priesthooe brothers came and shoveled a trail from the road to the back yard where the Echo is parked. They did in a few minutes what it would have taken hours for us to do! We did a terrible thing--we forgot Matt's birthday--so busy and caught up in our own doings. But we hope you had a great day and we will talk to you soon and there will be something in the mail too. I wouldn't mind this getting old time. In fact my body feels younger than it did a couple of years ago. But, losing my memory is a real drag most of the time. But, when I forget I'm getting up in years, that is nice. I'm going to stake choir practice in just a few minutes--conference is in a couple of weeks and it's snowing again. At the cannery on days during family canning I lift many cases of canned food on to carts so they can be loaded into cars. I have done it for 2 weeks now and my back hasn't hurt at all. Did you see Presl Hinckly's funeral? His saying I liked best was "It's a miracle!" There were many miracles in the past 13 years. Oh how I will miss him! Time to go. I love you all so very much!
Mom
Pap here---I measured, about noon time today, the depth of snow from this last storm and the data was ofer five and one hapl inches, and that was at noon time and here it is five thirty and it hasw been snowing on and off all day.
At about one thisw pm the door bello rang and I answered the call and was greeted by our dear bishop who asked if he and the Aaronic ph boys could shover out the red car we parn in the covered area by the shop. Naturally I did not refuse their help as the snow for a couple of days had piled up to nearly one foot and it was heavy stuff. I had driven back there this morning to break a trail but it was covered over and now we have a scraped/shoveled drive way back to the car and out to the street.
Thanks Jared, and any others, for calling Mat on his B-day--he naturally appreciated the time to visit with y'all.
Today has not seened like the Sabbath as our meetings were cancelled and no fast/testimony meeting which has improved sinceour dear bishop read them the 'riot act' last testimony meeting and explained what should be encluded and what to leave out and after he bore his testimony the saints who followed were more testimonies than sermond and travelog than since I can remember and I missed being reaffirmed that his instruction had beend accepted.
Love Pops, daddy, ole man et al

Too much snow

Especially for the Oakes folks living outside the snowy state of UT we have good news and some very cold spells to report.Yesterday the wind came up, yet the day was sunny, and was cold as could be- -it got down to 7 above last night and right now at seven-thirty pm it is bouncing around atg ten above, the wind blew out the pilot flame for the living room heater and try as I may I could not get it to stay lit long enough to start the heater heating co I went out to the shop and got my propane heater from there and lit it to warm the living room. Naturally with all the fierst wind--some places reported seventy mile per hour breeze---blowing the snow which lay on the ground softly from the last storm began to be re-distributed whereever the wind listed to take it. Bertween the front steps and the street we had a ridge of snow srift and thinking it to be soft when I went to post a letter to Krista I was surprised out of my wits- -there are less of them at my age than formerly--when I stepped up on the drift and it surported my weight and I walked across it as if it were a rock with a skiff of snow on top. A wierd sensation to say the least. We are heatinbg up the place tonight with hopes that it will not be too hard to stay ahead of the frigid outside which ahs a tendensy to seep in during the night. We set the thermostat on 66 and sleep snuggly in under the blankets. All our love to all of y-all and God bless everybody. Pops, daddy, old man et al

Jacob's Science Fair!

Jacob won second place in his science fair at school!
You can see more pictures at:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/16467012@N00/1fJ2B3

I'm on, thanks for the call Jared. It was fun to talk to you, Jake and Emma yesterday. I have a test on Tues so I'm up studying to make up for not studying much this weekend b/c I was in Chicago for a Medical Students for Choice regional conference and I wasn't about to spend a Sat night in Chicago studying in my hotel room. I'll get some pictures from the other students who went and I'll post them. I'll write more about my Christmas break, I spent time with Jared and Kris and with Mike and Tanya and had a great time even though it broke my heart that I wasn't in Utah with my family there, I felt like such a traitor. Love y'all!

Sharing pics from Christmas

Doesn't Joe just look so excited? That changed few moments later when he got a totally unexpected gift.



Bryan is super happy in his picture, guess Santa brought him the perfect gift.



James had a great time this Christmas season. He put most of the decorations on the tree and loved opening his presents as much as playing with them.


I hope everyone's Christmas was a joyful as ours.

No more cocoa puffs!

Emma has a new do! She likes it so much, she gave us a good smile for the camera! She's got Daddy's height, Mommy's dimples, and Jacob's brown eyes!

Here she is, showing off her new look and her cute shoes and purse, all ready for church this morning!

A Texas Sized Christmas

"Texas Sized" doesn't mean the quantity or even quality of the gifts given or received but the amount of family we had with us during the holidays.

To start things off we had Jon visit us for a week before Christmas. The reason why Jake and Emma look so sad in this picture is because they missed a whole day with Jon as he forgot which day his flight was on and didn't realize it until he received a call from Krista who was waiting to pick him up at the airport. All was not lost as Jon was able to reschedule his flight for the next day and we had an enjoyable week with him. It was great showing him around the Dallas area, eating some of the great food in the "Restaurant Capital" of Texas and seeing some wonderful Christmas light displays in the area (http://www.friscochristmas.com/ http://www.friscosquare.com/fair). It was also nice just to hang out with him and talk about family, friends and the many wonderful times we have had together. After a week with him he had to leave to see Mike's family.

The next week we had Krista's oldest brother Jim, his wife Rachel and their two kids Madison and Ethan come visit for a couple of weeks. Jim is just finishing his medical training so we took him and his family all around the North Dallas area hoping to persuade them to settle here. Jake and Emma had a great time playing with Madison and Ethan while we entertained their parents. Shorty after they arrived Krista's brother Mike called and surprised us with the news that he, his wife Melanie and their 7 month old daughter Zoe would be flying in from North Carolina to visit for Christmas.

With all of them and Krista's mom and Blake coming from Houston to visit we had a house full of family, friends and chaos. Luckily between our house and her dad's house we were able to juggle all of the family that came to town. It was wonderful having Jon and Krista's family here for the holidays, and Santa was good to us this year, but the best part of the whole holiday season was the afternoon of Christmas day. We have a tradition of visiting rest homes and other places on Christmas day where people aren't able to spend the day with family and friends. We go sing Christmas carols to them, spend some time with them and get to know them. We always take our Polaroid camera with us and leave them with pictures of the time we spent together. It was touching to see Jacob overcome his initial fear of meeting new and different people and become excited about helping others feel better. It was also heartwarming to see tears of joy as one elderly lady held her arms out wanting just a hug and the soft "thank you" whispered in my ear as I held her in my arms. It as a memory that I will cherish and an opportunity I look forward to each Christmas day.

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and a great holiday season.

Love,

Jared, Krista, Jacob and Emma

Thanks Jared and Krista for setting this up!

I finally figured out how to write and now you better watch out! It was great being at Becka's and having Matt and Reisers there too. Especially nice seeing our mostly grown handsome and beautiful and smart grand kids. We are so proud of them and love them dearly. Thanks for the food and hugs and talk and just being with each of you. We had dinner and played "apples 'n apples" with Nyleen and Miles and two other couples. It was at Nyleen's house and she did lots of work to make it special. That's how we saw the new year in. We wish each of you a wonderful new year, full of happy and healthy and wealthy and most of all spiritual blessings. What did you do on New Year's eve? If Matt stopped at our house on Monday we must have missed them. I would like to have visited some more with them. I'm going to get to bed earlier this year. That is my resolve and I have just been reminded of it and I must hurry not to be late. Thanks to each for the nice thoughtful Christmas Presents.
Much love,
Pop and Mom

Mat's email

Mat's email address is:

matoakes77@yahoo.com

He has to go to the library to access the internet but wanted to be included here.

Thanks Becka. I sent him an invitation to join.

Jared

Thanks, Jared!

Thanks for setting this up! Someday when I get some time (ha!) I'll add some stuff. We didn't even send a holiday letter this year.

We're just all keeping busy--me with work and piano lessons, and everyone else as students. Luckily, the three of them get a nice break for the season, which they are all using to do--surprise--homework! Alan just pulled a 4.0 semester, and is already preparing for the next one. Harrison did well too, and has a bit of time to pursue a few digital projects he's been planning, and recently read the last Harry Potter book in two days. Amanda completely aced her last math test (yeah!) and has had some fun at the neighborhood snow hills, doing physics tests for a school assignment, and sledding with her friends and brother too. She attended the girl's choice winter formal a couple weeks ago with the big teddy bear, Maple, that Jon gave her years ago as her date. (There was no one else she wanted to ask!) I'll try to post photos of her in her awesome D.I. dress later.

The snow kept us home on Christmas Eve (sorry Mom, Dad and Becca), but we enjoyed not going anywhere. We stayed home all day on Christmas too, reading, playing games, and eating. (Harrison and Amanda helped me make lasagna, two kinds of cookies, and pecan pie on Dec. 23.) It was a nice change of pace.

Anyway, hope you all have a happy holiday season!