Trusses and snowmobiling

Two good things happened this weekend . . . . The trusses on our home were finally put up and I got to go out snowmobiling with a friend from work. Unfortunately the completion date of the home has been pushed back one final time to the end of April. Boy we're getting anxious to get moved in. Anyway, my friend and I took Friday off and headed up Spanish Fork canyon to try out the new snow that had fallen just the day before. There was absolutely no one on the mountain and the weather couldn't have been any better. We eventually made it to Strawberry Reservoir and back and found some freshly groomed trails that let us cruise through the trees at about 55 mph. It's very cool to go flying across the snow that fast. Our final trip total was 77 miles and we only got stuck 4 times. That's not bad. It was the first time taking out the snowmobiles since both of the clutches were rebuilt and both machines ran pretty smoothly. I don't care what others say . . . Utah mountains are the best in the world!

Home progress

While we were on the cruise, the home did make some progress although this week it really has started to take shape. Framing is usally something that happens quickly, so it's been fun to drive by on the way home from work to see what has happened that day. It will be cool once the trusses are lifted up.

Disney Cruise, see ya next time!

We're slowly recovering from a week long adventure sailing around the Western Caribbean sea, enjoying tons of good food, mingling with Disney characters and more than anything . . . relaxing. It sure was a great trip. I would highly recommend a Disney Cruise to anyone that is contemplating taking kids on a cruise with them. They cater so much to families. I'll include some pictures here in the blog, but if you want to see a better snapshot of our cruise (no pun intended), check out the shared pictures (and even order your own if you want!) from our most recent print order at Wal-Mart.

We started out in Port Canaveral on Saturday the 28th. We actually stopped by the Kennedy Space Center before boarding since we just happened to be there on the 20th Anniversary of the Challenger explosion. There was a service going on at the space center for family of the astronauts, hence the picture at the end of the blog with the flag at half mast. We left Port Canaveral Saturday evening and sailed through the night to Key West, FL. Since it was Sunday, there wasn't a whole lot we could do but walk around the city. We got back on the boat and sailed all day Monday enjoying the tons of activites on teh boat and arrived in Grand Cayman Tuesday morning to some beautiful turquoise water. We spent the day swimming with stingrays on a sandbar about 4 miles off shore and snorkling the nearby reefs. Isaac wasn't too thrilled about being in the water with "Mr. Ray", but Brooklyn seemed to enjoy it. We then sailed all day Wednesday and arrived in Nassau, Bahamas Thursday morning and had a local Bahamian show us the island including a small zoo where we fed birds, walked with flamingos, and a beach where the waves crashed right on the sand due to the steeply sloped beach. Brian (my brother-in-law) got beaten to death by the waves and has the scars on his back to prove it. From the Bahamas we sailed through the night to Disney's own private island, Castaway Cay (pronounced "key"). The island was beautiful and very much out in the middle of nowhere. Isaac enjoyed burying himself and others in the sand and playing in the waves of the lagoon. We rented bikes and biked around part of the island. It really was a nice end to the whole trip. We sailed through the night and arrived back at Port Canaveral Saturday morning to some pretty heavy rain. We really did luck out with good weather and fairly calm seas on the entire trip. Since our flight didn't leave until later Sat. evening, we headed back to the Kennedy Space Center and got to see the Space Shuttle launch pads and other rockets up close and personal. The kids loved seeing the astronauts and rockets all around.

Luckily no one got sick on the cruise. I only took some motion sickness pills the first night, but didn't have any problems the rest of the week. The food was outstanding. Our dinner servers were awesome and really had fun with the kids. The "Pirates IN the Caribbean" theme night was fun. With Disney's huge outdoor movie screen, Brian and I watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" while sailing under the stars of the Caribbean Sea. Bet no one else has ever done that before.

Because Disney does own several of the new movies out in the theaters currently, we were able to see movies onboard such as "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Glory Road" in their very nice 1,000 seat theater. Now back to normal life as we all know it. It sure was fun to live the VIP life for a week though. Can't wait until next time.

Disneycruise Here We Come!!!

Two days and counting before we're sailing on a cruise ship on our way through the Western Caribbean. It's something we've been talking about for awhile and finally decided to do. We're going with Tami's immediate family, grandmother and our kids of course (11 of us all together). They can't wait to go on the boat with Mickey Mouse. I'm sure they'll have a blast. We plan to swim with stingrays, do a fair share of snorkeling and more than anything, get away from the cold and enjoy some nice warm humid weather. We set sail Saturday the 28th, head to Key West, then down to Grand Cayman, then to Nassau Bahamas and then to Disney's own private island, Castaway Cay. We'll arrive back at Port Canaveral on Saturday, Feb 4th (Brooklyn's birthday). I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about when we get back.

Nothing terribly new on the homefront. The house looks about the same as the last picture I posted. They do have the basement slab poured and the suspended slab laid over the garage. Looks like they must have trucked in the slab already poured and just lowered it into place. We've been told they'll be starting the framing any day now. Hopefully we'll get back from our cruise and find an actual home. We'll keep you posted.

Making progress

Here's the latest picture taken this weekend of the new home. I'm standing just to the left of where the driveway will be. The basement walls are all in. The basement floor has yet to be poured still. They're estimating that we'll be in the home by the end of March. I'm not holding by breath, but let's hope we're in by then. As much as we love our little two bedroom basement apartment, we are getting anxious to get into our own place again. Here's a picture of the "bunker" room. It is where the theater room will be. They excavated under our garage and will put a suspended slab there so that we can have a nice 24' wide by 20' deep room completely enclosed in concrete . . . perfect for our surround sound theater. The floor of the room actually is about 2 feet deeper than the rest of the basement. The house you see on the other side of the street on the left will be very similar to how the front facade of our home will be except flipped with the garage on the right. We're also doing brick instead of stone.


We attended our new ward today (the ward we'll be living in once the home is done). It was Brooklyn's first Sunday in Sunbeams. She was a little timid at first, but I think she'll enjoy it. She's one of the older Sunbeams since she'll be turning 4 next month.

Happy New Year!!!

We hope you all had a wonderful New Year. We decided to celebrate the new year at the cabin even though we had just been up there the week before for Christmas. Tami and I and the kids went along with Brian and Stephanie. For about a year now, I have been bringing up a laptop projector from work and we have been watching movies "big screen" style. However, Brooklyn has now coined the term "Big Sheet". She loves watching movies on the "big sheet".

But we needed something for the kids to watch so that we could watch our movies as well, so we created their own little theater just behind the big sheet. They were so excited about their "theater" and the fact that they were able to sit on the trampoline made it all the better. Over the course of the weekend I believe they watched Tarzan II about 10 times and Pooh's Heffalump Movie roughly the same.

I made the mistake of bringing up my Lost Season 1 DVDs. I believe over the course of the weekend we made it to episode 16. Brian and Steph are hooked now. As for those who have not seen Lost . . . RENT IT!!! All it takes is the first few episodes and I guarantee you will not be able to put it down.

About a foot of snow fell New Year's Eve making it pretty much impossible to drive to Church that morning. So we just snowmobiled in. The church is about 3 miles from the cabin. The kids enjoyed the ride in. The next morning a few more inches of snow fell and it was time to play. The snow was just the right consistency for snowman building. Brooklyn and Isaac really got into it.


They loved seeing our little snowman come to life. Brooklyn named him "Frosty" of course.

On the other hand, Brian had much bigger plans for his snowman. At first it looked like a single pilar of snow, but with a little help from me, we were able to sculpt it into something a little more interesting. Remember that I'm 6' 4" tall. Let's just say it was a challenge getting the head all the way up top. I'd be lying if I said that we planned the upper snowman to be leaning to the side. It was simply a stroke of luck that added nicely to the overall effect. Too bad the top snowman fell a few hours later. It looked good while it lasted though.

And now we come back to reality and life after the holidays. However, just a few more weeks until we leave on our Disney Cruise!

Put Put Golf

Tonight, Tami and I and the kids decided to leave the constraints of our basement apartment and go on a family outing and play miniature golf at Trafalga in Orem. Tami's not the biggest mini golf fan, but I enjoy it and we thought the kids would too. Everyone had a ball. Somewhere in between keeping Isaac from picking up our own golf balls and keeping him from climbing inside the little houses, we were able to keep score. I of course was under par. Tami didn't keep track herself. The kids did surprisingly well through 18 holes. I even won a free game pass for getting 1 of the 4 balls into the special outhouse toilet on the 18th hole. Good fun and good times!

Merry Christmas 2005!!!

We decided to use our blog site to post our family newsletter this year. Feel free to post any comments you like and don't forget to check out other posts in our blog.

2005 has been a wonderful year for our family. As we look back on the past year, we are grateful for the many blessing we have received and the opportunities we have had. A lot has changed in our lives. Here is a brief update…

Kevin continues to work at Novell in the support department. This August he had the chance to travel to Japan with business and learned a lot about the culture in a short period of time. He enjoyed the trip and appreciates the travel opportunities he has through work. Kevin spent much of January and February refinishing our basement. After about a year of hard work, we were finally able to resolve all of the flooding issues and put our home back in order. Only a few months after completely everything, we decided, somewhat suddenly, to put our home up for sale. Our home sold rather quickly and we are now living in a basement apartment while our new home (also in Spanish Fork) is under construction. We should be moving in sometime this spring. Kevin is looking forward to all of the projects this new home will offer (sort of). Kevin has served as the Executive Secretary and a primary teacher in the ward this year.


Tami decided earlier this year to resume her former running hobby (something she hadn’t done much of since Brooklyn was born). She ran in several races throughout the summer and is planning to run a marathon next year. She also started working a few early morning hours per week at a Residential Treatment Center in Spanish Fork, which she really enjoys. It has been a nice opportunity for her to get involved again in social services. Tami tagged along with her sister and brother-in-law on a trip to Southern California while Kevin was in Japan. She and the kids had a great time camping on the beach, visiting the Wild Animal Park, touring a submarine, and seeing Kevin’s family. Tami has served in the primary and on the Enrichment committee in the ward.





Brooklyn started preschool this year. As part of her classes, she has both a gymnastics and dance class each week, which she really enjoys. Brooklyn had her first dance recital this past week, and although she got a little stage-fright, looked extremely cute. Brooklyn has enjoyed the adventure of living in the basement apartment of the “red house,” especially since her and Isaac get a TV in their room. She loved her trip to Yellowstone this summer with her cousins and is excited to go on a Disney Cruise next month so that she can spend her birthday with Mickey Mouse. Brooklyn is looking forward to starting Sunbeams next year.

Isaac has grown a ton in the past year, and his big smile has kept up with his size. He and Brooklyn have been mistaken for twins more than once and are the best of friends. Isaac is very energetic enjoys the opportunity he has to go to gymnastics each week to work off some of his energy. He is great at swinging on the bars and walking on the “tricky” balance beam. Isaac got over his fear of the ocean this summer thanks to a little help from Uncle Mike and developed a love of sand crabs and splashing in the waves. Isaac has acquired his sister’s love for anything Disney and had fun visiting Disneyland in January. He started nursery this year, and we’re hopeful that sometime before Sunbeams he’ll warm up to it all.



We hope this holiday season finds you all healthy and happy. We appreciate the love and support we feel from you, our family and friends. We are grateful for the role of the Savior in our lives and strive to be more like Him. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2006!

Love,

The Fenns

Santa at the Spanish Fork Library

Getting ready to run the Alpine Slide in Park City

Hiking around in Yellowstone.

Happy Easter!

We have a hole!!!

After months and months of waiting, we finally have visual confirmation that our home is being built. They dug the hole yesterday and were supposed to get the foundation poured today, but not sure if that will happen or not. We're pretty excited though. As you can see from the picture, the square area in front where it is deeper is where the room will be under the garage. That will be our little home theater room. They build an engineered suspended slab for the garage floor that can support the weight of the cars and that allows for a good 450 sq foot room that doesn't have any supports at all. Because the room has concrete on all four sides, it's like a sound envelope. Anyway we'll keep the pictures coming as they continue on the construction.

Cousin Reunion

Thanks to Amy, we were able to have a little get together on Sunday over at Curtis' new home in Provo. On the menu were the infamous Fenn tacos, which I'm sorry to say I've never had before. They were a little greasy but very tasty. Brian, David and Dusty had come up for the weekend to go snowboarding and dropped in too, along with Stephanie, Amanda and her husband Brent. Brooklyn and Isaac were a little shy at first, but that didn't last long. Brooklyn's new favorite friend is Curtis. They're pals now. Even on the way home, she kept saying "Dad, I like Curtis and I like Curtis' house." I'm sure it had nothing do to do with the huge LoveSac there that they played on and nothing to do with how Curtis chased them around the house until he started to feel his Fenn tacos come up the wrong way. Oh well. It was a good time to visit and enjoy each others company. We're even getting some stained glass to put in our new home from Curtis since he is now the master stained glass craftsman. (Top row: Stephanie, Dusty, Amy, David, Brian. Bottom row: Kevin, Isaac, Tami, Curtis, Brooklyn, Amanda, Brent).

Happy Birthday Isaac!

Isaac turned the big "2" today! We actually celebrated his birthday yesterday up at Grandma Marva's house with the family. He got some pretty cool gifts including a huge pack of dinosaurs, a big 4x6 rug with roads and streets on it to drive his cars on, some clothes including some glow-in-the-dark dinosaur PJ's and his very own Mr. Potato Head. Too many toys to keep track of. Tami and I made a pretty cool birthday cake though. We got the idea out of a magazine. The cake in the picture is the end result. We baked a 9x13 yellow cake and then cut them into squares, stacked them on top of each other and then poured green glaze all over it. Isaac is a pretty cute kid. He sure has grown a lot in the last year. Pretty soon he'll pass up Brooklyn! Happy Birthday Isaac!

Santa Claus is coming to town

The Christmas season is in full swing. The kids are enjoying the many Christmas lights that line the homes in the area. Isaac is very good at picking them out. On Saturday, Brooklyn and I went on a Daddy-Daughter date and saw The Polar Express on an IMAX screen in 3D. If you thought the original was amazing, seeing it in 3D is incredible. I'm not sure how they do it, but it adds a whole new dimension (literally) to the movie. It was like we were actually riding the train. This evening we went to the library for Family Night . . . one of the bonuses of living in Spanish Fork. Every Monday the have Family Night where they read stories and play games. And of course tonight Santa Claus came. Brooklyn was very excited that "Santa was working at our library tonight".

Decorating the Tree

This Christmas will definitely be an interesting one. We have been living in our little 2 bedroom basement apartment for about a month now and there just isn't room for a tree, so we are improvising by using some small little fake trees that sit near the fireplace. The kids had fun decorating them tonight. Isaac was more interested in just shoving the ornaments into the tree and didn't get the whole "hanging" concept, but oh well. We had our first snow of the year yesterday and the kids love the snow. They're even more excited that the owners of the home upstairs have set up one of those air filled snowmen in the front yart that have a light inside. Although we won't be in our new home this Christmas, we've realized that it's not where you live or your living circumstances, but the Spirit of Christmas that makes it all worth while.

Black Friday!

So, is it crazy that I got up at 3:45 am Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving to go shopping? Heck no. I live for the most popular shopping day of the year mainly for the good deals on electronics, but also for the experience. I did pretty well this year. I had my battle plan all laid out the night before. I was on the road by 4:10 and made it to CompUSA at 4:30. They had been open since midnight, so it was pretty mellow. Kind of weird being at CompUSA at 4:30 in the morning. Then it was off to Best Buy. I was probably #400 and something in line. They opened at 5 am and boy was it a mad house. I picked out what I wanted but decided to try something new this year . . . I hid what I was going to buy in a very clever place and left the store. I arrived at Circuit City at 5:15 and found what I needed and again hid it. I got to Target at about 5:30 and stood in line and waited in 25 degree breezy weather for the opening at 6am. When the doors opened, it was a mad rush! People were cheering and running like wild animals to the back of the store. People were losing their shoes and I even saw a 10 year old boy go down amidst the stampeed. I knew exactly what I wanted and was in the checkout line and out of the store by 6:10, a new record! I then circled back around to Big 5 Sporting Goods and then back to Best Buy at about 6:50. I found my stash and stood in a much shorter line than I would have been in otherwise. Then it was back to Circuit City to find my second stash. I was pretty proud of my newly found technique. I got to Staples at 7:30 and the item I wanted was long gone, but luckily I had actually hid my stash Wednesday night in the back of a desk drawer on display. K-mart was the last stop, but everything had been picked over. I pulled into work at about 8:15. It was definitely a fun morning. 7 stores in 3 1/2 hours!

Lilo & Stitch

Last year we purchased a Stitch costume for Isaac taking advantage of the after Halloween costume sales. However neither Brooklyn or Isaac had ever seen Lilo and Stitch. Of course that has changed over the year and it is now one of their favorite movies. When we pulled out the costume this year, Isaac was very excited and of course Brooklyn was pretty jealous, but after we tried to explain to her that Stitch was a boy and Lilo was a girl, she was OK with that. It really was too bad that everyone that saw Isaac mistook him for Eeyore, but Brooklyn was very defensive of her little brother and wouldn't hesitate to correct.


Every year at Novell, the kids are invited to walk around to the offices and go Trick-or-Treating. It sure beats going around at night in the cold and they get tons of candy. We did take them to a few homes in the evening though. Little did we know that Lilo and Stitch would have more fun handing out the candy to those that came to the door than actually going door to door getting candy. Each time the doorbell rang, they would drop whatever they were doing, sprint to the door and get the candy ready to hand out. It was fun to watch them.


Our little girl is almost 4 years old and is already addicted to talking on the phone. I think she's talking to Kaley in this picture. All in all it was a very fun Halloween. Monitoring the post Halloween candy intake is another story, but it sure makes for a good bribe.

Pumpkin Carving 101

I love Halloween, especially the pumpkin carving part. Several years back I bought one of those pumpkin carving kits and have had a ball trying to make some pretty intricate pumpkins faces. The process involves taking the pattern, taping it to the pumpkin surface, using a little poker and transferring the pattern to the pumpkin face with a series of dots. Once the dots have been transferred, you remove the paper and rub white flour into the dots so that they are easier to see. Then with a little tiny saw, you just start cutting out the pieces connecting the dots as you go. Certain pumpkins took longer to do, but it takes roughly a couple hours to do each pumpkin. Below you'll see the pumkins I've done over the last 4 years.

This was the first one I did Halloween 2002. I actually repeated this pumkin pattern in 2003 and entered it into the Ward pumkin carving contest and won. Go Cougars!

Halloween 2003 was all about Elmo. This one was harder than it looks trying to make the fur look good.


How can we forget Halloween 2004. This pair of pumkins was by far the most difficult, but we got a lot of comments as people came to the door that year.


And finally we have Halloween 2005. With the move, we really didn't have any trick-or-treaters come to our home, so I carved this one very quickly and displayed it on the inlaws porch. This one only took me about an hour to carve, but thought it was cool.


I'm sure that our next neighborhood will enjoy my future pumkins. Who knows . . . maybe 10 years down the road I'll be cutting my pumkins with lasers.

Good Morning!

Most mornings, the kids are up before I head to work. The ritual of the morning is of course to eat breakfast. Brooklyn will come running into the kitchen and the first question she asks is "Dad, are you staying?" If I say no, she gets pretty sad, but part of it is that she's still half awake. If I tell her yes and then after she is fully awake I tell her I have to go to work, she's fine with that. The kids love Cheerios, but they're pretty funny about getting started. They both need to be sitting together on the bar stools and need a bowl with a spoon (or as Isaac says it, "poon"). They also need their sippy cup of milk. However, they'll just sit there and stare at it for about 3-4 minutes as they finish waking up. Then they dig in and are usually quite happy. Check out the before pictures above and then the final one is after they've waken up. They're a pretty cute couple.

House under contract!!!

After being on the market for 41 days, our home is officially under contract. However we're not out of the woods yet. The house still needs to be appraised and the buyers need to read our full seller's disclosure. Hopefully they won't have any problems with the whole flooding issue. If they stick to their dates, we should be out of our house in 3 weeks! Happy Halloween to us! That's not a lot of time. We'll be living in temporary housing for the next 3-4 months while they finish our new home, which we're very excited about. It's only about a mile from our current house, which is nice. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but Spanish Fork is starting to grow on us. Below is a picture of Brooklyn standing in about where our garage will be. The second picture is a view of our lot from across the street. It's a little over .25 acres and is a corner lot (like our current house), so we'll have to focus on the front yard a little more yet again. Our home is a rambler and has a side load garage with a driveway that will empty into the street to the right. The front of the house will face the street to the left. Brooklyn calls our new house the sunflower house. If all goes well, we'll be moved into the home by the end of January.

Braids . . . . finally!!!

So the day has finally come. We never thought it would arrive. We're talking about the day that Brooklyn's hair would be long enough to actually French braid. We went up to the cabin this weekend to watch conference up there. Brooklyn was pretty excited at first, but by the time that Grandma Adele was finishing up, she was definitely ready to be done with it. They did turn out to be pretty cute though. She's growing up fast!