Christmas Letter

Hello all!
I figured I’d better get my Christmas letter on the blog since I already mailed out the Christmas cards promising a yearly update to be posted here. Although, I guess if you wanted a more detailed update you could just read the rest of the blog…I digress.

This year has been amazing. We’ve had so many fun adventures and trips. We had a family vacation in C’ouer d’Alene. It was so beautiful and a lot of fun. Cliff and Lisa (Trevor’s brother and his wife) and family joined us for all the fun. We went waterskiing, to an amusement park, and visited Spokane.

Right after that trip, we took a trip to Texas to see some friends be sealed in the temple. While there, we stayed with my sister and husband (Amy and Bart) and family. It was a very fun trip and I LOVE getting to visit family! They kept us busy with fun things even in the record-breaking heat they were having…and it was HOT.

We took a trip (this time without the kids! Thanks Grandma Strupp!) to Bath, Illinois for their annual Redneck Fishing Tournament. We “fished” for Asian Carp. These are the fish that jump out of the water, many times right in the boat. The rules state you can’t take a fishing pole, only a net and a baseball bat—we just used nets… It was more fun than I ever thought possible.

We also went on our first cruise with my brother and his wife (Mike and Alicia). It was amazing, and I’m sure we’ll have to frequent the cruise ships more often. Although it’s probably not a good idea for the waistline…Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Madsen for watching the kids!!
Trevor is still loving work and Montana. He has been really busy this year with work, church callings and the kids and balances it all so well. He loved coaching Tyler’s basketball team so much last January that he’s doing it again this January. His new calling in the Elder’s Quorum keeps him on his toes, but once in awhile he’ll find some time to go hunting.

Kim loves being a mom. I love the different stages the kids are in and watching them learn and grow. I feel like I have a little more free time with just one child at home on school days. It’s weird going to the grocery store with just one kid. It’s wonderful! I still play in the city volleyball league. I was just called into the Young Women’s program at church and was able to go to camp with them this year. I still fill in a few times a month at Trevor’s office and LOVE being able to keep up the hygiene skills, but still stay home with the kids (kid) most of the time.

Tyler turned 8 this year. The highlight of his year was his baptism. He’s such a good kid and really likes school, basketball , swimming and cub scouts. He’s excited because he just got his wolf badge. He continues to be a wonderful big brother and loves to play and wrestle with Jason when he gets home from school. Jason really looks up to Tyler and always asks when we’re going to “pick up Tyler” from school. He also really likes to play his Nintendo DS, but isn’t too obsessive about it…yet.

Hailey just turned 7. She’s a VERY good helper and always asks if she can help me with anything. She finished her gymnastics class at the end of the school year in June and decided she didn’t want to take another class this fall. Instead she joined “Girls Running Club.” She told me the first day that she like it but it was “too much running.” She stuck it out, though and finished the season. Hailey is a sweet, sensitive, loving girl. She’s very responsible and I know when I ask her to do something, she’ll do it right away. She’s also going to be starting basketball in January. We’ll see how that goes.

Ashley is 5 years old. She started kindergarten this year and loves every minute of it. I was afraid she might get sick of it because it’s all day long. Nope. She probably wishes she could stay there after school, too. She loves her teacher and her friends at school. She loves the activities they get to do and the time they get to play at recess. She also opted not to take more gymnastics classes this fall but wants to join the basketball bandwagon like the rest of the kids.

Jason is 3 on the 22nd of this month. He’s finally potty-trained. Hurray! Once in awhile he’ll get to playing and not want to stop to use the bathroom, but I’m excited to not have ANY kids in diapers. He’s quite a little social boy and likes to talk to all the people at the grocery store and at church. He makes us laugh every day with the things he comes up with. Lately he’s really into Superheroes. Specifically Spiderman and Captain America. He wears his Spiderman costume almost every day since Halloween. He also has been watching “Super Hero Squad” every day for the past 2 weeks and runs around saying “Super-squadies, time to hero up!” He also WILL NOT wear his underwear the right way because the super heroes are on the back and he wants to see them. So he wears them backwards. Comfy.

We are so grateful for our Savior’s birth and atoning sacrifice. We count our blessings every day and are so thankful for our family and friends and the opportunities we have. Thank you so much for blessing us with your friendships. We love and miss you all so much!

Love,
The Strupps (Trevor, Kim, Tyler, Hailey, Ashley and Jason)

Hailey's 7!

Holy cow. Seven years have past already?! I don't know how this happens.

Hailey's been such a good helper this last year. She's very responsible and I don't have to remind her about things. If I tell her once, she does it. She loves school and loves to learn. She's doing great learning how to read and always wants to spend her nights in bed reading books.

Hailey's favorite color is yellow or pink, she loves crepes and spaghetti, and she loves crafts and gymnastics. Her favorite movie is "Barbie Princess Charm School" and her favorite tv show is "Level Up." She's one of my tender-hearted children. :)

I love this little girl.

We had a couple of birthday parties this year for Hailey. We had a little family birthday party at our house on her birthday:


Then we had a birthday party with the kids in her class at the bowling alley the following weekend. That was an adventure. I understand the rule they have at school that if you bring invitations to hand out, the whole class needs to be invited. However, that makes for a lot of kids to handle. I figured a lot of them wouldn't be able to make it. But a lot of them WERE able to make it. Good times. I'm glad Trevor was able to come and help coral the children. They got bored of bowling pretty fast and then we had some pizza and cake and opened presents. Then played some games while waiting for some of the last parents to come. All in all it was a pretty fun time. I'm glad I have such a sweet little girl(s). :) Happy Birthday Hailey!!

The End

The end of changing diapers, that is...so long as the "no more kids" idea sticks. (Although that was my mom's plan at 4, and she ended up with 3 more...)

YAY! I don't have to ask him every two seconds, either. He tells me. AND he goes #2 in the toilet. :) For a few days it was only #1 (no accidents there) but the other kind was a little touch and go. Now: no accidents for 3 days. And he even stays dry at night. Which is more than I can say for another child...

Anyway, he's very excited about his Spiderman underwear and tells everyone in the grocery store about it. He also has found the little hole in the front of his briefs and is a little obsessed.

Halloween

The kids at the trunk or treat:

Tyler is a clone, Hailey is a witch, Ashley a dinosaur and Jason is Spiderman. They love Halloween. We got plenty of candy to get rid of, too.

Cruisin'

Trevor and I were able to go on our first cruise. :) Mike and Alicia (my brother and his wife) went with us. It was so great! We took a Carnival Cruise to Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. Next time we'll go a little more exotic, but this was a shorter cruise (4 day/4 night) that would fit into our schedules.

This is Trevor, me, Alicia and Mike about to get on the ship. They took a million pictures all through the trip and then sold them for like $10 each. I was a sucker and bought a couple. Ah well, you have to splurge sometimes.


We did A LOT of eating. Here's a picture of our table. We sat here for almost every meal and ordered a couple appetizers each, then a few entrees each. Don't forget dessert. I tried to limit myself to just one. The food was DELICIOUS, and I've never seen Trevor eat so much in my life. Maybe I should take some cooking lessons or something. That may be my problem...


Our first stop was Catalina Island. It was really fun to be there, although a little chilly. We rented a golf cart and drove around the island awhile. We had some lunch and then looked in some of the shops for some souvenirs for the kids. Side note--it was so great going on a trip with just adults. I missed the kids a lot, but every time I saw someone with kids on the ship I thought: I'm so glad we didn't bring the kids. Poor things. Maybe next time, but not for our first cruise.:)


The next stop was Ensenada, Mexico. As it turns out, there's not a whole lot to do in Ensenada...we took a little bus tour up to a blow hole. There are only 3 in the world, apparently. That's where the water forms an air pocket under the rocks by the ocean, and then it forces air and water out through the rocks. Or something.

Next to the blow hole was a HUGE flea market. Wow, what an experience. Those Mexicans are PERSISTENT. That's not politically incorrect, right? They are from Mexico...

We had some lunch at a restaurant by the flea market. This guy did a little serenade for a small fee :)


Did you know a lot of prescription drugs you can get in Mexico over the counter? Who knew. They said we couldn't bring them back on the ship with us, though. So we didn't partake. :) However, at the pharmacy we saw this statue and couldn't pass up the photo opportunity. It's a little inappropriate. But funny.


It was wonderful to be able to spend some time with Trevor, Mike, and Alicia. It made it a lot of fun to hang out with those guys. I hope the people around our dining table didn't get annoyed because we were laughing all the time. I think I need to take more vacations! So, thanks Mike and Alicia for making it all possible. And thanks Mom and Dad for watching the kids!

Come Visit

I really like people to come visit us. All of you just think about when you can come, then give me a call and we'll make plans. You may even get a free teeth cleaning out of it. (I have to bribe my guests...)

Last week my sister and her two little boys came for a visit. I LOVED it. She has such cute kids, and I always like to spend time with my sister. We did some fun things while she was here, but about the only thing I caught on camera was our trip to the museum.

Still, for those who aren't museum lovers, there are much more fun things to do if you come visit. :) We have Yellowstone close by, an endless list of recreational activities, I'm here, plus our sky really is bigger than yours. Come see for yourself.

First Day of School

Here are some pictures on the first day. It's actually AFTER the first day, but since it was a little of a crazy morning I forgot the camera. Oops. Don't worry, their school doesn't begin at the end of September, I've been sitting on these pictures and catching up with other stuff during the sweet, sweet time I have while they're at school. I do miss them, though. Then I remember how easy it is to take one child to the grocery store instead of 4. School and naps were invented to keep mothers sane. Except for those amazing women who home school, in which case I don't know how they hold onto their sanity. Good work home schoolers.

I added that last picture because Hailey didn't want me to take a picture of them together. She wanted to be by herself and the only way I could get her to smile was to get Ashley out of the picture. Nice.

Ziplining

I was on the internet a few months back trying to come up with a good Father's Day present. I found a place nearby that does a zip line "tour" with 3 zips. Trevor had never been (and neither had I) so I got him a gift certificate for two people to go. In hindsight, it seems like his Father's Day presents always involve me, too. :) But really, who would want to go zip lining by themselves? Plus, I'm way more fun than any of his guy friends...says me.

We had to use the gift certificate by the end of the 2011 season. Our summer had been busy so we hadn't had any time to go, but we squeaked it in to a free day before the "zip line season" ended.

It was a lot of fun. I thought it would be a little more of a fall at the beginning, but it was kind of like going on a really long slide. Still fun, just not quite the rush I was expecting.


Trevor

Trevor


Kim



Tyler's all excited because he found out you have to be 70 lbs. to go, and he JUST turned over from 69 lbs. to 70 lbs. I don't have the heart to tell him we have like one week left of the season....he'll probably have to wait until next year.

Redneck Fishing Tournament

A few months ago, Trevor was watching ESPN and they were doing some show on the "Redneck Fishing Tournament" in Bath, Illinois. It's a fishing tournament to try and get rid of Asian Carp. They're taking over the rivers and they want to exterminate them before they reach the great lakes.

I'm sure many of you have seen videos of these carp, either in an email video or onAmerica's Funniest Videos or something. They're the fish that jump out of the water. A lot of times they'll jump right in the boat. Trevor thought it looked like a fun trip to make. So, with our friends Jared and Marci, we decided to make it a road trip.
Please don't look too closely, I'm not really that big of a poser...

We left one evening and drove all night, getting there the next evening to Bath, Illinois.

The fishing tournament lasted two days over the weekend (Friday and Saturday), and it was SO MUCH FUN!

Tournament rules say you can't use a pole (you don't need one), but you can use a net or a bat. :) We caught around 130 fish between the four of us the first day. The tournament had two heats both days--each heat lasts two hours--but Friday we only got through one and a half heats and ran low on gas. There is no gas station in this tiny town, so we had to fill up in the next town over.

This is only about 60 fish after the first heat. Disclaimer: Those are all fake tattoos. Although some drunk guys asked Marci where she got hers...




There were a TON of fish to catch Friday. Sometimes it was all you could do to shield your face and forget about catching because there were so many fish jumping. We were so covered in fish slime and fish scales by the end of the day, it was disgusting. There were a lot of boats, but nothing compared to Saturday's madness. Friday was "Redneck Costume" day. I'm pretty sure a lot of these people weren't in costume...but they could definitely win :) This fishing tournament draws some interesting people. And some drunk ones. Marci and I got hit on more than we ever have in our lives--a lot of times with Trevor and Jared right there with us. We're hot in Illinois! :)

Our costumes were ok, but Marci's was the best with her helmet (this is common so you don't get smacked in the face with a fish--a lot of people get broken noses, etc.) with a rubber chicken duct taped to the top. :) There were several tv stations, as well as the travel channel and photographers for ESPN, etc. Marci got so many interviews because of her chicken helmet. Pretty funny stuff. She also had a boat full of photographers following us around for 45 minutes snapping millions of pictures of her catching fish. Love that girl.

Saturday was less exciting, there were WAY too many boats trying to load off one tiny boat ramp. The fish weren't jumping as much, so we left a little early to try and get an earlier start back home. We only caught about 10 fish in the first heat. Sad. I wish we got some more pictures of the fish jumping, but we didn't get a lot of action shots...the boat full of photographers said they'd send some to us so stay tuned :)

We drove all night again and got home Sunday evening so everyone could get back to work. We stopped by Mount Rushmore for a quick look.

Thanks Grandma Strupp for watching the kids! We had a blast and I know they did, too.

Texas

We had some friends get sealed in the Dallas Temple, so we decided to make a trip out of it to go to the sealing and also see my sister for awhile. The kids and I went for a week and Trevor joined us for the weekend. Here are some of the highlights of our Texas trip:

A quick note: Dallas was the hottest place in the country during my little vacation there. Good time to visit, I know. It was SOOO hot. I stepped out of the airport and it was like a sauna. So that's why all we did was swim the whole time...

We went to a waterpark that was the perfect size for kids. They had a lazy river, some bigger waterslides, and a kids area that was pretty big. P.S. The cement was SOO hot that the kids all had burned feet from running from lazy river to the slides to the kids area. I had to carry Jason and run from wet spot to wet spot on the cement. It was crazy. Most people kept there flip flops by the edge of the pool to slip on. That would've been smart. I feel for all you Arizona folks. You're probably scoffing at this post because you deal with these things all summer.

Here's Jason with a little girl in the background. They got in a little tiff later because she kept pushing him out of the fountain he was playing in. Little bully. But Jason yelled "No!" at her and pushed her hands off his chest. :)


Ashley and Hailey at the waterpark


Jason got really tired and finally fell asleep. Poor kid, I tried to get him to take off his life jacket when I could see he was going to fall asleep. I didn't want him to be any hotter than we already were. He wouldn't, though. And don't worry, I've come to accept the fact that I look old.


Another day we went to a "splash pad." I'd never heard of one. It's not like a spray park, but more like a bunch of sprinklers on the cement. This is a horrible picture of the splash pad, but I didn't take many pictures of it.

Tyler and his cousin, Rachel.


We also took full advantage of the neighborhood pool. The kids had a great time at Aunt Amy's house. Thank you!!


And the reason for our trip in the first place:

This is Ted and Caroline. We met them in Philadelphia while Trevor was going to school. Ted and Trevor are hunting buddies. Which makes them practically brothers :) We were happy we were able to attend their sealing. We had fun with them for a couple nights while Aunt Amy took the kids. Yay :)

Couer d'Alene

We decided to take a family vacation to Couer d'Alene this year. We had never been there and had heard how beautiful it is. So we rented a boat for a couple days and had some fun on the lake. Cliff and Lisa (Trevor's brother and wife) and their two kids (Nyah and Sabra) came with us, and it was SO much fun. Thanks guys!

Here are some pictures of our boating fun:

The kids about to do some swimming during one of our stops


Lisa, Sabra, Jason and me


Hailey, me, and Ashley


The day got pretty long for Ashley and Jason. But don't let this picture fool you, they had a blast


They gave us a surf board with the boat rental. This is me trying to figure it out. Trevor was doing really well by the end of the first day. I could do it, but only holding onto the rope. The second I tossed it onto the boat, I fell behind the wake and no more surfing for me.

Whatever

Spokane

The day after we took the boat back, we just relaxed and hung out. In the morning we spent some time at Cabela's. Then the Cliff and Trevor went golfing at this amazing course in Couer d'Alene with a green that floats in the lake. If I had Trevor's phone, I would download some pictures of it. But I don't...So while they went golfing, Lisa and I took a little trip to Spokane. It's about 30 minutes from Couer d'Alene.

We took the kids to the city park, which was really beautiful and had fun things for the kids to play on. Here are some pictures of the kids at the park: (And since Lisa's an amazing photographer, I'll use all of her pictures--taken with my camera--)

The kids and I


All the kids on the wagon slide



I took this one :) This is Lisa, Nyah, and Sabra

Silverwood

The last day of our vacation was spent at an amusement park named "Silverwood." It was a lot of fun. You would think I could take more pictures than just the kids on the helicopter ride.

We had such a fun time, it was hard to come back home. But it's alright, we have more vacations coming. So stay tuned :)

Hailey, Jason and me on the carousel




Tyler and Jason


Hailey



Ashley



Nyah and Sabra

Most Patriotic

We just got home from a great vacation (more pictures of that to come...maybe later than sooner...) and I got a message on my answering machine that I did indeed win most patriotic for the 5K :) I even get a gift certificate. Yipee!

So I checked the website to see what place I took. We'll leave the men out of these standings...I got 3rd among the women. :) I knew I should have tripped that girl that ran by me at the very end! Just kidding. Kind of.

4th of July

Although it's not quite the 4th, we celebrate around here on the 2nd.

We started out our day by running in some races. Tyler decided he didn't want to race, but Trevor ran the "fun run" with Hailey, Ashley, and Jason. Jason rode in the jogging stroller for most of the time, but got out a couple times and ran until he got tired. It was really fun watching the younger three, they were really cute and they got all excited about the little flags they got at the finish line. Here are some pictures:

All the kids before the race

Near the finish line

After the race with their flags



My race started shortly after they got done with theirs. I ran another 5K. I'm not quite sure how I placed in this one, because they haven't posted the standings yet.

Now, don't laugh at my patriotic getup. They said we should dress up and the best dressed would get a prize. I wasn't going for the prize or anything, I just didn't want to stick out as the one who didn't dress up. Turns out, I was the only one who dressed up. Good times. I don't know if I would've picked up the prize or not because we didn't stick around too long after.

After the race we came back and got ready for the parade. We rode bikes to the parade and watched all the entries as the kids gathered as many pieces of candy as they could. I know, you're probably jealous that our town still throws candy and yours doesn't. I would be too.

After the parade, we grilled some burgers and hot dogs and had a picnic outside. We were planning on going to the rodeo, but I think the kids were pretty tired from the days activities. Trevor and I lovingly remembered how fun it was last year to carry all the tired kids with aching legs back to the car--20 blocks away--while they told us just how tired they were with each step we took. So instead we opted to ride bikes to get some churros at Taco John's for dessert and put the kids to bed at the normal hour. Then Trevor and I watched some tv, and then some fireworks from our front lawn. Excellent. Sorry there were no pictures of all THAT fun!