Christmas in Billings, Montana

We spent Christmas in Billings, Montana this year with Brad's parents. The kids had so much fun! One of the highlights was watching Santa fly through the air. On Christmas Eve a helicopter flew around town pulling Santa's sleigh! The kids loved it! They also got to meet Santa and sit on his lap. Above are a few pictures from our visit.

Reagan starts school (October 2007)

A friend and I decided to do preschool at home. So this fall Reagan, and her friend Caleb began "real" school. Complete with show and tell time, recess, science, reading, math and all of the above! We meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4. My friend teaches on Tuesdays at her house, and I teach Thursdays at my house. It's so amazing watching how quickly they catch on! We started school in October, and by the end of December they were both reading short books! They just recently mastered their months of the year, and days of the week in both English and Spanish, and are working on Spanish colors. It's so rewarding watching them grasp new concepts and learn new things. I'm including a few pictures of our "field trip" to the fire department too.

Fox's New Home

As many of you know, we decided to sell our house and build this year. After many months of our house being on a very slow market we finally sold it! Yay! We are now waiting as they finish building our house. Here are a few pictures to show the progression of things. We'll keep adding pictures so we can keep you up to date.

Madelyn Rae Fox (August 2007)

The biggest highlight of the year was on August 29th when Madelyn Rae Fox (Maddy) joined our family! She weighed 8 pounds, and was 21 inches long. I was so surprised to have a girl, I thought for sure she was going to be a boy. For the record, I've never guessed right on any of my children. Now we know to go with the OPPOSITE of what I think. So much for mother's instinct! We all adore little Maddy and are so thankful that God has blessed us with her.

Family History of Lake George

A little family history...
My great-grandmother bought some property during the Depression on Lake George. She sold off a lot of it, but kept the shoreline property. She built a "cabin" (we never could understand why they called them cabins - they were huge houses!) where her family could vacation in the summers. As her kids grew older and brought their families to Lake George they gradually built three more "cabins". Just recently they bought the last house on the point, so now the entire point is owned by Rowans (Rowan Point). It was very important to my great-grandmother to preserve the natural environment and beauty of Lake George. She, together with my great uncle Hank, bought 300 feet of shoreline and 6,645 acres on the opposite shoreline, which is now called "Margaret Rowan Boyd Preserve." When she died a monument was set up in her honor. It was fun learning a little bit of family history, and experiencing the natural beauty of Lake George. Above are pictures of her monument, and the "cabins" around the lake.

Lake George Beach (Summer '07)

The kids had so much fun playing on the beach at Lake George! They also got to ride in a Chris-craft wooden boat (they only made a few of the kind of boat we were riding in, so we thought it would be fun for the kids to say they got to ride in one). It was a memorable moment.... Josiah was awake for about 5 seconds of the trip... hitting all the waves, but the poor tired little guy right out! And very memorable for Reagan because about the time we got down the lake quite a way we could see a rain storm coming. We thought it would be fun to see if we could race the rain home. We were flying super fast on really choppy water, so by the time we got home, Reagan was in tears because she was sopping wet, not from the rain, but from all the waves crashing into the boat! The adults thought it was great fun though!

New York (July 7-14 2007)

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I know this is a random place to start, but I think it's going to be a long time before I ever get around to scrapbooking these pictures, and I wanted to write down as much info as I can now, before I forget... Last summer we had a blast joining my parents for a reunion in Lake George, New York. I was eight (almost 9) months pregnant with Madelyn, and was worried about how the kids would do on the plane ride, so we had this brilliant idea to take the red-eye flight so the kids "would sleep the whole way". Noooooo.... they were awake almost the ENTIRE night! They were very good, but very awake! When we arrived, the kids crashed, (the adults wished they could have)! We rented a car and drove an hour north to our time-share. On the drive up we were amazed, nothing could have prepared us for beauty of Upstate New York. The thick green foliage reminded us both of Hawaii. Not at all what we imagined! My parents bought two awesome cottages at the most kid-friendly time-share place imaginable. They had 2 pools, tons of toys, 2 kids play area's, canoes... the kids would have been content just staying there and playing the whole time! Although, Josiah's highlight of the whole trip was getting to ride on Uncle Hank's tractor - he talked about it for months! I think my highlight was breaking a hammock! We tried to get family pictures in our "Adirondack" shirts, and as we all settled in it broke! My mom snapped the picture as we fell to the ground. I think I'll post the picture, just because it's such a funny one. Pregnant women should NOT sit on hammocks! Some other highlights were when we took a trip to Fort Ticonderoga, a couple day trips to the town of Lake George, visiting Papa's family at Rowan Point, and Brad and I also took advantage of having free childcare by hitting some awesome outlet malls and having dinner at a cute little restaurant.

Keeping in touch!

I'm excited to have this new way to keep everybody up to date on what's going on in our lives. Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of individual emails I have to send out. And it will be an easy way for you all to see the progress with our new home, kids, and family life. Hope you enjoy!