A very white Corbett Christmas

The Scott Family (minus Elizabeth and Tyler)

Christmas Eve at The Scotts.

It's an artic winter in Corbett

John's Christmas lights.

Ian and John on a nice 20 degree, 30 mph winds walk on Reed Road.

Nessie taking the brunt of the wind. Brrrr...cold.

Hilarious Erik

Erik had me take some photos of him looking like an "Artistic Portlander." He likes to mock. The glasses finish off the look. Why the mug? Uh, Portland drinks coffee; Lots of it.

Thanksgiving week photos

On Saturday, we rushed home to get a tree with Tyler and Elizabeth. We've gone to the same tree farm for at least ten years. Elizabeth was so excited to get a small tree to take home to their little cottage. Luckily for her, she has all her Christmas decorations from childhood as well as some IKEA purple and green Christmas bulbs we bought for the wedding. Our tree is missing her decorations already.

The day after Thanksgiving, we ventured out to one store in the mall and let the kids roam free through the mall. Erik must have taken this picture of Ian with his cousin Marlana.

Ian, Erik and Matt (standing) on Thanksgiving Day.

Erik has a new camera

Ian before for Sunday dinner

Rooster Rock from our back-through-the-woods view.

After much hard work earning money, Erik finally has a new camera! Here's a few of his photos and as a public disclaimer on Erik's behalf, he's extremely concerned that these aren't good enough photos to show and is especially worried what Jessica will think.

Tyler and Elizabeth came up for the night on Friday since Elizabeth had a ballet performance in Portland and Tyler went scuba diving with guys from our ward for one last time before heading to Virginia. They also watched Twilight the night before, so that's why Tyler's hair is like "Edward Cullen".

This Thanksgiving should be interesting. Jessica will stay in Virginia and have dinner at her coach's house, then she'll head up to Washington D.C. to be with her friend, Ricky and his sister. Tyler and Elizabeth will be here with Tyler's family, while we are driving to Spokane to be with my family. I will definitely miss us all together but will be even more grateful to have everyone here for Christmas.

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I was able to get a hold of a few photos of Jessica at the USCAA National soccer tournament in Burlington, Vermont. Southern Virginia University won nationals! Jessica was able to finish off the season with the last goal of the last game. She was so excited. She also received academic-all-american. Amazing effort hanging in there Jess through two tough seasons of dealing with your knee injury.

There's something wrong with the photo uploading for this post, so look down below at the latest photos showing November in Corbett. The rain is back and Ian is growing and his voice is changing with the season!

It's been awhile since I've written on the blog and I don't quite know why. All is fairly well in the Scott family. We who are at home are still adjusting to life without Elizabeth and Jessica being here on a daily basis. It's definitely much quieter and not quite so interesting. I guess I'm someone who likes having a houseful of kids around so going from four to two is still a bit weird.
With the presidential election drawing near, I've really contemplated what it means to be a true Christian and have tried to choose who I am voting for based on this. So many Americans don't see past party lines and believe all the rumors going around about the candidates. I wish more people truly studied the candidates. If they had, Bush and the last eight years would not have happened.
Although Barack Obama doesn't fulfill all my criteria for a president, (I don't think that's possible for one man or woman) I see him as someone who has something a presidential candidate hasn't had in a very long time: GENUINENESS. I don't agree with his stand on Roe vs. Wade but I appreciate his personal belief of being against abortion and gay marriage. I do see him as someone who is moral and not easily corrupted. I also believe he is noble and can bring hope to our country. McCain left his morals and integrity behind when he stopped being a "maverick" and willingly gave into the desires of the mean-spirited religious right.
Hmm..what else? Well, Jessica is enjoying SVU quite a bit these days because she is dating a certain someone named Ricky. His real name is Frederick. I've attached a picture she sent me.
Her soccer team also made it to Nationals and are leaving for Vermont tomorrow. She's still not completely healed and has problems with her knee so we'll see how much she plays. Other news relating to SVU- Tyler and Elizabeth are planning to transfer there this winter. It should be a great experience for them and a new sdventure.

Finally Photos from Jessica at SVU!

Saturday Night Live - Couric / Palin Open - Video - NBC.com

Saturday Night Live - Couric / Palin Open - Video - NBC.com

Saturday Night Live - Presidential Debate - Video - NBC.com

Saturday Night Live - Presidential Debate - Video - NBC.com

Back to school

Well, school is now finally in full swing. Ian started at Reynolds High School last week and doesn't seem to be intimidated by the size or unfamiliarity of it. He auditioned and got into the Wind Ensemble band, which is a big deal. He has auditions for jazz band this week as well. He loves having released time LDS seminary and the counseling office has been great about switching him to honors classes this week. So, despite it's size, Reynolds seems to be on top of things.

Erik started school today and is bursting with academic energy. He gets his own laptop for this school and is excited to learn Swedish! Erik will also be taking a hands on Oceanography class. Erik also started his soccer season and has his first game tonight.

The pictures with this post were taken on Labor Day weekend. We went on a hike near Carson, Wa with amazing vistas of the gorge. I only wish the hike could have been panoromic the whole way, rather than going back into trees every few minutes until the very end.

We do not have photos from our last weekend trip to one of my favorite places on earth-Ashland, Oregon. Tyler and ELizabeth joined us to see Oregon Shakesepeare Festival's production of Othello. The play was the thing, the weather was gorgeous and the atmosphere was relaxing. Hopefully Elizabeth will download pictures from the trip on her blog, since I forgot my camera!

Jessica is loving SVU and gets to play in her first college soccer game tomorrow. We will all be thinking of her and hoping her knee is safe.

Back from Virginia

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Erik and I just got back from taking Jessica to SVU for another year of school. It was a new experience for Erik seeing the southern life. With Jessica, we visited Richmond and Charlottesville. Charlottesville is definitely the better town. It's so charming,collegiete and a bit artsy. The next day, we travelled to Buena Vista and stayed with Jessica's professor/bishop (The Stoddards) and had a great time watching the Olympics with D'Ann Stoddard. Erik was so excited to stay in Orson Scott Card's room since he's reading Ender's Shadow. The Stoddards let OSC stayed at their home and have his own room when he teaches at SVU.

Summer Days

Last week we finally took our boat trip on The Portland Spirit. My Peter Pan cast gave us the trip as a thank you present. So all of us, including Elizabeth and Tyler, traveled up the Williamete River for a two hour trip. Sadly, only John hadn't been on the boat, so some of us weren't super enthused to be on the boat. (Too much of the good life) It was still a relaxing and leisurely way to spend the afternoon.
This week Ian heads up to Tacoma to attend Especially For Youth. I'm excited for him to have this experience to grow spiritually. Our friends, Nathan and Jacob Forkey will be there at the same time, so they can keep an eye out for him. Jessica is into her last week of work before heading back to Southern Virginia University. It hardly seems as if she's been here and now she's off again. Erik and I are going to take her back, so we will have our own little adventure in Williamsburg after we drop her off and get her settled into her place. John and Ian will be backpacking in The Wallowa Mountains with the Varsity Scouts while we are gone. Ian is beyond excited to try out his "incredible hammock" and put his "backpacking light" skills to the test.
I am trying to get the boys straightened out in their new schools for the fall. Hopefully it is the right decision for them... It feels right and the boys are looking forward to a change.

Tyler and ELizabeth's Beautiful Wedding day

Well, the wedding day ended up being beautiful after all my worry about rain and cold weather. The ceremony, reception and the whole day went as close to perfect as we could have hoped. We were all so thankful for all the amazing help from family and friends and couldn't have pulled it off quite so well without them. Elizabeth was beautiful and Tyler looked young and handsome.
As more photos come in, we will post them on here. We don't really have any of the official photographs yet so stay tuned!

Fairy Elfkindale

Wow. In one month, I'll have a married daughter and a son in-law. From my perspective, not long ago, Elizabeth spent hours playing with her dolls and imagined and created a whole kingdom in "Fairy Elfkendale" with her sister, brothers and friends. Fairy Elfinkindale is a little piece of forest down a hill on the westside of our house. This forest epitomizes my children's childhood. They each have looked at it as a very sad day when they grew too old to play and imagine there with the same gusto. In fact, my friend Suzanne Forkey wrote me not too long ago, reminiscing about this little forest and reflecting on Elizabeth's marriage and her own children growing up and what great memories her children have of spending hours in Fairy Elfkindale.

Elizabeth christened it Fairy Elfkindale and with Jessica created it into an entirely different world where all who entered there became a fairy. Anyone who wanted to play was given a fairy name and a piece of land to build their own home. There was a town square, a small lake and each fairy had their own purpose or profession. Elizabeth or Jessica gave romantic sounding names to all places in this land. I'll have to ask them the names of the town square and the other places. All the homes were built out of ferns, branches, moss or tree boughs. Depending on how many visitors we'd have in a summer, there could be up to twelve little fairy homes as well as the town square area.

When I consider how many children spend hours glued to a video game or television, I'm saddened by how much of their childhood has been lost and will soon be gone. Will they have learned to create, imagine and feel the complete joy that is childhood? It's interesting that every child who visited our house and played in Fairy Elfkindale will say to me or one of my children, "Remember Fairy Elfkindale? That was so much fun." Some of these now adults or near adults maybe only came over one time, but that memory is still so alive with them.

Over the last few years, Fairy Elfkindale has been rather quite and forlorn but one day, Elizabeth, Jessica, Ian and Erik will introduce their children to their childhood world and hopefully these children will have the eyes to see the wonder of this magical forest.

something from Ian

Jessica is home and she sleeps all the time. It's good to have her back after not seeing her for months. It's also good to have another woman in the house to balance things out. Erik and I can't wait for school to end.

Oh, to be outside again!

Yes, I know, the title for this blog sounds rather dramatic. But, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, and more particularly, the Northwest side of the Cascades, going outside after six months is a very big deal. For instance, this past beautiful, warm Friday, all of Portland was outside taking in the warmth in their sunglasses. Elizabeth lives 2 hours further down south in Corvallis and on this Friday she told me she never knew she had so many people living by her, since they were actually walking around outside.
We took adavantage of the weather and worked outside on Saturday. Tyler and Elizabeth came up for the weekend and Tyler and John added onto our deck. Ian spent the day hacking at blackberries with his macheti. (a very cool present from Elizbeth and Tyler) and Erik found time to take a few photos of the day. Erik tends to specialize is humorous photography, so I added the pictures of our dogs for him.

My defense

Hey, whats wrong with snow? I like it in spring because it seems like (for me) every season ends too soon. This year my favorite season is lasting longer than normal, so yeah I feel mucho happy!

This weather!

It's April 22nd and it's 40 degrees! I'm near the end of my "can't handle six months without sun and warmth" rope. Erik is completely happy and doesn't want summer to arrive. John claims Erik has the "Bill Scott snow gene". Bill Scott was John's dad and was the most avid skier on the planet. He moved to Tahoe just to ski and be in snow. Erik loves Canada, Greenland, Norway...all the cold places. So, while I am bemoaning the weather, Erik is thrilled and keeps asking when he can go snowboarding again. Snow and cold rain is great November-even early March, but not in late April when I want to be working in my garden, kayaking on the river or just not dealing with mud. I'll see if I can get Erik to post his point of view.

Hello Family!

Elizabeth thought it would be a "cool" way to keep in touch with family and friends. We will attempt to let you all know what's happening in our lives using all our humor, abilities and talents. Who wants to be bored reading the average anything? Expect Erik to entertain, Ian to share everything, Jessica to amaze you with her writing abilities, John to be help us technically and be "encouraged" to add his voice. I (Susan) will keep it all going and hopefully make it interesting.

Our daughter, Elizabeth is not excluded but will have her own page called "TheLaurentconnectionmyblog.com" She is two months away from marrying her longtime best friend, Tyler Laurent. The wedding date is June 21st. We are happy to welcome Tyler as our new son in-law/brother in-law. He's been a important part of our family the last several years. After much effort on Elizabeth's part, he now loves "The Lord of The Rings" like the rest of us, so that is a relief...Now he can be apart of the Scott family.