My thoughts....brace yourselves

So, I had a few extra minutes today (actually, they weren't extra--I stole them from the time I was supposed to be writing a report), and I was reading a friend's website called 100 Days of Love. From there I got linked to another website, The Next 100 Days. I'm feeling inspired (a little guilty, but inspired nontheless). See, the thing is, it's so easy to get wrapped up in yourself, and I didn't even realize it until I took a second to see what other people were thinking. Unfortunately, I can't say it has changed my life forever and I will never be that selfish self that I am. But I am passing on the links to all of you (check the list on the right). Maybe you will be inspired. And maybe if you all get inspired, it will keep inspiring me! There I go again being selfish. :)

Tribute to my wife

We have recently gotten many requests to see pregnant Angela. So here are all the pictures of her that I could round up from the last week or so. Isn't she so cute!





Okay, maybe not exactly as requested, but she does look good, as can be told from the pictures and she sure is good to me too as I drag her all over creation.

Bonus points for anyone who can guess where the pictures are. Nathan and Suzie are disqualified on all except for the first one because they were there as you can see. We had a great weekend with Nathan, Suzie and Kye. Too bad they had to go back to winter, we will have to invite them back next winter:)

Christmas and Moab

I got some feedback that we need to post again, so here we go, I am a little too lazy to say much about the pics, but here they are, enjoy.
Igloo 1

New backpack for chuckette


Austin took this one

It was cold!


Ahh, the Swell


Igloo 2

Year in Review

We are taking the lazy way out. Or should we say the "green" way out. Less paper, less waste. It's the wave of the future, people. So here it is, the long awaited Averett Christmas Newsletter!

Ode to 2007

2007 – It’s been a good year!
Nothing much changed,
If it did, it’s unclear.

Trips, trips, trips and more trips!
We tripped ourselves silly!
We loved every minute
And say THANKS times a milly
To all those who hosted, camped, hiked and made our trips great!
We really do think that you all are first rate!

Aaron continues to grow into a fine engineer.
Soon he’ll take his test and be official next year.
His free time is precious and gets split three ways
Between his house and his Scouts and his favorite - wife days.
September found Angela settling down
In her very own classroom,
Complete with class clown.
The students and teachers of Valor Hall are becoming fast friends,
We’ll be sad when the daily life with them ends.
But we’ll take it with a smile,
And we’ll all give a cheer
Because the end of school in May
Is when the baby will be here!

With the room newly painted and crown molding on the wall,
We’re getting ready for the patter of little feet in our hall.

So tune in next year for sure!
The adventures will abound!
And where there were two,
We pray three will be found.

We love you all!
Merry Christmas!

What's the Sedona difference?

Nathan asked a question about why Sedona was different from the other places we like to visit. I can't believe that I left that part out because it really was half the greatness of our trip. Besides there being scads of people in Sedona, and houses and golf courses being built on top of all the natural beauty, there is only one word that would describe the difference. Vortexes, yes the plural is correct and no, my explanation would never do it justice. So here are some links answer the question. Who knows, you may very much like what you find.

http://www.sedonavortextours.com/vortex.html
Make sure you watch the video!

http://www.sedonavortexconnection.com/
Cyber Vortex?

And please don't miss this one.
http://www.sedonanewagecenter.com/Vortex/vortex_tours.htm#VictorsVortexTours

If winter will not come to us, we will go to winter, kind of. (Part 1 of 2)

Since we don't have enough excuses to get out and see the world, we planned a trip to meet our friends Christian, Valerie, Jacob, and Addison in Sedona, Arizona over the Veterans Day Weekend. If you have ever been to Sedona, you now that it is different than other places we visit. After much searching we decided to stay 25 miles away in Flagstaff. I really like that town. Angela really likes it too because it was cold there (hence us going to winter). I like the ponderosa trees all over town, the high elevation (7000 ft) and small town feel. It is what we thought Anchorage, Alaska would be like. We only have one picture of it looking cold (at the end). The others really are not wintery at all, but we tried...kind of.

This is on the trail between Oak Creek and the Cathedral.

This is on Oak Creek just south of Sedona

Northwest of Sedona on the Devil's Bridge Trail. Looks a lot like Zion, except there are houses and golf courses etc. everywhere.

Here is us on Devil's Bridge, making some of the other visitors nervous.

Slide rock state park in Oak Creek Canyon



Slide Rock State Park Again

The only picture of Semi-Winter we have, the lookout for Oak Creek Canyon, and yes that is Duck Tape at the bottom of the picture, our camera broke and there is only one way to fix it.

We had a great time and look forward to other trips with Christian and Val, For the trip home see the next post....

The Trip Home (Part 2 of If Winter...)

If you haven't read the Sedona post, go there first. I wanted to break our last trip in two because we kind of had two trips, a nice relaxing trip to Flagstaff and Sedona for 2 days and then the epic trip home on Monday. So look at the Sedona trip first and then see the pictures we took on the way home.

I will let the pictures do the talking, these are all from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bright Angel Canyon and then Moving East to Desert View.





Then the Little Colorado Gorge and Lees Ferry




Last but especially not least, our tribute to Cher, she did so good, just as usual. We again spent some quality time together, she deserves this tribute and a great big hug, if we could get our arms around her.