July Fourth Just Isn't the Same Here

It's all missing here, all the things we love about independence day: time off work, barbeque, patriotic music, fireworks, a trip to the beach, sunshine . . . . It's hard to pin down what I miss the most. I'm sure what's underpinning my frustration with Independence Day here in London today is that it was overcast and wet all day (and it's also annoying to spend the day in the office).

So how did we make the most of it? It pains me to admit it, but when we tried to think of a way to honor this most special American holiday, KFC was what we settled on. We tried to make Thanksgiving nice by going to a proper restaurant that advertised a hearty American Thanksgiving dinner. At the end of the evening we were disappointed with how little it matched our Thanksgiving expectations and how expensive it was. (At least when our meal was done at KFC we didn't have to feel angst over the price of the disappointment.)

So the best we have this year is memories of previous Independence Day celebrations. Here are two photos of the earliest one I remember - the 1979 neighborhood gathering (credit to Dad for taking the picture, credit to Katherine for scanning it). 'Cause hey, what says "Happy 4th of July!" like a photo of 5 Dougall kids sitting on the back of a pickup truck waving the Red White & Blue.

Our budding illustrators

Parker and Ethan love to draw. Ethan especially can spend hours stuck at the counter, carefully working with his tray of crayons. His favorite theme is the nativity scene. That was a catalyst for his creativity back in December, and he continues to revisit it.

They recently put together a bunch of drawings to go with a clever little tune themed around the color blue. Dad had a little fun working with iMovie, and YouTube. With any luck, I'll be able to embed the video into the blog (see below). The drawings were all done by the boys. The video clips were taken of the boys on a random afternoon at the park across the street from us. They spend a solid block of every afternoon there, it's like our backyard.



Well, hopefully this video works. We hope you enjoy it!

Hey all - so new to doing this, but I really want it to work out - I love to see family pics and read up on how everyone is doing even if i dont have time to call.

Life for me really is so good - I'm enjoying my life in SLC and the people that I am around (when I am around). Work is getting busier, and it doesn't seem to look like it will slow down much between now and april. they've had me on an audit for the last three weeks. I am in DC now for a tax competition that I coordinated at byu. The audit I was supposed to be on next week in New Mexico I was taken off, but to replace it I was asked to work on some client work out of the phoenix office, so I'll be splitting my time between AZ and UT for the next 2months. Someone told me my life was like a movie earlier this week - I'm sure I'm not the first to say that travelling is not nearly as glamourous as it appears. But I did get bumped up to first class on my flight to and from portland for the holidays.

if I can figure out how to attach it, there is a picture of me snowshoeing last weekend with friends, one of the paino I bought in december, and one of me with my co-workers at the liberty bell while we were at a training in Phildadelphia. (sorry - I shoulve flipped the photo before attaching it - I'll get better at this...)

Our Christmas Day

Here's a few pictures from Christmas Day from us. They are the most recent of the kids and since everyone else was sharing Christmas I figured I might as well too. Hopefully this will turn out OK, I'm familiar with basic HTML but I've never formatted a blog space before so who knows...It seems like maybe because I'm not using Mozilla that I don't have as many dashboard options? I have spellcheck and add image at the top in the tan area and that's it and as I look in the help area supposedly there are more available. So....below is what you get for now. Sorry for the complete lack of formatting!

Proof that we love Hailey more: here she is later in the day playing with some of her toys...

While Troy gets gum...

And Brandon gets body spray. Hah!

Hair Experiment

During our Forney visit last weekend, Heather insisted that we try taming Riley's hair with Hair Glue (a Brillo Cream relative?). So let's discuss: which Dougall does she most resemble here?

New Year's Eve in Forney

First off- I wanted to share some photos of our kids on Christmas morning. They were pretty specific about what they wanted. Nathan wanted a "Nutcracker the size of me." Christa really wanted a real dog- but we compromised with a stuffed dog. As you can see- the glamorous, Jenna- she is sporting her Cinderella attire as she cooks dinner on her new kitchen set.

We are honored to have
Matt, Kathryn, and "Riley-Roo" join us in Forney to ring in the new year. We have thus far enjoyed a Hawaiian birthday party to celebrate Christa's 5th birthday. We saw the nativity displays at the arboretum- then enjoyed a venison roast for dinner last night. We are breaking into the traditional new year's meal today- fondue. With Kathryn's assistance, we will have a traditional Swiss fondue- Gruyere and Emmentaler cheese. It'll be a new experience for us Merrills. I'm sure we'll pull out the games here soon, too. For now, Matt and Kathryn are enjoying some "Liken the Scriptures" videos. I was a bit surprised how much they've been drawn to them!! If you haven't seen them, they are quite interesting.

Well- congrats to Rich and Katherine.

Thanks for all the Christmas cards- we didn't send one this year- trying to simplify and all.

Have a great New Year's Celebration!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR (from the Prime Meridian)

Sawyer (partying like it's 1999)

We had a mellow, but pleasant New Years Eve in our home. We blew up a few balloons, put on some party hats, and made a big brownie with sparkling candles, to celebrate. After dinner we talked about what we wanted to accomplish in 2007, and made a few resolutions. We each listed our highlights of the year (Aspen Grove was somewhere near the top). We finished it off by singing Happy Birthday (to the world--it is another year older), and then watched a long slideshow of family photos from the year. Even though 2006 started off pretty rough for us (with the move & Sawyer's late arrival), we feel fortunate that things smoothed out. In retrospect, we all agreed that it was a fantastic year.