Cabin Fun

In the summer we always spend at least one week at the Miller Family Cabin at Panguitch Lake. We have scavenger hunts, ride the four wheelers, shoot guns at targets, go fishing, go hiking, eat a lot, have bonfires and roast marshmallows, go down to the store to buy ice cream and a souvenir, and just sit and do nothing. Some of us sleep in tents outside and the rest sleep in the cabin. We all take turns cooking delicious meals and it just great fun! We always hike the Apine Trail up by Cedar Breaks and what a gorgeous hike. Good Times!

Family Summer Fun

Summers are always so much fun because Mckenzie and her family come to stay with us for a couple of months. They are living in Doha, Qatar, and we love having them here. Every day is an adventure. The places we like to visit are; Thanksgiving Point, the bowling alley in American Fork, the Dinosaur Museum, water parks, the malls, Kangaroo Zoo, BYU campus, the duck pond and each of our houses. No matter what we do we always laugh a lot, eat a lot, and enjoy each other immensely.

Kenzie is helping Will bowl while Mitch (Avery's hubby) watches.





Avery and Mitch helping Taylee (2 years old) and TJ (4 yrs old) bowl.This is cute litte Taylee Mortensen (2 years old)

This is cute little Sidney Eden (2 years old









This is Drew Eden (4 years old) with me at graduation

Kylie Genetti (9 years old), TJ Mortensen (3 years old), Will Genetti (3 years old) and Megan Genetti (7 years old) at bowling alley

Relaxing in Avery and Mitch's backyard.

TJ and Will just chillin







Fun with fireworks on the 24th of July

Earning a Master's Degree

This May, I am very proud to say, I graduated from Southern Utah University with a Masters Degree in education. It was a great deal of work, especially because I chose to work towards National Board Certification as my master's project. In addition, I worked diligently toward and received a big fat reading endorsement. Yee haw! I was so excited to be able to walk across the stage, receive my master's hood, with all of my family proudly watching. It was a wonderful weekend.

Here we are (all except Kenzie who was in Doha) at my graduation. (Mandy is expecting her first baby and thinks she looks awful, but I think she looks so cute.)

Getting a master's degree in education had been a goal of mine for several years and for many reasons. First, I wanted the increased pay it would bring to my salary and ultimately my retirement. I also felt having a masters degree would increase my credibility as I worked with administrators, teachers and parents. So I reached my goal in May of 2008. I did this with a cohort group from Jordan School District. We actually had a lot of fun working together on projects and presentations. Am I glad I did it? I really am, even though it was a lot of extra work and effort.

It was neat to have Ross's parents with us.











I was so lucky to have my mom be able to see me graduate.

The Genettis in Doha, Qatar - the Middle East

The Genetti Family, Mckenzie, Dom, Kylie(8), Megan (5), and Will (3), are living in the Middle East in Doha, Qatar, and having many wonderful adventures.  Here are the kids seeing a camel train out in the desert.

Here is Megan and Dom getting up close and personal with a camel.

They went out to the singing sand dunes one evening and were able to make them wail.  This was great for them because the humidity and temperature have to be exactly right for them to make their sounds so they were quite excited.

They would climb to the top of the dune and slide down which would cause the sand dunes to sing.

They went to visit some old forts out in the desert.

This is a tower at one of the forts with one of the kids looking out the window.

We all miss them so much, but they are having a remarkable experience.  They feel very safe and have a very close neighborhood.  The ward is huge and consists mostly of Houston folks from Exxon and a very large Phillippino population.  Hopefully they will be with us again for the summer. 

They are going to visit Italy this spring to do some geneology visiting places Dom's ancestors are from.  It should be a great experience for them.   And of course, they are also going to do some of the traditional tourist stuff too.  

Christmas Eve

Drew and TJ had a great time playing in the snow while everyone else built snow people.  Sidney and Taylee were having naps so that made it nice for everyone since those little girls are only 21 and 15 months old.  

Christmas Eve was so much fun.  Everyone got on their snow gear and we went into the front yard to build  a snowman.

After the first one was done we decided to build some more since there seemed to be plenty of snow and it really wasn't too cold.  Mitch was even using a butter knife to sculpt and fine tune each snowman.

When they were done, we had a photo session with the models striking poses with the snow family.  It wasn't 30 minutes after we were done when a huge snowstorm blew in.  But those snowmen are sturdy little buggers and are still standing strong today.

In the pictures are Avery Mortensen in the green, Mandy Reschke in the pink (by the way, she is wearing my old ski jumpsuit thing I wore many years ago but can still wear today if I really suck it in when I go out to snowblow), Drew Eden is in the white  and red, TJ is the multi-colored snow coat, Brett Eden is in the light gray, Mitch Mortensen is in the green and navy and Daren Reschke is in the navy blue.  

We had such a great time and a wonderful Christmas.  We had everyone with us except for Mckenzie and Dom and their family since they are living in Doha, Qatar in the Middle East.  We miss them so very much.  But it was so wonderful to have as many of us together as we did.  We feel so very blessed to have such a wonderful family who love and care for each other.

The Family

Here is all of the Miller clan as of August 2007.  I don't think there are any new additions on the way.  For those of you who may not recognize us, I'll just list the names. On the back row l-r there is Sidney Eden, Brett Eden, Lacey Eden, Daren Reschke, Mandy Reschke, Dominic Genetti, Mckenzie Genetti, TJ Mortensen, Mitch Mortensen, Avery Mortensen, and Taylee Mortensen.

On the front row is Megan Genetti, Drew Eden, Deb, Kylie Genetti, Ross Miller and Will Genetti.