Happy Holidays!

Hello, everyone and Merry Christmas! We thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and catch up with us. Here are a few pictures showing the highlights of 2009 for the Willes family.

We were able to travel to Southern California over Spring Break in March for Cousin Kevin's baptism in Huntington Beach. We had fun freezing on the beach, visiting with family, and even travelled down to San Diego to visit Sea World. It was a great time!
For more details and photos check out our archive: http://willesfamilyarizona.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Summertime was spent close to home as the addition to our home began. We managed to fill the time with trips to the mall and Target, crafts and relaxing in our luxurious backyard pools. Yes, we have two pools in our backyard. Fancy.

Here is the back of our house at the start of the project. The contractor had ripped out the concrete slab a couple of weeks before. We didn't get a picture of that so this is our official BEFORE picture:

And here is our official AFTER picture. Looks like a part of the original house, eh? We love it.

We did a lot of the finish work inside. We painted, put in the floor and desks, cabinets, etc. Whew. Sweat equity is properly named because we did this in September before the air conditioning was put in. Very warm without a/c in that office.

Our amazing office addition was completed in early October, just in time for Fall Break. The kids used it extensively those two weeks. The kids now think we need to buy more computers to go with the increased space. Ahhhh. No. I can look out my big windows and watch my kids yell at each other as they play in the backyard.

We were able to take a Mini Stay-Cation to North Scottsdale during our Fall Break. We stayed at a lovely new Residence Inn and shopped at Desert Ridge Marketplace and went to the Arizona State Fair and eating out at yummy places like Islands Burgers. That was Rachel's favorite part. Oh, little did she know.... It was pretty fun and the 20 minute ride home was a huge bonus. "Are we there yet?" "Ah, yes, actually, we are!"

On Thursday, October 29, Troy awoke at 2:15am to the rushing sounds of water. He raced downstairs to find our kitchen flooded from a broken compression hose under the sink. We spent almost two hours mopping it all up. The insurance company came in later, determined we had a level three catastrophe (I'm glad the adjuster didn't check out the rest of the house!) and within 24 hours we had no kitchen cabinets, no sink or no flooring. Because of a variety of things we have lived with this as our kitchen for the past 8 weeks. We got sick of eating out that first week, but making anything more than grilled cheese sandwiches and soup was a big undertaking. We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the Zachresons and felt very pilgrim-like with the meager accommodations. (Hey, that's as pilgrim as I'm willing to get, my friends.) As I am typing this my kitchen cabinets are being installed and tile is being laid. The end is in sight.

Yep, a utility sink, 4-foot camping table, a dishwasher and a stove. It's going to be hard to give up this high-society way of life, I tell ya. When the house is finally restored to at least a semblance of order I'll post the photos.

Now, normally, I feel awkward rambling on and on about how wonderful our family and children are and therefore I keep the bragging to a minimum in the letter that goes out with the card. After all, you were just an innocent bystander in a holiday game of greetings and merely opened a card from an old friend. HOWEVER, if you are reading this now you obviously wanted to know more about each family member since you took the time to find a computer, turn it on, wait for internet connection (a hassle for some of you), type in our blog address and have read the letter all the way down to...here. SO I'm gonna get my braggin' on now.

Here's a little info for each family member:

Troy attended his 2oth Year High School Reunion in Denver, CO, in June. He and Rachel took a little weekend trip after importing his mom to babysit. They had a fun time taking the Troy Willes Nostalgia Tour. He only had to travel to Northern California a couple of times but did get a trip to San Francisco for a conference. Rachel was unfortunately left behind. Dang it. Troy tried his hand at managing his Technical Marketing Engineer group until Intel found a permanent person for the job. He was glad to give up the title for the quieter life of team member. He is still serving as Elders Quorum president and grows a variety of vegetables in his garden which none of his family will eat. Sorry.

Rachel celebrated her 4oth birthday in style by hiring a hearse to bring her to her Big 40th Birthday Bash. She partied with a bunch of her friends and even lived out her Rock Star Dream by performing two songs with the band that entertained everyone. For the video of the show click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_HSxdqVyI. She also visited her high school friend, Gwen, in New York City early in the year. The rest of the year was spent knee-deep in home renovation. She is starting her 5th year as Stake Primary President and still does bookkeeping for the old law firm. She also added recapper to her list of titles. She recaps episodes of House, MD for SpoilerTV.com. Like she had any free time to begin with. For even MORE info on her life and thoughts try out: http://www.rwilles.blogspot.com/ .

Katie is a 6th grader, top dog, at Shumway Elementary. She is receiving awesome grades but more importantly is well-liked and respected by both students and teachers. She loves the science projects at school because it combines two of her favorite things: science and crafts. She'll turn 12 in January and is very excited to be going to Young Women. She's already talking about the Pioneer Trek and Girls Camp and doing baptisms at the temple. Her Young Women agenda is already full. She sings in the ward choir and is enjoying her own room. Although it took her a while to get used to being alone. She still loves drawing and won a bookmark designing contest at school earlier this year. Her future still involves taking care of animals and saving the environment.


Emma is 9 and in the 3rd grade. Last semester she was disappointed to receive an A+ in all her classes except one...math. She only received an A...no plus. She's currently working on correcting that. She's at a ninth grade comprehension reading level, but can read and remember just about anything. Her sisters and her mom are jealous of her photographic memory. Seriously. It's not fair. Her teacher thanked us at her parent conference last semester. She said that she'll often crack a joke or make a reference and Emma will be the only one to laugh. Emma has a sharp sense of humor but still needs to learn to use her powers for good sometimes. She's in her third year of piano lessons and has performed at church with her teacher. She enjoys playing school, drawing and playing on the computer. Webkinz and Barbies still rule her world.


Claire is 6 and in the first grade. She's reading at a fourth grade level and has grasped all the math concepts she should know by the end of first grade. She's pretty much just doing crafts now at school. :-) She is quite the dancer showing some natural moves we wish she'd hide away until she was older. She took a dance class this summer with Emma and her cousin, Haylee, and although Claire was the youngest in the class she was placed front and center because she could remember and perform all the moves. She loves playing school with her sister, Emma. The two of them have set up their own classroom in their bedroom complete with a dry erase board, maps, time chart and other signs. If we ever need to know what "Today is ______" or what "Yesterday was ______" we just go in their room. Her life also is heavily involved in the Webkinz and Barbie worlds.

Zachreson Troy, aka Zach or Zach Attack or Zachy, is three years old and on the verge of attending preschool. He is a total little boy who loves trucks, tools, messes, mud, running, jumping and teasing his sisters. However, he's also quite selective about the clothes he wears. He gets that from me. He's a great helper for his dad during outside chores; more so than his sisters ever were. He'll stay out all day using his Zachy-sized shovel and tools helping dad fix up the yard. He does a pretty mean beatbox and can get down and break dance when he's in the mood. He also just learned how to wink, click his tongue twice and point at you all at the same time and it has become his greeting, mid-coversation and farewell go-to trick. We love having the boy to offset all the drama and we're doing our best to keep him macho...except for the pink hand-me-down bike and scooter he's now riding at full speed. Maybe the lightning speed will blur the actual color of the vehicle.

And so we are at the end of another Christmas letter composed at the end of another year. It's been a great one despite having to breathe in concrete and drywall dust for six months. We are grateful for the amazing lives we have and for the love and friendship of the people that surround us. We thank you all! We also testify of Jesus Christ and his love for all of us.

Have a great Holiday Season!

Love, The Willes Family: Troy, Rachel, Katie, Emma, Claire and Zach

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, the greeting may be a bit late, but this cute picture makes up for it. Claire had received her pilgrim duds at school the day before and insisted on wearing them for dinner. She's her mother's daughter. I actually made all the hats as part of the work release program for classroom moms. It took me about 6 hours to trace, cut, fold, tape, staple, hole-punch and tie strings on 35 hats. Yeah. I was tempted to stamp "Made In China" on all of them. Next year.

Claire loves to eat the drumsticks when we go to KFC and insisted on getting it at dinner, but was a little shocked by the size and weight of the turkey drumstick. She said she'd let Troy have it and stuck to cut up bites of turkey breast.

Even though we still don't have much of a kitchen we managed to make do with what we had. Just like the pilgrims did long ago. We had to set up our beef stick and crackers on the dishwasher since we lacked counters. Just like the pilgrims did long ago.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We thank you for your support and friendship!

It's a MIRACLE! Another post within a week!!

Wow....even I am amazed that I've got another posting here within only one week of the last one. Of course, it's now 11:01p and I'm a little loopy from lack of sleep, but I promised Halloween pictures and by gum, I make good on my promises.

After finishing the office we transformed the old office into Katie's pre-teen hideaway. She's totally thrilled with the results even though it took her a few nights to get us to being alone. And yes, it is that pink.



This Halloween season we decided that just one candy-gathering frenzy was not enough so we went on THREE such frenzies in the space of one week. The first frenzy was our Ward's Trunk or Treat, and this year I decided to give back instead of just taking. I set up our van, Clifford (as in Clifford the Big Red Van) and handed out treats. After a few rounds, Muscle Man (that's what Zach insisted on calling himself) came back to help me with the heavy candy. I'm wearing a SuperMom tshirt and red cape. See...I'm the mom of SuperBoy. Get it. Yeah.

In between the candy frenzies our kitchen decided to hold its own water frenzy by bursting a pipe under the sink. We got to it within 20 minutes we think but by then there was an inch of water on the ground. We spend one hour at 2am and every towel we had in the house mopping it up. The insurance people declared it a level three catastrophe and proceeded to tear apart our kitchen. Within 6 hours my old, but functional kitchen was demolished. The wall repair is covered. The floor repair is covered. But the cabinets are supposedly recoverable, at least the fronts. We disagreed, but lost out. We decided we'd move up our kitchen remodel by 5 years and do it now. We'll update you later on what unfolds.

Yes, that's a foot of drywall cut out and removed from the entire perimeter of the kitchen. We had SIX industrial dryers and a dehumidifying making our house even noisier for two days.

We did have fun with the industrial blowers, however.....

So the next candy frenzy was at Intel, where Troy is lucky enough to still be employed. They have Trick or Treat cubicle to cubicle event where about 75% of the employees on two floors decorate their cubes and set out candy for employee's kids. Most of the cubicles are unmanned and the kids just grab a piece of candy from a bowl and move on. No "Trick or Treat" or "Thank you" needed. We timed one row of cubicles. It took them 71 seconds to hit 11 "houses" and get candy. Now that's Intel Efficiency!

Zach checking out the view from the third floor at Intel.

Katie as Punk Rock Girl.

Every year we get a photo in this very spot. It's the last stop. It contains chairs, a drinking fountain and a restroom. We take care of immediate business and then set up our family photo. We then wait for a nice employee to walk by and ask them to snap our annual Intel Halloween Photo. We've been going every year since they started. Katie was 5. See, we do have traditions!

Okay. It's now OFFICIALLY Halloween night. It was great weather and since we didn't have a kitchen we ordered pizza, invited my family over and ate out on the driveway. We handed out candy too, but only had about 20 trick-or-treaters. Oh well, all the more for us! It was fun. So from Left: Katie, Punk Rock Girl; Kristen, Katie's BFF as Cleopatra; Claire, Disco Miniature Golfing Queen from Phineas and Ferb (Google it); Zach, Muscle Man, and Emma, not-so-evil Green Witch.

Katie went out for more trick-or-treating with Kristen but Haylee showed up so all was well. She was a cute Pink Pirate.

The welcoming committee: Claire; in hat; Nate, purposely hiding; Troy; Bob; Gramma Z; Grampa Z.

And there you have it. Another week and another blog post which only about 5 people, mostly family, will read. I do this in lieu of family history and call it good......

My How The Time Flies By... Months of..oh never mind.

WOW! I am quite the Blogger Slacker. I apologize. There. Now we're friends again. Here is a brief synopsis of the past few months.

School started on July 27 and the girls started 6th grade (Katie), 3rd grade (Emma), and 1st grade (Claire.) Katie enjoys being top dog but did confide to Troy and I that she can feel the extra pressure of being looked up to by everyone. She's cute and we love her!

Our big project for the year...heck for this decade, was the addition of the office out the back of the house. Originally, we had the office upstairs in the smallest bedroom. The three girls have been sharing a bedroom for 4 years and although they haven't complained it was time to get Katie her own room. It was a long process, made longer by permit delays as the town of Gilbert has gone to 4 day workweeks and laid off a bunch of employees. Here's a photo of the day they dug the holes for the concrete. Zach and Haydn had fun jumping in the holes but I sorta lost that fun by having to pull them out every five minutes.

Zach got VERY into the whole construction thing and pretty much lived in a little boys paradise for the entire time. He even took lunch on the worksite and slept with his safety helmets. You can't be too careful, my friends! The man building the addition is in our ward and has his sons work with him. They and Zach all became fast friends.

And here's the finished product from the outside. It's really great and looks like a part of the original house and not an add-on.

Here's the interior shot. We used the same office stuff we had upstairs and it all fit great. I love being able to look out that big window into my beautiful back yard and watch my kids fight....uh, play.

Here's a view from inside the house. That door there has quite the story. I wanted an old-style office door as it would be stuck in the middle of a wall and the first thing you see when you walk in the house. Well, apparently, Phoenix and the west coast in general have a serious lack of old doors. I found quite a few on Ebay and for not much money but they were all "pick-up" only and even though the door may only cost $20, the trip to Eastern Pennsylvania would add considerable to the overall expense. Soooooooo, after searching many salvage yards I found this door with a hole cut in it. I repaired it, stained it, filled in the flaws, bought a window, found the hardware, painted the window frame and frosted the window. Our builder reframed the door, attached the hardware and hung the door for an additional charge and I got the door I wanted. But looking back I think I should have just driven to Eastern Pennsylvania. It would have been easier and maybe even cheaper........







Our school district's fall break was the second and third week of October and we had planned to head to Kingman the second week to visit Ken and Rhonda and their clan. Unfortunately, Ken and his family had some major changes in their schedules and we had to ixnay the trip. We decided to just have a Staycation and found a lovely hotel in North Scottsdale. We went to the fair, ate out, went shopping and swam in the pool. It was a lot of fun and we had a blast. The best part: 20 minutes after loading up the car and heading out we were at our destination. Can't beat that.



This first picture is supposed to be of an over-joyed Zach getting to meet his television hero, Diego, at the State Fair and giving him a high-five after they talked about rescuing baby jaguar. That was the plan as we waited in line. Then a 5-foot Diego with a 2-foot head showed up and it became a picture of a cowering 3-year-old who's excitement has been extinguished and who is now being forced to stand next to the creature that will haunt his dreams for the next month. Wow. Expectations are so fickle.

Zach found his happy face again at the petting zoo. But it was only near the smaller goats. The bigger goats and baby llamas had no happy faces near them at all.

The girls, Daddy and Zach rode the Ferris Wheel at the Fair. I stayed on the safe, low ground so that I could take photos of my cute family. It had nothing to do with the fact that I really don't like Ferris Wheels.

Much of our Staycation was spent in this lovely salt-water pool at the hotel. Our hotel was on the Mayo Clinic Hospital grounds. It's a Residence Inn and has suites and kitchens so it seems as though people visiting the hospital for treatments or in long-term care use it quite a bit. Consequently, we usally had the pool to ourselves as bandages and open wounds are not conducive to swimming in public places.

The best part of the Staycation for me, aside from being with my cute family, were the six meals we ate out where someone else cooked the food and cleaned up the mess. Love it! This is us at Islands Burgers, a family favorite since we went there in March while on a trip to Sea World. Such a yummy burger.

Thanks for reading everyone! Have a great week and hopefully I'll get pictures up from Halloween before Valentine's Day of 2010! Adios!

Spring Break Trip to South Cali.: Better Late Than Never...Maybe

Sunday 22 Mar 2009 (Written on this date by Troy, but not posted by Rachel til now. Sorry.)

California Trip – March 2009

Friday was spent travelling. Troy fried his laptop’s power input, so we were only able to watch half of Beverly Hills Chihuahua before the battery ran out. [Blogger's Note: This was not a huge loss...] We stopped in Blythe for lunch, as is usual. The kids spotted a Carl’s Jr. restaurant with a playland. Very good for getting the wiggles out. Katie gets kind of carsick sometimes, so we let her sit in front for the last part of the trip and she was much happier. Our splurge that night was going to Black Angus for dinner. We even got out with enough time for the kids to splash in the pool before bed.
[Making our regular stop at Cabazon for the GIANT dinosaurs. Zach REALLY liked them!]

[RUN, KIDS, RUN!!!]

Grammy and Papa Willes and Grant and Jason drove down from Lodi that same day.

Saturday ended up being cool and cloudy, but that was our one day that we had to play at the beach. We started down at the Huntington Beach pier shops and then ended up on the beach watching the surfers. The air temp was only about 65 and the water temp was only about 55 that day. Regardless of the temps, the girls were excited to see the waves and the beach and couldn’t resist getting wet. After a bit of playing in the water, they came back and huddled under towels. Finally we made them change into dry clothes and then they were plenty warm. Zach was content playing in the sand with shovels and sand toys that Anna brought.

[We all thought that Zach looked like he belonged on that California beach.]

[It was really cold! Emma and Claire got wet and then huddled in their towel cocoons.
Somehow they managed to eat lunch in there too. Hmmmm.]

After the beach we all met over at the Damitz’ house for pizza party dinner. The kids enjoyed playing with the Damitz kids on the trampoline and with their toys.

Sunday we all of the relatives attended Todd and Anna’s ward. John and Grant did a piano-violin duet and then all of the singers did a hymn arrangement with John accompanying again. The Willes-Lassig-Damitz choir was bigger, and dare I say better, than the Ray 1st ward Choir is!

After church we met at the Damitz’ house again for a big Sunday lunch. We even had cake, ice cream and presents, and played Uno with all of the kids. Anna, Sue Lassig and Tiffany Damitz worked hard to feed everyone and take care of all of the details of the parties -- and the baptism.

[The whole gang at the baptism.]

Later that day we all went back to the church for Kevin’s baptism. The baptism went well. Even the kids stayed fairly reverent. Kevin’s cousins sang “If the Savior Stood beside me” and did a fine job. The Willes girls had sung that one before, so they did fine. Anna arranged to have cookies and cake as refreshments at the baptism. Even though the kids just had cake and ice cream, Katie put some cookies on a plate and then declared to Troy “I already had dessert, so this is all I’m having.” Troy expected there to be one or two cookies on her plate but turned around to find her holding a whole plate full! There were just too many yummy looking cookies to limit herself to only one or two!

After the baptism we all went our separate ways. Our family took a few minutes to drive down to the Newport Beach Temple. We didn’t get out and walk around it, but the temple and the grounds were pretty.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a Subway for subs and at a Japanese restaurant for Sushi. Katie had been requesting sushi since we started the trip – and she talked Troy into getting some for their late night snack.

Finally that night, Zach was comfortable with his surroundings and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Monday we partied it up at Sea World! We left the hotel around 8:30am and took the scenic drive down the coast to San Diego. We don’t go to a theme park every time we go to California, but we decided that since it had been a few years, it was probably time. Grant had never been to Sea World and we convinced him to stay an extra day by planning the trip to Sea World. Anna and Todd decided to Join us there as well, so there was a total of 7 adults and 8 kids in the party. It’s always a challenge to keep everyone together and happy with that many in the party, but I think everyone had a fun visit. We didn’t get to see all of the shows because of the limited number that were available, but we saw Shamu, and the pet show, both of which the kids enjoyed. They also liked the penguins and the manatees and sharks. The park wasn’t extremely busy that day, which was also nice.

[Katie making friends with the Manta Rays.]

After spending $65 for chicken nuggets at lunch time we weren’t sure we wanted to go very nice at dinnertime. Todd and Anna suggested the Islands burgers across the freeway from the San Diego Temple. This one is special for them because it where they ate the night before they were married. And now it is special to us because as we drove up to it we noticed a sign that said “Free Kids Meals”! We had a good meal there. Everyone was pretty hungry after walking around all day. Rachel wolfed down her bacon cheeseburger and the kids slurped down shakes. [Blogger's note: We got out of there for under $25 with tip. And for a family of 6 that just plain rocks!]

After all of that crazy fun, the kids were content to sleep in a little and lay around the hotel for a bit on Tuesday morning. They made sure they got a good hour of swimming time before we headed back to Arizona. Anna came over with Adam and Cole and she and Troy had a good chat while the kids splashed in the pool. After that it was time to pack in the van and drive back.

As noted earlier, the computer was broken, so we passed the time driving home by listening to Rachel’s 80’s hits CD’s. The girls’ favorites included “Move Out” and “Let’s Go”. Troy should put those as the background music for the trip slideshow.

We had a great time in Southern California. It was so much fun to see the Willes side of the family and there are always so many great things to do in California. It'll be our big trip of the year so we'll have to find fun things to do around the Valley this summer. Wish us luck!

Okay, sorry...

It looks like the JibJab videos I posted have either expired or just plain died. I apologize. I am trying to pick the photos to go with Troy's update for our trip to South Cali back in March. Yes, I know. I am hanging the curtains of shame in my house as we speak. I will get to this hopefully before Troy and I head to Denver on Thursday for his 20th High School Reunion. Weeeee! That will be an interesting blog in and of itself, I am sure of it. Thanks for being patient!

Yo, dawg. Word. Click the pause button on our jukebox to hear the whole thing.

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