Grandma and Grampa Losee comes to visit

Today,my Grandparents coming this is going to be exciting. Last time they came we had to meet them at the hotel they were staying in. I had a hard time buckling my seat belt because the one I was buckling to was not the one to buckle to because the buckle that I'm to buckle was stuck in the seat cushion. We had a fun time picking them up. A couple days later we went to the strip to see the lights. Sometimes we go to grandparents house to see them as usual in the car. It gets on my nerves driving in the car. Sometimes I wish we could just take the plane to see my grandparents instead of the car but we don't have the money to go on the plane. At least it only takes 1 day to get there. But the part I hate is it takes the hole day to get there. My grandparents should be coming soon. You now I wish my grandparents could meet my moms parents. But I think they have meet them. I assume at my parents wedding day. I like my parents I'm glad mom didn't marry any body else because my dad buys the Ice cream and candy. But not just that he lets me go into his room at night to get something important like melatonin or,kisses. Now my moms the one who buys me my clothes for school . She is also the one who they yell for when something happens like getting hurt or, mommy Adam wont let me on the Wii. She is the one who laughs at Sven's practical Jokes. dads calling me bye.

Renae

Hello, my name is Renae Losee. I like cheesecake, German exchange students, and Norwegian people especially my grandpa and grandma. I like my teacher Mrs. Davis I am in 3rd grade and 8 years old. I am a Mormon. I want to play soccer, football, and baseball when I grow up. People think football is only for boys, but that is not true! I saw Narnia, Prince Caspian five times (I saw it this morning and 3 times in the theater, and last night). I got to bed really late at 1:06 am, but there was no school today. I fell asleep today on my sister Kayleigh's bed. I went up there because my head hurt and I just kind of fell asleep. I have read the first two chapters of Twilight and I love it. My friend Baily is reading it too. I really want to see the movie, but it is rated pg-13 and my mom won't let me see it until it is on DVD. My grandma and grandpa are in Norway. I go to Marc Kahre (pronounced Mark Kerry). I like our XBOX and Wii, but I don't love it. I don't play it every second of the day. I like our new Plasma TV too. I am reading the Spiderwick Cronicles too. That's all, bye, bye.

Hi,I'm Anne a new contributor .First of all,today we went to get a tour of Ethel M's but all we got was a self guided tour instead. So after the tour we got to this chocolate shop where they sell mini chocolates for $2.00 a piece. High price for something that small. I know a rip off. I know who owns this shop its my daddy's new job, but lower the prices please! A little bar of chocolate for $3.00 a piece. So after that we went to the cactus garden. I think we went around about 2 times. Trust me there were millions of them. Allison was so scared of those caucuses. After that we went to 7 eleven and Sven got us slushies. How nice he is and so cute too. After that we went home and here I am writing this note. Well gotta go

Fredrik

We have chosen another exchange student for next year. His name is Fredrik Petterson from NORWAY! I am so excited to have someone come from Norway. He is blonde and very tall and thin, kind of like Sebastian. The middle school and high school had semester exams this week and they got out before lunch Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It seems almost like vacation again. The TV seems to be on constantly. I love having the kids home. I work so much better when I have someone with me, but it is nice having the morning quiet time. I wish it was like this all the time. I think I have gotten more done this week than I have in a long time. Allison is growing out of her naps. I put her down in her bed for her daily naps at 1:00 and she just plays and sings in her bed the whole time. I was amazed, she did not cry. She found things to keep herself busy, singing everyone's name she knows how to say. It was so cute. I couldn't help but smile and laugh at her. She will fall asleep at 5 or 6 though. She has discovered the TV and loves to watch PBS kids. Yesterday she wanted to get up and turn on the TV and she screamed when I tried to stop her.

Mike's new job

Mike changed jobs again. He went from working for Ocean Spray to the next without missing any days work. He works for Mars, the company that makes chocolates. They have a plant in Las Vegas that makes fine chocolates under the name Ethel's. He says they have chocolate in the break room every day and gets 40% off chocolates at the store. They run a M-n-M's store here in Las Vegas on the strip that he will be responsible for too. He got a raise taking this new job. Monday the 12th was his first day on the job and he found out that one of the guys who interviewed him is LDS (Scott). One of the other interviewers discussed together with Scott who they liked best to fill the position and the non-LDS guy said he liked Mike. Scott replied to him, you know why you like him? He is Mormon! Mike had not told anyone in his interviews that he was Mormon, of course Scott took one look at his resume and knew immediately. Funny thing is Scott has the exact same name as the bishop of our ward.

California Trip

The family decided to take a trip to California before Christmas vacation was over. The drive was slow. It seemed that everyone decided to go to California at the same time. I think our average speed ended up to be somewhere between 25 and 25 miles per hour. After a long 8 hour drive (that was expected to only last 4) we finally ended up at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica. The pier looked beautiful at night all lit up. We got our hotel room and walked across the street to the pier and ventured onto the beach to stick our feet into the ocean. Some of the kids got more than their feet wet! It was our first time at an ocean and in California. The next morning we woke up early and headed straight to the beach. Sven ran and dove straight into the cold water. Allison cried if the water touched her feet at all. It was barely comfortable at about 60 degrees. We sported the obvious tourist look, but we had a blast. At eleven we headed back to the hotel to pack up and head to Knott’s berry farm. As we drove closer to the park Adam moaned in disappointment. He thought it was an actual berry farm. He hates amusement parks! We parked and walked to the ticket booth. As we walked we noticed a short kid wearing an EF back pack with an older woman and man and couldn’t help but ask them about it. Turns out they were from Arizona (some 7 hours away) and had hosted exchange students before and had their adopted children from Muldova with them.  Sven asked them if they were LDS and it turned out that they were. She told me she had a coupon that she didn’t need but felt inspired to bring it anyway.  The coupon saved us 68 dollars on admission. The first ride we came to was a wooden rollercoaster. Anne and Sven got on but Renae was too scared but changed her mind after seeing Anne and Sven ride. Kayleigh and Adam broke themselves in riding the Merry Go round, then mom bribed Adam to ride a small steel rollercoaster. The girls immediately wanted to ride it again but Adam had enough. He eventually got to ride his favorite ride, the bumper cars, 3 or 4 times. It is his favorite ride.  We headed home at about 8 and rolled into Las Vegas at 1:30 am. The kids slept most of the way home. It had been a wonderfully long day.  

Merry Christmas!

 

The kids had a blast Christmas day.  The kids exchanged their gifts to each other on Christmas Eve and they got their Christmas pajamas. Mom sewed their bottoms and we ironed on our own Losee logo to long sleeved white t-shirts for everyone. For FHE we all came up with a design and voted for our favorite. We had two favorites that the kids argued for so we used both, one on the front the other on the back. I will post some pictures on Picasa.  Mom also put together a huge box of family games we opened on Christmas Eve morning then spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing games. Mike had to work on Christmas eve, being his second day at his new job at Ocean Spray in Henderson. On his way home it was raining and when it rains in Las Vegas it gets very slick (because it doesn’t rain much and the oil doesn’t get washed off) he slid into the median and bent his front driver side axel up pretty bad. He was able to drive it home though, but don’t imagine he will be able to drive it to work unless it can get fixed.

 

We had all the gifts wrapped already (we wrapped them as we bought them) so we just brought them out and filled the stockings. Mike, Sven and I worked to get it out. Then I stayed up and cleaned after our relaxing day of playing games. It was pretty late when I finally got finished. We gave them all Benadryl before bed and they actually slept. Kayleigh and Renae woke up at 4 am and waited for everyone else to get up. I did not wake up until almost 8 am. We ate our breakfast of sugar cereal and doughnut holes before opening presents. We took turns opening gifts, Maddie opening Allison’s for her since she wasn’t interested in any present opening, just playing with it afterward. The kids got a lot of clothes. After everyone was done Dad pulled out the big surprise present. A new TV and a Wii remote. The kids asked why just a remote we don’t have a Wii. Then we pulled out the Wii and guitar hero (full band) followed by screams from all the kids! Mike’s brother got a new Xbox 360 and he surprised us with his old one as a Christmas gift. Adam had snooped around and knew we had bought the Wii, but was ultimately surprised with the Xbox! All the other gifts got put away and we spent the rest of the day playing with the Wii  and Xbox(the reason why mom opened the board games Christmas Eve). We took a break to do our Christmas program in the evening. We remembered that the Lord is generous in his blessings inspiring all to give generously and providing a job for Mike!  We are inspired, amazed and grateful for all the generous gifts we received this year, you have turned our hearts from worry about the unknown and gave us more faith in the Lord’s plan we just need to move forward and do all we can to keep his commandments.

 

The morning after christmas Adam woke up and worked, and worked harder than I have seen him work in a long time to clean the front room, even vacuuming so he could play the Wii again.

 

It rained Christmas day! No more snow (but the kids got their first snow day in Las Vegas in about 30 years when it snowed last week and it was on the front page of the newspaper).  It is a balmy 40 degree’s here now and all the snow we got last week is long gone.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.