Mike and Jeanette Kayser

2010-12-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

The most important thing that happened to us this year was when George left to go on his mission to Nicargua. His mission started with 9 weeks of training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. We drove him up there and enjoyed a family day of site seeing in Salt Lake City before dropping him off.

2010-12-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

Cousins from Colorado visit in June. New door and windows in the background.

2010-12-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

It has been nearly a year since I blogged. So I guess I had better catch up with the year. First with my hard working husband, Mike. He has been so busy working full time at Cal State San Bernardino and then he comes home and works on the house. Progress seems slow, but at least it is getting there. this year he put up lattice fencing around the patio so it is more like an outside room. We spent a lot of time out there in the heat of the summer. The next project was the hall way which we created out of the end portion of the master bedroom so we have a way to get to the apartment. We also wanted a new place for the front door, as the old door gave direct access to the kitchen area which we wanted to use for pantry space. So an old patio door and a window were taken out and two small windows and a new front door were put in. An arch in the patio roof helped draw attention to the new front door. Inside the walls were finished, hallway cabinets were installed and a new glass door to the living area. It looks So much better- Thanks Mike for working so hard.

2009-12-24T10:56:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

2009-12-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

Christmas came way too quickly this year as my preparations have been delayed due to working or sickness. It's Christmas Eve tomorrow and so that has to be the end. We will have a different Christmas this year as instead of Mike having the week off, he has to work the early shift Thursday to Sunday. It will also be our last year together as a family for a few years because George will be leaving on a two year mission sometime next spring, and then Charlie will leave when he turns 19. It's sad that the kids are growing up so fast and gone are the little children that brought us such joy, and were so fun to have around the place. The young adults that are have taken their place also bring us joy, and we are proud of the responsible and respective people they have become. Colin is still so small and we cherish the moments we can share with him, his innocent mind and his childish wonderment and fun. We are so aware that the years pass by quickly and the next stage of his life will be here soon enough.
This year has been a tough one financially with many of our plans being put on hold, but we are okay and Mike is still employed. We all have been blessed with good health and have been free from any serious problems. Our children are the best and we are so proud of their accomplishments.
George graduated high school and now has 45 college credits under his belt. He earned his Eagle Scout and now is working on submitting his paperwork for his mission. He is excited to go, and even though the thought of not seeing him for two years, fills my heart with sadness, I am at the same time proud and eager for him to spend two years concentrating full-time on serving the Lord. He will make a wonderful missionary and it is the least I can do, to support him, since our whole family has been so blessed by our faith and testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Charlie has only a few weeks left and he will have completed his high school requirements. He too has about 40 college credits. He has a long break, till February, before he continues at college and hopes to get his associate's degree soon. He will be completing his Eagle project shortly so he too can obtain the highest rank in Scouting.
Jacob is in eighth grade and is in scouting too. He has recently had a palette expander put in as the first stage of the process to straighten out his teeth. He is at the awkward age between childhood and adulthood, and is showing signs of becoming a responsible adult. He has a great sense of fun and a kind heart.
Our only daughter, Jennifer, is now 12, and turning into a young woman. It's sad to see the little girl disappear, as I don't think I had enough of this, with only having one daughter. She is enjoying Young Women at church. She tutors younger students twice a week after school and has enjoyed earning the money to buy new clothes. She is such a good helper around the house and still takes care of her younger brother. She has done some babysitting and of course is excellent at this.
Colin has entered first grade and has become a fluent reader. He has a talent for spelling, scoring 100% on most tests. He enjoys the outdoors, playing on our 5 acre property on his own, or with any sibling that will play with him. We are so blessed to have Colin in our family to remind us all to have fun and enjoy life.
We wish all our family and friends a very merry Christmas, and that 2010 will be a great year for everyone.
Love,
The Kayser Family,

Bolsa Chica Beach Break

2009-10-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Grand Canyon July 14,2009

2009-07-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

2009-07-09T08:55:00.001-07:00

2009-07-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

2009-07-09T08:53:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

2009-07-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

2009-07-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

George's graduation

2009-07-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

Our eldest son George graduated from High School. Congratulations George!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Legoland May 2009

2009-07-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-03-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Jacob 's Science Fair Project

2009-03-21T17:24:00.001-07:00

Jacob is our first child to rate in the Heritage Middle School Science Fair.

He did his project on whether it was easier to unscramble wors written in a line or written in a circle . His results showed that it was easier for words written in a circle. He now has to present his project to the County judges in San Bernardino. Unfortunately this is during the Easter vacation, so he isn't too happy about that, but he is proud of his trophy and rosette.

Train Trip to Olvera Street in LA

2009-03-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

2009-03-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Colin John Kayser turned 6 on February 19. He celebrated with a joint birthday party with has classmate Sarah who shared his birthday. The party was at Mcdonalds in Hesperia. The kids were entertained by a very talented balloon man.

2009-03-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

George Ryan Kayser turned 18 on February 7, 2009. We had planned to have a big party for him and his friends, but the arrangements just didn't work out. So he spent the day with his friend Joe who invited him to go shooting.

We didn't get to celebrate as a family either so it was very disappointing. Maybe he will have to have a joint gradauation and 18th birthday party. Sorry George. He was very excited to have his braces off on March 17th, and now only needs to wear a retainer.

2009-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

We decided to celebrate Jacob's birthday by going swimming! After all the cold and snow we were ready for some warmer weather. The weather in Oak Hills had got warmer, but we had nowhere to swim. Each December, the week before Christmas I usually go to Palm Springs for the night, taking the two best behaved kids with me. Jacob has never been! So for his birthday he wanted to be one of the chosen ones. Staying at a hotel with all the kids requires two rooms now, so we decided to go to a motel in Desert Hot Springs, which allows all day use of their facilities which includes an "Olympic size" pool, a kiddy pool, and about 5 spas. It's a bit run down, but the price is right and you can guarantee very warm water.

Colin had refused to learn to swim all summer and kept his life-jacket on. He was in the kiddy pool, and obviously didn't need the jacket. I was busy swimming and turned round to find him jumping in the shallow end- 3 ft and swimming happily on his own. I was so happy that he finally did this because I knew he could. He was so pleased with himself too. He can swim further than this, and jump in deeper water, but this was all I recorded because I was busy swimming myself and lazing in the hot spas.

2009-01-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

We decided to celebrate the New Year by going to Magic Mountains New Year party. We didn't get there till about 5:00 p.m as we knew it would be a long evening. When we first got there the weather was so warm, we had to carry our jackets, but as the evening went on, it got colder and colder. It was so cold, that it was tempting to go home, but we were determined to make it to the new year.

The older kids went off on their own to ride the big roller coasters. Mike and I used to enjoy this too, but now we were content to stay with Colin and watch him on the little rides, and join him on the moderate ones. One we can all enjoy is the Scrambler, we took turns accompanying Colin, and even got a date ride, when Colin wanted to ride on his own.

The biggest roller- coaster that Colin was allowed on was the Gold Rush. He was hesitant to try it , but soon got to like it. He wanted to sit in the same spot each time, which was easy because it was a walk on or even stay on ride. We rode this ride about 10 times!

Colin's favorite ride was the Pirate Ship. You were allowed to ride as many times as you wanted so long as you weren't in the back row. We did get a few turns at the very back, but were content to sit on the next row and have multiple turns.

The video is short and dark,but it's the best I have!

2009-01-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

Colin is only five and still so easy to please he just wanted a wagon and some toys- how easy is that!

2009-01-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

Jennifer wanted a Nintento DS. So that was easy .

She got new clothes too!

2009-01-12T09:13:00.001-08:00

All Jacob wanted for Christmas was a PSP. which is an expensive item on its own, never mind the added expense of games. Fortunately there is e-bay, so he got his wish. Now he has to keep his grades up to keep possession of it.

2009-01-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

Charlie is sixteen and has been helping our neighbors, The Whitings, build a new house. He has been earning money and bought himself an ipod touch. For Christmas he wanted some good speakers to use with the ipod, and a warm sleeping bag as he plans to camp out in the mountains this month.

2009-01-12T08:51:00.000-08:00

George is seventeen and wanted a car for Christmas. This wasn't in the budget. He then wanted a shot-gun, but we weren't comfortable with that either, but we did compromise and get him a smaller gun that he could use on the property. His main gift wasn't what he wanted, but was what he will need for his college classes- a graphing calculator. These are very expensive, but will be useful.

Doesn't he look happy?

2009-01-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning was different this year as we were"joined" by my parents and brother, Phillip via the internet. We finally figured out how to do this and had life size images of them on the TV. They were able to watch us open our presents as well as talk to us. It was so much fun and didn't cost even one plane ticket. It did mean that we opened presents quicker than normal- but that left more time to play.

2009-01-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

We then have the Santa parade of the cookies, milk and carrots. This is our firts year in our new homw, and it doesn't have a fireplace. fortunately we have great neigbors and they lent us a fireplace as they are in the process of building a house and so had one in storage,Thank you Deb & Gary.

2009-01-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

Another Christmas Eve tradition is the reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas". We have recorded the kids reading this since George and Charlie were first reading. I hope to somehow combine all these readings to show them growing up. It will be a very precious memory to us all and a tear-jerker for me. Each child has their own copy of the story, a tradition I plan to continue for my grand-children!

2009-01-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve was very traditional, as even though the kids are getting older they still want to do all the same things. Our first tradition is that we go out for a family meal. Our favorite place is The China Palace where we can all have a great first, and nobody has to cook or clear up. We like to do this late afternoon so we leave plenty of time for our other activities. When the children were little we decided to do Sibling present exchange on Christmas Eve for two reasons; first the kids were always begging to open a gift, and second it made their smaller gifts more special, instead of being swamped by the main gifts on christmas morning. To make this gift giving more special, each child has to think of a game that everyone has to play. The winner of the game receives their gift as a prize, and the game continues till everyone has received their gift. Then the next person does their game. This takes a lot of time, but is a lot of fun. My gift to the kids is always new pyjamas.

2008-12-23T13:43:00.000-08:00

We had a visit from Santa and so were able to get some family pictures taken. A shame Mike missed seeing Santa!!!

Even more Snow

2008-12-17T16:05:00.000-08:00

After a foot of snow on Monday it froze during the night leaving an ice patch. I took the van in to be seviced on Tuesday as it was amazing as just out of Oak Hills there was no snow at. Wednesday morning we were woken up again by the automated system annoucing our third snow day. I looked out of the window and saw a few inches of fresh snow, and went back to be. By mid-morning it was up to a foot of snow and still coming down. By the afternoon it was over two feet deep-dry powdery snow.

After lunch we went out to play, I have never walked in such deep snow. Your foot went down about 12' with each step. It was too powdery to make a snowman.

Let it snow,let it snow..

2008-12-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

The forecast was for snow, but I hoped it wasn't true as I would have prefered the kids to go to school today-only a week till their Christmas break, and I have a lot to do. Mike came home at about 1a.m and said there was light snow in the pass. At 5 a.m, we got the automated phone call from the district to say that school was cancelled. I got up to tell the kids they didn't have to get up, but as soon as it was light they were. Jacob even built a snowman before 7 a.m. We had to get the snow gear out of the shed, so the kids could stay warm and dry. Here are the pics I took of some of the yard.

2008-12-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

We have a new puppy!

Last Saturday we were coming home from a visit to Wrightwood to see the Christmas celebrations. It had been very disappointing as most of the attractions had closed early. We passed the local stores here in Phelan, and parked near Stater Brothers (a grocery store), as we were going to go to the store next door, Rite-Aid, to buy a singing Christmas decoration. Something we do each year. We spotted puppies being given away outside. They were so cute so we went to pet them.

Explaination on why we got her

Jennifer has always wanted a dog for herself, and two Christmas's ago she got her wish by default because her aunt and uncle wanted to get rid of their dog- a dashound/chihuahua mix called Hunnee. Hunnee was a good dog, but very aggressive towards other dogs. She became our first indoor dog and slept on Jennifer's bed. Unfortunately she started peeing inside, so we made her sleep in the back room with the other two dogs. She didn't like this, and as the weather was still warm she preferred to sleep on the sun loungers outside. One night she disappeared. George and Charlie reported seeing a huge owl in the big tree. We suspect Hunnee wandered in the night and was taken by the owl, or possibly a coyote who prowl at night too. Anyway Hunnee was gone, and Jennifer was left without her own pet, and here was these cute puppies needing a home- and they were free.

Jennifer was allowed to pick the one she wanted. Colin wanted one too, but I was strong and said he'd have to wait till he was 10, and could look after it. Jennifer named the puppy Kimberley. The only explanation for this is that as a family we are watching the TV series 24 on DVD, in which the main character's daughter is called Kimberly. We don't have regular Tv , so this is our only link to the outside world. All our other pets have been named after Disney characters.

The puppy is supposed to be a Collie/Austrlian shepherd. I hope it grows big ehough to survive outside. We have a dog called Megra,(Hercules), who was supposed to be a jack russel mix,but looks like a miniture dalmation now. Megra is about 10 now and doing great, but our other dod Cindee(Cinderella) is 13, and just lies in one spot. She used to be the sweetest of temperaments, but now growls and snaps at the new puppy. This is one reason Kimberley is being allowed to sleep in Jennifer's bathroom at night, but I suspect, when the crying stops, she is being allowed into the bedroom. It is Jennifer's job to look after the puppy completely, including the many little stinky presents it leaves behind. She needs to be firmer with the house training, but she really is a gentle soul. I will now try to post some pictures of Kimberley- the new puppy.

2008-12-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Iam trying to figure out how all this works, but I hope to become more professional as weeks go by and download appropriate pictures and videos to document our lives

2008-12-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our blog site. My aim is to keep all my family and friends informed about what is happening in our family,to replace the brief annual newsletter. Congratulations if you found this