Introducing our new blog page

Hi Family and Friends! This stuff is all new, so I'm just trying to see how this blogging thing will work for us. Got to keep up somewhat on technology. If you're reading this you will hopefully be our family or friend, so please comment and tell us how to get to your blog page if you have one. We would love to hear from you often and please add pictures. Maybe the old e-mailing thing is getting old fashioned.

This is Bruce and I with the dogs at Nehema? Beach in Oregon. It was windy and chilly but really beautiful. The dogs enjoyed running along the edge of the water. There were many kite surfers out on the waves. We drove along the coast with Spencer and Jane and their one-month old, Wyatt that day. We also stopped at Tillamook Cheese Factory and got some cheese and icecream. Yum! We even drove into an apple farm and bought a bag of apples. Another day we took a drive to the Bonneville Dam and saw the huge salmon and stergeon fish through windows under water. We picked up "steamers", clams in their shells, on the way home and had them for dinner. I had a couple as I'm not that big of a fan of eating whole bodies. Ooh! It was ok.

Bruce and I also drove to Shelton, WA where Lee and Karyn live with their 3 kids, Whitney, Zachary (in the picture with Bruce), and Emily. We enjoyed taking a tour of their home as it is being remodled. It will really add a lot more room to what they have now, AND, they are even adding a guest room so we can really have a bedroom when we come to visit. Thank you to Beth, (my niece) and her three darling girls who drove all the way to Shelton from Renton to see us. Here's a cute picture of them that day.
Today, Sept. 10th, is Andy's 29th birthday, so I want to wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Tonight he and Randie and their 5-month old, Raidon, will come over as well as Jared and Candace for dinner. Raidon is our closest (in location) grandchild, which we love to see at least once a week.
So, if you are a friend that needs catching up on where the Howard gang is: Bruce and I are renting a home in Draper, UT for another year. Bruce is finishing up his bachelors degree on-line and we can hardly wait. He works still at ATK in SLC. Jeri, that's me, is working at Dr. Liddle's dentist office and singing in the Mo-Tab Choir still. Lee and Karyn and their three kids live in Shelton, WA, as mentioned. Spencer and Jane and Wyatt live in Vancouver, WA. Jared and Candace are closer in Taylorsville, UT. Andy, Randie, and Raidon live in Ogden, and our two girls, Sarah and Diane live at home, except that Sarah is in Donetsk, Ukraine on a mission for another year. We hear from her in an e-mail once a week, so if you want to say anything to her, you can do it here and I will forward it on to her. She is doing just great and loves the people there. Here she is with Anya, whom she made friends with and taught the Gospel to. Anya recently was baptized on the day this picture was taken.

Well, I don't want to make this too long the first day I made our blog, so I will end with a last picture of our whole family taken before the last 2 grandsons were born just before Sarah left on her mission. Jared is making a family blog page for the Garrard Family to use and will let us know when that is ready to use and how to get on to write and add pictures. Thank you, Jared. I didn't think I knew how to do this, but it's not that hard. You can go into http://www.candacepants.com/ to see them. It's pretty funny. Love, Jeri