Awesome Experience at the North Pole

OK, so Christmas is OVER you say!!!  Well, there’s always next year, and the year after that and so on…

I would have made this post before Christmas if I could possibly have fit one more thing into my life during the week between December 18 and December 25, but unfortunately I could not!!!  On December 18 we had the great privilege of visiting Santa at the North Pole Experience in the lovely and quaint village of Greer, Arizona!  If you think of Arizona as only a desert, you simply must visit Greer and the White Mountains in eastern Arizona.   I promise you won’t be disappointed—no matter what the season!

If I had been able to do something like that in my childhood, I can’t imagine I ever would have found anything to top it.  In fact…I think I shall never top it with any other holiday experience for the rest of my life, but I will try.  And I will keep you posted as to what I find next year.  Meanwhile, I highly recommend you check out their website; and if you live anywhere near Arizona and you have children or grandchildren, I suggest you book your experience early for 2011.  I have a feeling word is going to spread and the available slots are going to fill up fast.

Bryan and I went with Chris, Hannah and Lucy and Lucy’s other grandparents, Papaw and Carol.   This is only their second year of operation and let me tell you, they have it ALL figured out perfectly!   It starts at Molly Butler Lodge in Greer where the outdoor decorations are the first thing you see; and when you walk inside you are greeted by more decorations, warm fires, a welcoming atmosphere and the smell of good food.   We had dinner first and were amazed at the huge choice of foods in the buffet line.  Quite wisely, there were selections for the kids such as macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers, along with great selections for the adults including prime rib and mahi mahi.  The food was great and the dessert table was equally as tempting.

After our feast, we boarded the Candy Cane Express to head for the North Pole.  Our guide for the ride was an elf named Sprinkles.  At some point along the way, our trolley went dark as we went through the “portal” to the North Pole.  Suddenly we were greeted with thousands of twinkling lights in the middle of the pitch black forest.   Sprinkles taught us the secret knock and  knocked on the big door while we waited to enter the magical world of elves and everything Santa and the North Pole are all about!

Once inside, we found ourselves in Santa’s Toy Hall of Fame.  I’m quite sure there were some toys there from everyone’s childhood, whether parents or grandparents.  The nostalgic feeling of seeing toys from my own childhood was very special.  I don't want to give away too much here so I'm just showing you one of my favorite old toys.  As we moved into the next room, we were greeted by two elves who told us the head elf, Alabaster Snowflake, would be joining us soon.   Alabaster came in and filled all the kids, who were quite awestruck by now, with stories of Santa.

Soon they were being moved through the doors to the Elves’ Toy Workshop where they each joined an elf and helped finish off some toys that would be donated to charities.  The elves also participated in some play time with all the kids.  The workshop was nothing short of awesome, but I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that each step of our journey was just that!  When the toys were finished and put away, the children moved to the elves’ kitchen/dining room and sat around a huge table with the elves and had cookies and “snowman soup”.  The elves entertained them with plenty of antics and singing while someof the helpers frosted cookies in the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next stop was the classroom where one of the elves taught them how to be “nice” and how not to be “naughty”.  Our little Lucy sat in the front row and appeared to be paying very close attention.

When class was over we moved on to the final and main attraction…the Jolly Old Elf Himself...in his private office!  Each family was given their own private time with Santa so the children could have his undivided attention while giving him their wish list.  While we waited our turn, we got to visit with Santa’s elf assistant and check out more old memorabilia, along with the naughty list which had some familiar names on it!

After seeing Santa, we boarded the trolley and headed back to Molly Butler Lodge for some time with Mrs. Claus as she read Christmas stories to all the children.   She was everything Mrs. Santa should be and it was the end of a very magical evening.  I am looking forward to our next trip to the North Pole with anyone I can find to let me tag along!  I highly recommend you check out some of the links in this blog and consider visiting the North Pole yourself!

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."   ~Roy L. Smith

"I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month."
~Harlan Miller (Better Homes and Gardens)













I hope your holidays had some magic of their own and that 2011 is a wonderful year for all of you!  And don't forget to start planning soon for your own very special holiday experience next year.


Blessings to you and yours,

What are Your Holiday Traditions?

Our family has some holiday traditions that have stuck with us year after year and some that we’ve tried once or twice and they haven’t caught on, even though most of them were lots of fun.  We thought we’d share some of our memorable photos and traditions and ask you to share yours with us.   We are also having a contest on our Facebook page so submit your photos for a chance to win!  Here’s a link to our page.

http://www.facebook.com/ThroughMySistersEyesPhotography

Our best and most time-honored tradition is a game we play on Christmas Eve.  We can’t tell you the game because we never know what it is until Christmas Eve.  You see…our sister Angie creates a new game each year and they are always looked forward to with much anticipation.   They could be a game of Family Trivial Pursuit or a version of some TV game with questions we may or may not know.  Whatever the game, it is always the highlight of the evening and creates quite a raucous atmosphere!  Prior to Christmas, Angie and our mom have spent a lot of time creating the game, buying white elephant gifts and wrapping them so everyone goes home with something.  One year Tina won and there was an engagement ring in the prize box!!!  I think the winner was fixed that year!  This year it won’t be the same without our mom…for Angie or any of the rest of us.  But I hope we can continue the tradition for the next generation to take part in.

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One year one of Angie’s game prizes was a little glass duck that Bryan lovingly named the Peking Duck.  That led to many antics about the Peking Duck and lo and behold, the following year Angie received the duck under the tree.  For probably at least ten years Angie and Bryan had to come up with increasingly creative ways to “sneak” the duck into the other person’s hands.  That got pretty hilarious too.  Once it got old, I think they both tried for at least 3 years to end it and Angie came up with the winning play.  The head of Peking Duck is now immortalized and sits in our cabin in Pinetop.  He is cemented into a mosaic dish that we use as an ashtray.  Oh that duck brings back such good memories!  Here’s a picture of Bryan reading a letter from the “Duck”.  I don’t know why I don’t have a picture of it but I think I will soon…

We’ve had many different years with Santa hats, reindeer antlers, blinking light necklaces, goofy sweaters and who knows what else! 

It seems on most years someone shows up with a little something for everyone to wear.  You’ll notice some of them in the photos here.  One year the DeWitt boys went thrift store and closet shopping for goofy sweaters and wore them with Santa hats.  For the rest of the night they acted like some combination of Dumb & Dumber, Elf or some other character they made up.

In 2005, the DeWitt boys started a Christmas light contest between their two houses.  We had a caravan and went to check them out and vote.  I have no idea how many hours they put in and how many lights, but it was great fun.  It was far too hard for me to vote but someone made me so I voted and kept my ballot what I hoped was secret!  In the end, Pete won and Mark had created a silly traveling trophy for the winner.   The following year, we added more contestants and made a much bigger deal out of it.  We even rented a trolley so we could all go together and had Christmas music and lots of Christmas snacks on board.   Chris and Hannah won that year. I think everyone realized how much work and stress was involved in that one and it kind of fizzled the following year.  Plus, the trolley was booked and after that fun ride it wouldn’t have been the same to caravan in separate cars again.

 

Last year we had a gingerbread house contest.  It was a blast but I’m afraid it will go the way of the lights contest because it was a LOT of work.  I seem to recall that one of the dogs took a bite out of one of the houses before it ever even made it to the judging!  I must say there were some awesome displays of creativity there.    Here’s one that is modeled after our parents’ cabin in Mormon Lake…and I loved the nativity set too!  When our family has a contest there is some strong competition involved…we go ALL out!

It doesn’t matter what your tradition is…singing Christmas Carols together, volunteering at a soup kitchen, delivering gifts to a family in need, special recipes and the list is endless.  What matters is that you are together…with family, friends and anyone else who needs someone to celebrate with.  Our holidays would not be the same without the love and togetherness with our family and friends.  They are something we look forward to and make the most of every year.   We can’t always all make it, but we certainly miss the ones who don’t. 

Be sure you are freezing these special moments in time by taking photos of them.  If you don’t, someday you’ll be wishing you had!  Photos preserve the special moments and help you remember them.  You don’t know you’re missing them until you don’t have them!

We hope you will share your traditions or your special holiday moments, either in a comment on this blog or on our Facebook page.  Whether you do or don’t participate in our little contest, we hope your holiday season is filled with love, peace, joy, hope…and lots of good times and special moments!

Contest Rules:

Email us (photosisters@cox.net) your favorite holiday photo with a note about your special tradition or a special holiday event you participated in.  We will add them to an album on our Facebook page.    If you are not a Facebook user, you can still submit your photo to us and we will enter it for voting.  Deadline for photo submission is Sunday, December 19.   Vote for your favorites by liking or commenting on your photo and get all your Facebook friends to vote too.

Voting ends on Friday, December 24.  The winner with the most votes (likes and comments) will receive a free 11x14 mounted photo from your next photo session.  We don’t want to leave out our friends who live out of state and would like to enter the contest.  If you win and we’re not able to schedule a photo session with you, you may submit your own photo for printing and mounting.

Remember:

Entry Deadline:  Sunday, 12/19/10

Voting Deadline:  Friday, 12/24/10

Maximum entries per person:  3 (each must have a story)

All you need to do is submit your photo and have all your friends vote for you!

Blessings to you and yours,

Karen and Tina

“The merry family gatherings - the old, the very young; the strangely lovely way they harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time - traditions that recall the precious memories down the years, the sameness of them all.”

- Helen Lowrie Marshall

And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, Which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

- Luke 2:10-12

What I'm Thankful For...

Since we don't have a lot of followers yet, it may not have been noticed that we haven't made a blog post for awhile.  Truthfully, we haven't felt much like it and we really still don't!  Our mom left this world quite unexpectedly on Friday, November 5; and although they say life must go on, I think the holidays will be weird and sad and different this year; and I'm actually not much in the mood for celebrating them.   I may not celebrate, but I will participate because there are so many she left behind who are all feeling the same way...and because she would want us to be together and to move forward, even if it's one baby step at a time.

Perhaps it's fitting that Thanksgiving and my birthday are following so closely behind her passing.  It's the time of year we tend to focus more on what we're thankful for than we do at other times of the year, although we should be waking up each day full of gratitude for the many blessings in our lives.  I find that when I focus on my blessings and on being thankful, the sad or difficult things become much easier to bear and they don't seem quite so large.  So now I face the task before me... 

"The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!"  ~Henry Ward Beecher

I could provide an endless list of what I'm thankful for and so could the rest of us.  Suffice it say, I'm thankful I had the mom I did for as many years as I did.  I was blessed by her every day of my life, although I'm sure I didn't always know that in my younger years.  I'm thankful I realized that before it was too late.  I'm thankful for the friends and family who have been and will continue to surround me with sympathy, love, understanding and comfort.   And I'm thankful that she is at peace, resting in the arms of the Lord, and that I can look forward to being reunited with not one but two moms one day in Heaven!

So, for today my wish for all of you is that you will find blessings too numerous to count in the midst of whatever burdens you heart. 

I'm thankful for times like these...and plenty of good memories!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blessings to you and yours,

Karen

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."  ~Melody Beattie

A FUNdraiser for Mia...

Even though neither of us is much in the mood for writing or posting the blog, this item is too important to pass up.  We've written before about our little friend, Mia Foutz, and the battle she is waging against brain cancer.  Most of us know how devastating serious illness can be emotionally, physically and also financially.  If you live in the Phoenix area, please consider attending this fundraiser for Mia.   We assure you that it's a great cause!

After all, can you think of anything better to do on the first Friday night in December?  You won't be sorry, I promise!  You could even bid on a photo session and print package the "Sisters" are offering!!!

Blessings to you and yours,

Karen and Tina

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."  ~Edmund Burke



"Pinkalicious" Times Two

Here’s another story about sisters – twin sisters this time!!  These beautiful, spunky twins have been through more in their short five years than many of us will go through in a lifetime!  And this is a good story, one with a good outcome so far, one with answered prayers after a long wait.  These are the kinds of stories that keep us believing in the power of those prayers, the amazing strength of people to overcome the worst and the importance of being surrounded by family, friends and loved ones during our most difficult times.

Taylor was just 3 years old when she was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.  She and her mom spent close to a year in Phoenix Children’s Hospital for her treatment.  You can read about it on her blog,  Loving Taylor.  I learned about her through a mutual friend and was so touched by her story that I followed it closely while she was ill and prayed often and hard for her.  

These little girls who had been together since birth were suddenly separated most of the time and I can’t even imagine how hard it was on each of them individually as well as on their parents, grandparents and everyone else who loved and cared for them.  Last year on their fourth birthday they hadn’t seen each other for almost a month and they got an hour in the hospital for cupcakes! 

What I picked up on immediately upon meeting them for the first time was their infectious happiness to be there and their love for each other.  I think you’ll see it in the photos.  Along with joy and love, if you look closely at them you’ll see grace, serenity and a little mischief!

We are so thankful to have been able to photograph these beautiful girls.  We pray for Taylor’s continued good reports from her doctors and we hope to have the opportunity to photograph them as they grow up into what will surely be beautiful young women!

In the meantime, Happy Fifth Birthday, Taylor and Savannah!  We know it will be a joyous celebration!

 

 

Blessings to you and yours…

Karen

 

“Sisters touch your heart in ways no other could.  Sisters share…their hopes, their fears, their love, everything they have. Real friendship springs from their special bonds.”   ~Carrie Bagwell

Mia's Family

We first wrote about Mia and her awesome family a few weeks ago.  Mia is a beautiful five-year old girl who is going through the fight of her life right now as she battles brain cancer.   You can read about the journey on her blog at Human Tribe Project.

A few of the things you will learn there are that Mia is a fighter; that she has two awesome parents who are trying to juggle family life with two other children who need them too and who are suffering along with their child; that she has an extended family who will do whatever it takes to keep things going and make it possible for someone to be with Mia at all times--and that she now has an extended blog family on Human Tribe Project who are all praying, offering words of encouragement and strength, helping the family in any way they can and supporting them financially by purchasing Tribe Tags.

That is why Human Tribe Project was created.  There is a need it fills during the time of a devastating illness or crisis.  For those of us on the “outside” there is some comfort in knowing some of what is going on and in finding direction for our prayers.  Still, we feel helpless.  For those on the “inside” there is the moment-by-moment pain of watching this unfold.  We hope there are at least some moments of joy and celebrate hearing about things like a big, strong Daddy having his nails painted lavender by his child…and leaving the polish on.  And we hear about some of the moments that bring tears to our eyes and make us sad.  Unless we’ve been through it, we still don’t know…BUT we pray! We pray for whatever it is they need and then some.

This is Mia’s Family…or the Foutz side of it anyway.  They are there to lift each other up and to deal with the hardest moments and they are amazing.  A year is a long time, but I believe they will get through it…one day at a time!  I believe they will have a healthy, beautiful daughter in the end.  In the meantime, I hope and I pray…and I give thanks that they have each other.  And I am thankful we had an hour or so one Sunday evening to capture not just Mia, but all of them…looking like any other family for a little while!

 

I might add here that this family is pretty blessed in the “cute kids” department.   I think you’ll agree!

Blessings to you and yours…

Karen

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family”    ~Anthony Brandt

Tricks and Treats

         A picture really is worth a thousand words…over and over again.

"P" 10 months~2005

"P" 2006

 It amazes

me how pictures evoke all sorts of emotions and memories when you look back at them.  When Miss "P" was only 10 months old I wanted to take her pictures in her costume in a pumpkin patch.  I didn't know then, but this would become an annual tradition.  We all work our magic with our schedules in order not to miss this opportunity.

Later when Miss "L" and then P’s little brother "Q" came along they joined in the tradition and it’s been double and triple the fun!      



"P" and "L" 2007

                                                                                                                 

 We love these three little cuties and will cling to the tradition as long as they are willing to humor us.  Our plan is to include more “characters” as they come along. Look for #4 in next years pictures!

2008

  

2009

             

This year marked the sixth year of pictures in the pumpkin patch.



2010



Our pumpkin patch pictures are some of our favorites. 

They ALWAYS make us smile! 

Happy Halloween! Tina

         

          

2010