Jason Packham

Some photos from Lucy’s Pinkalicious 6th Birthday Party we had tonight. Fun times. Great to have Sara & David and fam back in Utah to enjoy it with us.

Simon Dean Joyner, born 1/23/10, son of Sara & David Joyner

Rhys Carter Packham, born 2/2/10, son of Seth & Aubrey Packham

These two are going to be trouble at future family reunions.

We had a great Thanksgiving with many of Amanda’s family joining us at our house.  Amanda did a great job with the food and setting.

Thanksgiving flowers

Abby and Lucy enjoying some pie.

Thanksgiving place setting

Katie, Janice, Allen, Whitney enjoying some good food.

Marc, Scott and Cheryl

Amanda and team put on a great birthday party for Grace’s 11th birthday a few weeks ago. They did a spa theme with facials, hair-dos, makeup, yoga and a movie…and lots of junk food.

It’s been a long but fantastic weekend. We closed and moved in to our home. So many boxes. So much clutter. But we’re getting there little by little. The kids are happy and we’re loving the extra room. We’ve had many nice neighbors drop by to welcome us to the neighborhood. We went to church on Sunday and everyone was very welcoming. Very similar to our last ward, lots of young families but with a good mix of older folks as well.

Internet, TV, phones, utilities: all set up.

It feels so good to be getting settled again, and very nice to be sleeping in my own bed again. Life is great.

I drove from Herriman to Portland on April 22 of this year. Since that time I’ve felt like quite a vagabond:

• 68 non-consecutive nights in an extended stay hotel in Portland.
• 32 nights in a Residence Inn (28 in Sandy, UT; 4 in Folsom, CA)
• 5 nights in a beautiful cabin at Bear Lake, ID with my family
• 4 nights at a fantastic condo in Park City, UT with our great friends
• 1 night in a dumpy hotel in Battle Mountain, NV
• 1 night at the SLC Marriott Downtown (very nice)
• 1 night in a tent with Thomas at the Spruces campground
• 1 night at my in-laws in Placerville, CA (always nice)
• 14 nights in my own bed in my old home which we moved out of on June 18
• 33 nights at my mom’s home in Provo, UT
• 21 flights
• Long drives:  Herriman to Portland, Provo to Bear Lake, Bear Lake to Sacramento, Portland to Sacramento, Sacramento to Provo

Needless to say, very excited to move in to our new home next Friday.

So much for that last post from over a year ago. So much has changed since then. We are staying in Utah.  I got a job working for the LDS Church, working at the same building where I worked for Intel for the past 9 years.  We are buying a home back in Herriman.  We are very happy things have worked out.  It’s been a long and crazy summer, one that we’ll never forget, but we’ve been very blessed and feel that we are where we’re supposed to be.

It’s been almost nine years since Amanda & I (and baby Grace) moved away from Portland, OR, and now we’re headed back. Following an invitation from my manager and much prayer and contemplation we feel that it is a great opportunity for us and will be a fun adventure. The hardest part now is knowing that we will be leaving a wonderful neighborhood and our best friends.

We haven’t set a move date yet, but it will likely be in June or July.

The kids are also sad but we’ve been trying to focus on the positive and they are starting to get excited about the move. I’ve tried to find fun things to tell the kids to help them get excited about the move.

Knowing that Thomas loves zoos and animals I told him that the Washington Park Zoo in Portland has the largest population of elephants in the United States. He got very excited about that and we looked more online together; after further research Thomas told us “Yeah, but they’re Asian elephants, my favorites are African elephants.”

Oh, and check out new photos going back to Christmas and our cruise and Thomas’s birthday.  I’m still getting caught up.

You know you’ve done a fine job of parenting and really helped your kids capture the true meaning of Christmas when you hear them singing at the top of their lungs:

“Joy to the world that Barney’s dead, we barbecued his head. Don’t worry about the body, we flushed it down the potty, round and round it goes, round and round it goes. Joy to the world that Barney’s dead!”