Happy Holidays to All

We hope this simple newsletter finds you all in good health and happiness. To start off with, 2009 was a rollercoaster year full of change and new opportunities. We are indeed greatful for the blessings we have received this past year and do look forward to 2010 to accomplish more of our goals.

Melissa is still working at the Costco Pharmacy here in Pocatello. She is loving the new position and has had many opportunities to grow and help those she works with. Melissa is a valued asset to the Pharmacy and does an extremely good job. Willy left the company he was selling Power Wheel Chairs for in July to pursue his teaching certificate. The goal is to be certified to teach US History by May 2010. He has to pass two tests, one a basic teaching knowledge test and the other a subject matter test. In the meantime he has been working with an old friend helping to start up a Siding Distribution. We have now been Scout Leaders for one year, and we just might be getting the hang of it.

During the summer we received some serious news regarding our ability to have children. Melissa was diagnosed with a Rathkes Cyst, which has grown in her pituitary gland. The cyst has prevented us from having children in the past, but hopefully this year with some prayers being answered we can start a family of children and not dogs! We do love our dogs, however, we are excited to start this new chapter in our lives.

It is important to us to acknowledge all our friends and family members which have supported us over the years. We are indeed greatful for your wonderful examples and strength. May you all enjoy the Holidays and all of 2010!

Best wishes for the New Year!

Love Willy, Melissa, Chubbs, & Boomer

Our Christmas Tree

Bat Dogs!!!

Boomer at her best:)

Chubbs being a baby boy:)

Thankful

We have not posted something in a while so I thought since Thanksgiving was over and Christmas is closely coming, I would reflect on the many things I am grateful for. First, a great husband he is the light of my life and my best friend I love him so very much. He has taught me many great things and has such enormous patience with me, I see all the hard work he does for us and the many things he has accomplished. I know he will be great at anything he sets his mind too because he is so positive and has such a great personality, what can I say he is AWESOME and I am so lucky to be his wife. I pray everyday for him and thank my Heavenly Father for blessing me with a great companion for eternity. Second, family I am so grateful for and love each and every one of. I am so blessed to have great parents and great in-laws that are so loving and they would support and help us anytime we need. Third, the gospel and the love our Heavenly Father has for me and my family, I can not imagine what my life would be without it gives me peace and faith in the trails we face and I know we are being blessed everyday. There is so many other things I am grateful for and I could go on and on. My heart is full of gratitude for the many things I enjoy and have. I have to take a minute and look at the many things I have and look at the trials we face and have to say to myself things could be alot worse. I love the saying "Come what may and Love it" I have been trying to live my life this way and just love what comes at us and have faith that things will work out the way it is supposed to be.

As the holidays are near take a minute and reflect on the many blessings and things you are grateful for. There are so many other things I am grateful for, I can not find the words to describe the gratitude I have. I hope the upcoming holidays are enjoyable for everyone!!!!

A Summer Classic…WIFFLE BALL:)

The other day, a good buddy of mine called and wanted to get some wiffle ball in before it got too dark. I still hadn’t fixed dinner yet so I thought this would be fun, they could play and eat with us. Game time was set, the field was prepped, and the food waited. If any of you have played wiffle ball with me you know everything is put on hold until the game is finished. This was the case.

The game was pretty intense at moments. I will admit I was crushed by the Wiffle Ball King…Matt Smith. The kid simply crushed the ball with a poetic stroke of his pretty yellow bat. Below is a taste of the events, you can also see the whole video at http://www.youtube.com/user/willdog26forlife sorry about the quality of the video, it was supposed to be published in HD but it made it smaller, except for the 2nd inning. I didn’t have to edit that one so it was never changed from the original format. Anyways, the night went on, after the game we enjoyed a nice traditional Teriyaki on Rice meal. It was superb! Then we had some serious Singstar action on the PS3…sorry no photos or videos, the camera was dead from all our fun from earlier. Rest assured though there will be a time when all that goodness is recorded and posted for the world as we know it to see.

Good times all around. Hope you enjoyed this addition to the Harris Family Fun blog. Post your comments, we love to hear from you, and stay in touch!

Days of Summer

The days of summer have come and gone it seems. Not so long ago we were facing the ridicoulus rain in June, the hot days of July, and now as August rolls to a close we look back and reflect on what we have accomplished.

This summer has been action packed for us. Between my problems at work to not working all the way to Melissa's medical condition, we have survived. The lastest news in our family was that of an uncle of Melissa's who was just diagnosed with Rectal Cancer. Both he and his wife are in our thoughts and prayers.

What have we learned from this summer? To live life and enjoy every moment we have. I have decided to start to document and format videos of our life. Over the years as my memory weakens, I have concluded that when a picture or video is captured of the moment at hand, it easier to recall the events. With this in mind, we are going to strive to document our lives and formalling record them in journals. I challenge those of you close to us to do the same.

Here are couple pictures from this past summer. You can also check out our videos at my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/willdog26forlife

A June thunderstorm above our house, thought it might turn into a tornado:)

Wish we could have done this more this summer!!!

Anyone for a game...

This is the photo post card for "the dog days of summer"

Kitzmiller Campout 2009

Every year the Kitzmillers get together on an annual family campout. This tradition started in Heise, then we traveled for a week long adventure to the Oregon Coast, and this year we found ourselves in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Each year one of the children and their family is responsible for the planning of the trip. This year Russ and Mindy did an awesome job as the camp ground was right next to the river, the swimming pool was close by, and there was plenty of room for all of us and our toys. This year, Grandma and Grandpa brought their 4-wheelers, we had two tents, 2 Trailors, and 1 Motorhome. Here are a couple pictures from the adventure. Everyone enjoyed riding the slides at the pool and just hanging out around Grandma and Grandpa's RV. This year we were graced with the first ever Dance off...Congrats to the winners...EVERYONE!!!

You can check out a 10 minute video highlighting some of the fun...you will see Willy getting flipped off 3 times, Melissa getting nervous about Chubbs swimming in the river, how to make homemade ice-cream, and of course the highlights of the Dance Off!!! Follow the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roAdqAwNxuY

Can you believe this almost 7 years ago!!!

I love Baseball!!!

Baseball Fever!!!

The video was taken yesterday while we were playing in Providence, Utah against the Utah State Aggies in the Northern Utah League. I was going as fast as I could and still almost didn't make it. Listen to Melissa as I round first...and then the other guys started chanting Manny, becuase of my Manny Pants!!!

Enjoy

General Conference is upon us again. What an amazing blessing this has been to us in our household. As we watched conference sessions yesterday and as we sit and watch this morning, we are a blessed people to have such strong leadership on the Earth. "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet" rings more profound in my heart today. In these difficult times of economic strife and hardship how blessed are we that we have been taught for years to be prepared for this day and days to come. I want to reflect with all of you a talk I just gave in our home ward. It was based off a talk given by John Bytheway years ago. The talk is entitled, "5 Scriptures That Will Help You Get Through Anything."

First, all of us need to first look for the answers we need in books where the answers do not change. So many of us have been involved in a resale of a text book at the end of the semester, once or twice. What usually happens to us? We get stiffed on the value of the text book, right!? We pay $75 and get back $3! Why does this happen? The information found in the text is now outdated and not relevant to future courses, namely because the answers will change in the next year, rendering the information held within useless. Where can we find answers that will not change? Your right, in the Scriptures and in the words of our Latter-day Prophets.

Here are the scriptures in order: Study these one by one:

1. 1 Nephi 11:16-17 "We do not know all things but we do KNOW that God loves us"
2. Moses 7:26-33 "God weeps on our behalf"
3. Alma 14:9-13 "Your work is not finished, no matter how difficult it may be"
4. Alma 7:11-12 "The Atonement does not just cover sins but pains and afflictions"
5. D&C 101:32-36 "Build a foundation and Endure to the End, Blessings await"

Elder Scott added in the Nov 1995 Ensign: “When you face adversity, you can be led to ask many questions. Some serve a useful purpose; others do not. To ask, Why does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to suffer this, now? What have I done to cause this? will lead you into blind alleys. It really does no good to ask questions that reflect opposition to the will of God. Rather ask, What am I to do? What am I to learn from this experience? What am I to change? Whom am I to help? How can I remember my many blessings in times of trial? Willing sacrifice of deeply held personal desires in favor of the will of God is very hard to do. Yet, when you pray with real conviction, “Please let me know Thy will” and “May Thy will be done,” you are in the strongest position to receive the maximum help from your loving Father.

This life is an experience in profound trust—trust in Jesus Christ, trust in His teachings, trust in your capacity as led by the Holy Spirit to obey those teachings for happiness now and for a purposeful, supremely happy eternal existence. 

In the spirit of conference I wanted to share this everyone on our blog. It has helped me to refocus I hope it does the same with each of you. 

Where has the time gone?!?

I think I figured out how to do pictures for all our fans.

Melissa and I-2008

2003 @ Bear World

2002 @ Eastern Idaho State Fair

2002-we had been married for almost 2 months at this point.

I thought I would contribute to the blog with a couple of my favorite pics. Don't worry there will be many more to come as we both continue to learn just how this thing works. But, for now enjoy the new post. 

How time flies!!

Okay so I am not a very good blogger because it has been over a month since I last updated this, time just flies so fast. I can not complain we are happy, healthy, and enjoying life, and are going to get some money back from taxes which is always good because we usually have to pay in.  We are enjoying our calling for the most part still trying to learn the ropes (literally) of scouts, the scouts are fun, crazy but fun.  The best part is spring is coming and I am excited to get out and work on our backyard and enjoying the sun.

Trying to keep updating!

     Well I am learning more and more how to design our blog and thanks to other bloggers out there I always watch for a link when I see a cute blog design, so thanks to all of you!  I would put some pictures on but this is a brand new laptop because the other one crashed and it is cheaper to get a brand new one so once we get a flash drive and get all of our pictures we will put some on.  And, we also can not find our digital camera but thats ok with me because that camera sucks we just need to spend the money and get a good one!

     Anyways, just the same old with us just work and come home.  We actually had a pretty productive week with our new calling as scout leaders.  Willy made a schedule and we took it over to all the boys met them and their parents, which I enjoyed because now I can start putting names with faces when I see people at church. So, we had our first scout meeting we are such rookies but it was good to get things finally going, I think it will get better as we go along and start learning what scouts is all about.  It will be fun!  

     I really enjoy serving in the church it is amazing what you learn and especially learning on a personal level your own capabilities. I truly do believe that when you are serving others you will be blessed also.:) This is one of the values I really want to work more is service, I just feel I have been given so much that I should give back!:)

     

We are bloggers!

Well we are slowly figuring out how to change our blog so it looks at least good, I decided we needed to change the look and thanks to other bloggers out there we stole some ideas from them, anyways we still need to add pictures so that will be the next thing so stay tuned.  Well we have survived another week with work and other things going on willy is doing great with his job I know he always says "I sell powered wheel chairs" but he is really good at it and being a manager of the store in pocatello it truly does take someone who can organized well he is always successful at anything he puts his mind to. As for me we had our first inventory at costco and I am so glad I am in the pharmacy because we just had to count our medications and I was out of there by 11pm not to mention I had to work at 9:30 am and was there all day but some good overtime on the next paycheck will be awesome.  Well we also got called in our new ward to be the eleven year old scout leader when they first asked us I was thinking to my self are you kidding me I know nothing about scouts and either does willy I mean we like to camp and stuff but we camp in a nice trailer that has electricity, a bathroom, and a tv and dvd player, so we do not rough it.  But it will be a good experience I figure heck at least we will learn how to tie knots and use a compass right!! We will learn alot I am sure so any of you that have been in scouts any ideas would be great!!!

Well Here We Are!!!

We are officially bloggers!!! Please stay tuned while we learn how this whole process works. We are excited to share our lives with our family and friends out there. We hope this adventure will be as fun for you as it will be for us!

I guess we should start with the Holiday Season:

1. We stayed in Idaho this year...I know big surprise. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve with Willy's Family. Lots of eating, laughing, more eating, and tons of laughing and enjoying each other's company. Those of you reading this know we have a couple characters in our family so any gathering can get out of hand quickly:)

2. Christmas this year was spent at our NEW HOUSE (pictures will posted soon), that was our Kitzmiller traditional celebration. This year everyone came to the new pad and had some of the best ribs ever made. Thanks Mike and Lori for letting us use your special sauce. It's what made the ribs sooooo good!

That's it, Holidays over and back to the everyday grind. More to come!