Pictures from the November Birthday Party in Provo

One extremely large squash that Grandma grew in her amazing vegetable garden. It was delicious.

Beautiful Bryce Canyon

After visiting Piper in October, we stopped at Bryce Canyon for more spectacular views and hikes. Ditto what I said earlier about living in Utah.

Leslie's Finally a Blogger

Okay, so I finally figured it out (with a little help from D Facer). Now I can really feel a part of it.

Here is a picture of Shahn, Zoe, Megan, and Leslie at Sundance last winter. (Boy, I sure love living in Utah. What spectacular scenery.) David, Nile, and Sam opted not to ski with us that day.

Ella Mae - Dan & Amanda's new baby!

Here are a couple of pic's of the new arrival. Amanda has plans for more photos on their Facebook.

Happy birthday Dad and Mom. We Love you

Happy Birthday Dad and a slightly belated Happy Birthday Mom

We all Love and Honor you

( I believe the bottom photo is how Dad recieved the injury to his face) So, the ski patrol at Sundance better be on the lookout for him this ski season

Happy Birthday Skee. Love Dad and Mom

A Picture of Elder Matthew Facer with his brothers and sisters of the Spain Madrid Mission

Skee showing his culinary skills at a surf camp.

Skee saying good things about Luke

Happy Birthday Matt

November 14 1984 One of the greatest days your Mom and I have had. We have been so very blessed that you are our Son. Hope you have a great Day.

We Love you,

Dad, Mom, Dave, Luke, Clare and the Bev

Videos from the Summer - and Amanda had a baby!

Amanda had a baby. A girl. More to follow...

My phone takes short videos. I have one of Dad slalom skiing, and another of Kat surfing.

Mark R. Facer, somewhere in his 70's, skiing on Utah Lake (this was his 2nd turn that day). You can't tell from the poor quality of the video, but it was glassy.

Kat surfs:

A Bouncing Baby Boy

David and I found out yesterday that we are having a boy! We are so excited. The doctor says he is perfectly healthy and probably a little too healthy! He is measuring around 70% for his body growth. I guess we are looking at an 8 pounder!

Summer Fun in Utah - July

Luke's Eagle court of Honor

Luke had his Eagle court of Honor last Fri night. Mindy and the other 3 mothers of boys receiving their Eagle Scout award put the program together and did a great job. I was the MC so I got to say some things about the boys. Skee was great when he presented Luke. It is such a pleasure for parents to see their children love and appreciate each other. The Mayor came and recognized the Young Men for what they had accomplished. Luke's response was great as he talked about how Scouting helped him with more than Knots and whittling but had helped him really Love and appreciate God and his son Jesus Christ. It was very good for the non members in the audience. ( Luke is getting more and more missionary minded as Sept. 24th draws near)

I still wish others would contribute to the blog!!! Lets see Pics from July when many of us were together. Call David if you have trouble doing it.

Love you all,
Mark

This is a story from the San Clemente paper about the semi final Dist. 68 little leauge championship game Steve played in. His team went on to win the championship game with Steve hitting a bomb in the last inning that bounced over the fence for a game tying ground rule double.

"The streak stopped at 22, the season ended with it Wednesday night.
Playing for a spot in the championship game, the San Clemente Diamondbacks fell to the Rancho Mission Viejo Sun Devils, 3-0, in the semifinals of the District 68 tournament at Cox Sports Park. The Diamondbacks – who play in the majors National League division – finished the year 22-3.
"I told them I was proud of them," Coach Dave French said after the team's 22-game winning streak was snapped. "
It was the Diamondbacks first time being shut out this season, a year in which the team lost its first two decisions before running off 22 consecutive victories.
The D-backs didn't lose again until Wednesday, Sun Devil starting pitcher Chase Calaboig having a hand in the defeat. The lefty struck out 13 and went the distance.
"He was on his game," Daniel French said. "He was throwing all strikes. He kept us off balance."
Teammate Jimmy Bankson said, "He was a lefty and we are used to righties. He just blew it by us."
Bankson had the swing of the night for the D-backs, but the Sun Devils defense came through, like it did all night. With his team trailing 2-0, Bankson lined a shot to centerfield to open the bottom of the fourth. However, centerfielder Stephen Facer made a leaping running catch, possibly taking a home run away from Bankson.
"We never gave up," Dave French said. "That team beat the reigning champs last night.

Hey Family, if I can post pictures of Luke and Clare in the Ward road show, you can't feel self conscious about putting your pics on here.

The show was TV variety show. Luke was a boring painter telling you how to properly sand wood before painting.

Clare was an East German syncronized swim coach.

Luke was also part of the shows live audience.

Christmas with the Roos

I'm not sure if everyone in the family know that David and I went to Australia and New Zealand for christmas. It was very fun and quite the experience. Queenstown, NZ was my favorite. It was BEAUTIFUL! If you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies and remember the scenery, it was just like that (but without orks, elves, hobbits and the like). Sydney was very fun to see and we even got to go to a concert in the Opera House. Check out my blog, dainesmd.blogspot.com for more pics and details. Love to you all!, Malerie

i tried...

Ok, so Christian has a digital camera that he got for christmas and i went and got the camera, instructions and connection and downloaded pitctures. But i spent a while trying to figure out how to transfer them from my files to anywhere else. Since there are no pictures, i was unsuccessful!! Sorry, maybe someone will teach me, but until then there will be no pictures just words from me and mine. :)

Amanda Olsen has finally signed up

So, I have only looked at my first blog a couple of days ago. I don't have much time to be on the computer, it is so far out of the way in my house. I am also quite illiterate as far as putting pictures on the internet and such. My sister in law, Meredith helped Christian with it and we were supposed to get to together and have a tutorial before she left, but that did not happen. It Took me at least 5 minutes to figure out how to add this. So I am sorry. i will experiment and see what i can do.

Mom's Posting Debut

Hi everyone. We're so excited that Mark put this blog together. We're getting settled here in Provo. We live about 100 yards up the street from Dave and Kat. We enjoy having their kids foisted on us frequently.

Dad put an "escape hatch" to the attic in the entryway and has been working on that as alternate storage. We see Amanda and Dan (and their extraoridinarily beautiful children)frequently as well. It's been snowing a ton here. Check out this photo of Matt shoveling:















We also have a visitor, Sister Vidoni, from Romania. She just finished a mission to Russia. She'll be here with us for as long as she feels like it, and her visa doesn't expire (probably a few months). She's a delight to have around and loves all the kids.





She's the one on the right, next to some other returned missionaries from Russia (Siberia - yikes!). Thus, she has no problem with all the snow.






Funny thing here is that Dad (Grandpa) is the one that hates the cold and the snow so much and he grew up in Pre-Global-Warming Idaho. What's the deal with that? This photo doesn't seem to reveal any shoveling "action". Perhaps he's studying out the best strategy.

So, here we are, having a good time and running the furnace a lot. We'd love any visitors or responses to our posts. We'll probably go to Texas to see James and Mandy in the next month or two (or three). Probably tack on a trip to California too. We'll see.

We love you all. I'm closing with a shot of me by our Christmas tree that was donated by our most dutiful youngest son.

Luke's Eagle Scout Board of Review

Pictures from Luke's Eagle Scout board of review right before Christmas.

This is Luke Clare and Bever in Mexico where we all went with others in the ward to bring gifts, clothes and supplies to a village in need. We also got to help dig out a small house filled solid with 3' of mud from a slide. Great experiance

T

I'm going to see if I can put Dad's picture on here. Wow! I did it!

(Thanks Dave and Kat for the Skiing pics!)

Dave & Kat's Christmas trip to Powder Mountain

Emerson telling his grandpa Swenson all about skiing.

Well, we did it again. We went to Powmow with Kat's sisters and parents and respective families. This year we ended up unable to book the 70's condos across the street from the ski school; but in October a new cabin became available.

It was super-deluxe. Kat and I skied (boarded actually) right down onto the porch. We all fit in the same cabin (sixteen of us). We had a great time, and on Sunday we had a very nice family sacrament and testimony meeting.

This photo is the kids making a snow cave - that's Emerson with the frozen hands, and Ava in the blue coat. Their cousin, Revin, is scooping out the snow.

Ava is a super skier and goes right up the lift. Elisabeth has been riding the lift for a couple of years now. Emerson was deeply offended that he didn't have any skis, so I rented him the smallest boots and skis they had. He did great - he can ski just fine, it's the stopping that he doesn't quite "get".

The next photo is Emerson skiing. He turns and goes - but like I said - no stopping.

You'll remember that last year Kat's sister Karrin lost her little girl Forest during the night on New Year's eve, up there at Powder Mountain. We weren't sure if she would come this year, but she did. It was really great. We shared a lot of great memories and some tears and testimony.

I've also included a family photo, and one each of Elisabeth and Ava.