The Cooley Clan

December 23, 2010

Happy Christmas

Christmas Eve 2010

In the early part of this month, Richard and I were able to attend the production of, A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater of Salt Lake and I was again reminded of the most important things in life.

Happy Christmas was once the common phrase used at this special time of year in which we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It wasn't until Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol was published that the common phrase of "Happy Christmas" was later replaced by the now popular, "Merry Christmas". Scrooge as you may remember learned some valuable lessons in that one night of Christmas Eve. At the end of the last ghost's visit, he promised, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." What a wonderful lesson for us all I think! Change within our hearts is slow and oft times painful, but eventually refines and molds us into the person we are meant to become...such has been the case for the Cooley family this past year!

Many of you have probably already viewed our family blog over the past couple of years and have seen our family grow in many ways. This said, I will not bore you with the details of our travels and activities, only tell you that it has been a wonderful and blessed year for us as we have been molded in to a little better version of ourselves than last year. We cannot continue on our journey of the next chapter of our lives in 2011 without thanking our Father in Heaven for his love and watchful care

of us all! We are especially grateful for Jesus Christ and what he has done for us.

Without him, we would be utterly lost and unhappy.

With this in mind, we want to wish you all a most "HAPPY CHRISTMAS", in which we rejoice in the "glad tidings of great joy", "peace", "goodwill toward men", and remember the "silent night" "of our dear Savior's birth"!

To you, our friends and family who we love very much...I end with the words of Tiny Tim,

"God bless us, everyone!"

December 2, 2010

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving at the Sangers home in Hurricane, Utah, November 25th, 2010 included the Sanger Family- Daniel, Cheryl, Payton, Ashlynn, Logan, and Taylor, Stephen & Charlotte Nebeker, Stephen Vern Nebeker (up from Phoenix, Arizona), Charise Cooley with kids; Jacob, Rachael, Qaiden, Aleah, and Luke (Richard down in Alabama for Officer School)

The adults eating their Thanksgiving Feast...the kids were at two smaller tables in the kitchen dining room. We got the nice china and glasses! Everything was DELICIOUS!!!

The day after Thanksgiving, we all drove over to the St. George, Utah LDS Temple for their Christmas Lighting ceremony. It certainly was cold that night but was a nice short ceremony and were able to walk around viewing the lights. It wasn't as big a spectacle as SLC Temple Square Lights, but was still pretty to see and get us all ready for the Holiday Season.

Grandma Nebeker even brought Glow-in-the-dark bracelets for all the grandkids...which they were excited about. It also helped us see where they were so none came up missing!

Payton (left), Ashlynn (backside), Rachael, Qaiden (red) and Jacob viewing the christmas lights

St. George Temple

One of Grandma's Girl's Day Out traditions is going out for a Tea Party. Now the Rachael and Ashlynn are older, they got to join in the fun! We ALWAYS wear a hat of course! (courtesy of Grandma)

The Dove Tea Room is located there in St. George and we had a Curley Plate with our choice of Tuna Salad, Chicken Salad or Egg Salad. I was not impressed with the tuna sandwhich (way too much cream cheese not enough tuna) and the chilled Strawberry Soup used to be a lot better...this version had a very sweet lemoncurd flavor and too rich for me now...the young girls didn't even like it. Our favorite was sampling the three teas we picked out...Coconut Tea, Peach Country type, and a Lemon Chiffon tea. Rachael and I liked the Coconut Tea the BEST!!! Cheryl and Mom liked the Lemon Chiffon best. In fact, I'm not a huge Herbal Tea fan, but because of this Coconut Tea, I have been converted! Since moving locations, I think they are not quite as good as before. So, next time, we decided we will make our own tea room in my mothers kitchen and the men can go for a swim down the street while we have a Girls-Day-In!

We had a GREAT time this Thanksgiving break, but we really missed Richard. He was in Alabama at S.O.S (Squadron Officer School) for the whole month of November and part of December. He seemed to have a nice Thanksgiving there, but as Dorothy Gale from Kansas said, "There's no place like home"!

Happy Holidays!!!

November 21, 2010

A Rose in Winter!

This BEAUTIFUL yellow rose bloomed even in the cold fall weather...

I picked it just in time because the snow fell the next day! What a beautiful Sabbath morning!

November 20, 2010

Little Vikings Final Tournament

The Little Vikings group picture

November 18, 2010

Qaiden wrestles and pins the kid in a matter of seconds!

Qaiden is the CHAMPION!! Way to go Mr. Q...we are so proud of you! He wrestled 3 kids in the same weight division and pined 2 of them very quickly and won 11 to 2 with the kid standing in 2nd place. I think he has a future in wrestling like his Grandpa Cooley. Richard and both of his other brothers, Roger and Rodney all wrestled as well!

October 30, 2010

GREAT STIRRUP CAY

Rich and I played SHUFFLE BOARD 3 times and each time I won! It was close each time though and I only got lucky that's all...it sure was fun.

More relaxing and reading on the deck where they had a big chess board.

Tender boats take all the people as well as our food for the BBQ lunch they cooked up for us!

Tender boats take us from the ship directly to the beach of their private owned Island.

This is the life!!!

Charise says, "HEY see these pruney hands, it's GREAT!"

It was beautiful water, but REALLY windy! It didn't stop us from doing a lot of snorkeling though!

Norwegian's Private Island, Great Stirrup Cay with their Pearl ship in the background!

Our last night on the ship, Saturday, October 23rd, we celebrated Rich's birthday at their expensive restaurant, Cagney's Steakhouse up on the top 13th floor. It was not worth the price, but oh well!

3rd stop...TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands

WELCOME to TORTOLA...

Brewsters Bay

Tortola had just had a huge amount of rain and because of the storm, the water was VERY murky. Richard went out really far into the bay and found it a lot more clear but I just enjoyed reading and sleeping on the beach the rest of the time. Rich saw some moray eels here!

Charise looked up and saw the palm trees and felt the most relaxed she's felt in a long time!

Rich in front of the back of the Norwegian Pearl cruise ship...goodbye TORTOLA!

2nd stop...ST. THOMAS U.S. Virgin Islands

View from the ship as we pulled into the harbor

We got off the ship and decided to get a taxi to Sapphire Beach because it was a couple of dollars cheaper, but we met another couple, Karen and Curtis, on the open taxi bus and they said they were going to Coki Beach which is the most popular and best for snorkeling. So, we decided to go where they were going and it was GREAT!

We rented an umbrella and chairs and bought 6 doggie biscuits for $1 to feed the fish...they really LOVED those doggie snacks as you can see!

This is what I really wanted to do...RELAX and READ my books!

FISH and MORE fish!!!

These scuba divers were just learning in the shallow waters...

Charise feeds the fish...

ALERT!!! Someone's chicken has gotten loose and is on the run!

This random chicken was meandering around our chairs.

I think he wanted the doggie biscuits that were in my bag...

Do you see the crab???

Richard bought this thin wet suit right before our trip.

Norweigian Pearl's Rock-Climbing Wall

Richard vertually FLIES up the middle section of the wall which was the hardest...

Charise takes the EASY side which is just perfect ...see my RED, FRIED and sore legs?!

October 29, 2010

Eastern Caribbean Cruise

Dancers (just for show) greeting the cruise ships

Here is our driver in Samana and some local kids

Rich kayaking

Charise had only her swim suit on and forgot to put sunblock on and so she got SOOOOO burned on her legs! We were out there on the kayak for a couple of hours if you can imagine just how red I looked! Now I have freckles on my shins because of the burn and blisters and then peeling!

Here you can see in the distance the beach where we rented the kayak (for $10) and dropped off our stuff while we snorkeled. The snorkeling wasn't that great, but we saw many pretty starfish and picked up some as well.

We saw many starfish as we ocean kayaked around the shoreline.

Our 1st destination was Tuesday, October 19th in SAMANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. We came off the boat and hired a taxi driver on a motor scooter to drive us to a nice beach where we could rent a kayak and perhaps do some snorkeling because we brought our snorkel gear along.

Here is Rich in our outside cabin with a cute porthole window!

We left for our cruise on Rich's birthday, October 16th, 2010. My father dropped us off at the Salt Lake City Airport at about 10:00 p.m because they drove up from St. George, Utah to watch our 5 kids for us. They have been gone for the past 18 months on a mission to Beira, Mozembique, Africa, so they needed some time with the grandkids...they missed the birth of Luke last year.

Our Eastern Caribbean cruise was partly in celebration of Richards 40th birthday, and partly for a much needed break from the kids and deadlines! It also was financially affordable because of our airline miles (we paid $10 each in taxes only plus $150 because of Rich's accidently booked flight on the wrong date). It was a great deal on the Norweigan Cruise Line as well except we wanted an unobstructed oceanview instead of our usual inside cabin on our previous cruises to Greece and Mexico. So, we paid $1,600 for both tickets! We also had $100 onboard credit which we used for our special dinner at Cagney's Steakhouse ($50) on the last night and tips. We had to pay a total of $12/person per day for tips! It was a GREAT and RELAXING cruise with great entertainment and rooms. I was not impressed with the food though. Princess Cruise Line had a lot better food choices in my opinion! Overall though, it was a worthwhile trip for rejuvenating our spirits and will hopefully sustain us until another vacation is needed ;)

Funny Kid Moments!

December 20, 2011- We were all in the kitchen making gingerbread and I had just taken out the first batch of the gingerbread boy and girl. As I attempted to scrape up the girl on the spatula, she was too soft and started to fall apart as I quickly placed the mangled mess on the brown paper bag! Qaiden pointed to the messed up cookie and said, "Ladies first!" and "Mom killed her!" It was just so funny I changed from being really upset that I had ruined the cookie to laughing so hard at the random funny comment! I keep telling the boys, "Ladies first", and I guess it is sinking in!

November 2011- I like to recycle plastic containers and so I had just washed out one of them and placed the plastic lid on top the toaster (near the sink) to dry. Jacob went to put some bread in the toaster and while in there, the lid melted! Just a little while later as I was getting dinner prepared, Qaiden sat on the stove counter right next to the hot stove top. I told Q to get down off the counter but he was slow to obey. I had turned off the stove, but one of the burners was still hot and so as Q sat there, his coat was lying on the still hot burner and his inner part of the coat melted. I was a bit angry with him for not being obedient and was pretty frustrated. At this point, I turned to the boys and said, "Ok, and the winner for the 'NO-BRAINER' award goes to...drum roll please...QAIDEN!" I changed from being angry to laughing because of how funny my own comment seemed to me! ;) (Sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself!)So, whenever we do something stupidly funny, we call it the NO-BRAINER award! It's become quite funny to see some of the silly things we do each day!

May 25, 2010- As the kids got ready for school this morning, I asked Rachael if she remembered to get a leotard for Gymnastics today after school. Qaiden overheard and said "...it's NOT Aleah-tard, it's a Rachael-tard! And I would wear a Qaiden-tard!" Ohhhh the silly things that kids come up with!

Jan 20, 2010- I was in the middle of winding the cord of our kirby vacuum cleaner while singing 'Ring around the rosies a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down'...and Aleah just standing there all the sudden dropped to her bottom without bending her knees (looked a little awkward). It was just one of those moments that made me laugh because it was so unexpected!

Who Is... Richard LeRoy Cooley II

With much pushing and proding from Charise and a little from her Mom, I am attempting to briefly answer the question "Who am I?". To begin, I was born to wonderful parents, Richard LeRoy Cooley and Leah Tryon on October 16, 1970 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am the 2nd eldest of eight children... Nichale, myself, Rodney, Roger, Oralea, Tawnya, Andelaura and Gayla. I moved to Mesa, Arizona when I was about 3 years old and lived there till I was 9 years old. In the summer of 1980 my family moved to Carthage, Missouri where I spent the most important and influential part of my childhood. It was during my time in Carthage that I finished grade school, Junior High and High School. I graduated from Carthage High School in May 1989 and shortly after entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, January 1990. I served an honorable mission to Brasilia, Brazil. Shortly after my mission, I enlisted in the Air Force and was Active Duty for 9 years. My time on active duty in the Air Force was spent in San Antonio, TX (Lackland AFB) for basic training, then I went to Technical School in Dever, Colorado (Lowry AFB) after which I moved to Hill AFB in Clearfield, Utah. I was afterwards, stationed in South Korea (Osan AFB) and was there for 1 year. Then I cross-trained from Munitions (otherwise known as "Ammo") to Computer Maintenance and went to Buloxi, Mississippi (Keesler AFB). My time as an "Active Duty" enlisted member ended in Anchorage, Alaska (Elmendorf AFB), where I met and married my wonderful wife, Charise Alithea Nebeker. Her father worked as the Chief Auditor at Elmendorf AFB and was just around the corner from the Headquarters bldg. where I worked in what was called the RAOC - pronounced rock - (in the basement of that bldg.). We met in June, 1997 at the LDS Singles Branch at the Maplewood Chapel in Anchorage, AK and dated till she went back to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. Charise came home for Christmas and we got engaged January 1, 1998 and got married that summer, July 18, 1998 in the Salt Lake City Temple! It was a VERY special day for me! We lived there in Anchorage till 2000 and then moved in to Charise's parents home (10411 High Bluff Dr., Eagle River, AK 99577) for 10 months to save money for school. Thanks to Charise's parents we were able to save a substantial amount for school, which eventually was used as a down-payment on our 1st home. We had just had our 1st baby, Jacob LeRoy, August 26th, 1999 and then we were blessed with a baby girl, Rachael Anne on March 9th, 2001. We moved to Logan, Utah, May 2001 so I could go to school at Utah State University to finally finish my degree in Electrical Engineering that I'd been trying to finish for quite some time and which was VERY difficult to do while working in the military and moving around a lot. I also transitioned from Active duty to the Air Force Reserves shortly after arriving in Logan. I got my Bachelor degree December 2003 and got a job working with the government on Hill AFB as an Electronics Engineer six months later in a three year internship. We moved closer to the base in May of 2004 soon after our third child was born; Qaiden John, April 6, 2004. I was fortunately to get commissioned as an Officer in the Reserves about a year after starting work at Hill AFB and just before going back to school to get my Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering. It only took me a year and a half. I am currently a Captain in the Reserves and work as an Individual Augmentee (IMA) in the 508th ASW, which is an Active Duty unit. Our 4th child, Aleah Reese was born on my wife's birthday, February 28, 2007, in Layton, Utah and we had our 5th child, Luke William on September 19, 2009 at Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton, Utah as well. Life is going well for my family and we are grateful for ALL of our blessings!!!