Future Idol contestant: Daniel

Daniel was practicing his guitar solo last night.

Landoe Girls at Thanksgiving

November Sunrise Poem

At the break of day when thoughts awake

The Son light shines across the mind

and gives me a moment to see and thank

my Lord and Master, Advocate kind

He bids me upward, cheers my soul

Binds me up and makes me whole

He shines a light forth that all may see

The grand plan laid for eternity

Where we can grow in joy and love

Through Him and with Father up above

His loving way lights up our path

and shows us they way to live as he hath

Landoe's carry the world...and a pic with Cosmo the Cougar

Fun optical illusion at the Museum of Flight.

Kids had a chance to meet Cosmo while the BYU Cougars were in town. They stopped by the Museum of flight where we met Cosmo, watched BYU football reruns, and Cosmo commercials...and there was food.

Fall Spheres

Took this picture of the moon at 7:30 AM today, then photoshopped it a little to make it look darker. That's the only way to keep the exposure in check on a night moon. Still learning.

Pure, unaltered genious. Now I understand why the grape farmers take so much pride in their grapes. We have a strong harvest coming this year and I expect we should reach our goal of 80 lbs of grapes or about 6 gallons of conchord grape juice!

Spooner Pumkin Farm

Landoe's picked out pumkns out at Spooner's Farm this year. It was a beautiful fall day to create good memories. Mary, Zach, Grama, and the cousins were all together. It was a good time.

Here's a picture of my two pumkin princesses, Rhiannon, and Alaura.

Here's a video clip of the cousins having rubber duck races.

Later that night, we continued the festivities at home with a game of name that tune. This was actually a sly way on Karah's part to get us to practice for a Sunday musical number for which we greatly needed practice.

Mt Rainier

Here's the view from the backyard on 9/27/2008.

Snakes & Birds

Here's just a few things Landoes were up to on Saturday. Hunter found a snake in the wood pile.




Meanwhile, Karah was decorating for the 2008 Annual Relief Society broadcast & dinner. Decorations included "the bird of paradise" folded napkins and a sign in Chinese characters.








We think this sign either means "Sisterhood" or "girls of the hood" in Chinese, either way it worked.

Kid's say the funniest things series continued...

Hunter helped load 4 chords of wood today and single handedly weed eated the entire front bank facing the road. There were two separate ladies that drove by and complimented Hunter on his work ethic, (both happened while he was loading wood into a trailer). I told Hunter, "Wow, that's two people today that have said you are a very hard worker. Why do you think they are saying that?" I taunted. Then Hunter in his own brand of humility said, "Dad, it's not about me... it's about the muscles I've got. They are saying that because they see my muscles."

What a humble guy :-).

Sept 18th - I come home and go strait to the refrigerator for a snack to find that there are magnets all over the refridgerator with Daniel's baseball picture. Daniel comes up and says, "There's a lot of me on there!"

Sept 18th - Then I go to the stove to cook up some sausage and Daniel wraps his arms around one of my legs and says, "Dad, I miss you too much". Man I love that little guy.

Cooking in Grandma Dickson's kitchen

Kids had an opportunity to bake some goodies in Grandma Dickson's kitchen. You know holidays are around the corner when the kids are cooking in Grandma Dickson's kitchen. You also understand why kids always call it "Grama's house" instead of "Grampa's house."

Kids say the funniest things

When I rode in to the driveway today, Hunter said, "Dad I can smell your sweat from here" (he must have been down wind. "Oh I'm sorry do I stink?" to which he replied, "No you don't stink. Sweat is the smell of Vitory". And that is one of the latest Hunterisms.

"Sweat is the smell of victory" -Hunter Landoe.

I told Hunter that was one of the most profound things I have ever heard him say. So he marched upstairs and shared his wisdom with the rest of the family "Sweat is the smell of victory everyone". Karah said, "That's nice Hunter, I want to start seeing some victory in that bedroom of yours -right now!!!"

Hunterisms continued...

Journal Entry 4/25/2008: Hunter declared yesterday, "I want to be a scuba-diverologist." I asked him what a scuba-diverologist does and he replied, "They do research of sea animals and fish."

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Journal Entry 3/21/2008: I told the boys that we will be doing our first campout of 2008 at Buck Creek. Daniel burst out laughing in a loud giggly laugh and said, "Dad, you can't say that word!"

"What word?" I said.

"Butt Creep."

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Journal Entry 3/21/2008: Tonight Daniel made gun shapes out of both his hands and pointed them outward and said, "Hey baby, how you doin' !!!". Where does he get this stuff?

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Journal Entry 3/21/2008: Karah said she would make Daniel a necklace to which Daniel replied, "I'm gonna make a necklace for you...and for my girl." Then he looked down with his eyes slanted and poked his tongue into the side of his cheek. It was the cutest bashful expression.

Fourth of July pics

Spent the day up at Dicksons lighting off mega balls, lady fingers, and a bunch of other ill-eagle fireworks. The kids also took a ride in Grampa's freedom truck. He blew is old fashioned horn a bunch so the neighbors could hear. Fun stuff. Didn't bring the camera but Grama took a few pics attached here.

Landoe Cowboys and girls

Landoe's finally did one of those Cowboy western themed photo shoots. The lady told us to look serious. So this was the result. From left front we have, Hunter Landoe, Sarah Underwood , and Leah Underwood. From middle left, Karah Landoe, Brittnay Landoe, Leslie Landoe, Mary Underwood, Daniel Landoe, Rhiannon Landoe. From Back left, Alaura Landoe, Joel Landoe, Mark Landoe, Jim Landoe, Zach Underwood, & David Landoe.

Alaura's Orchestra 2008

Alaura completed another orchestra tonight. As you can see she was super excited about it. The following picture is Alaura five years from now....oh wait, no that's her today!!! -What a doll.

Landoe's spent time working in the yard this Memorial Day weekend. Hunter helped dig post holes for the grape trellis. Last year we harvested 4o lbs of grapes. The year before that we nearly harvested 70 lbs!!! This year we want to get above 80 lbs. It will be hard since you needs a lot of sunshine to get big juicy grapes. We'll see.

Mother's Day

Who loves their Mom. Hunter and Daniel do.

Daniel the mechanic

Daniel spent some time overhauling his motorcycle on Saturday. After that he worked on some calisthenics. Then he decided to put around on his motor cycle.

5/10/2008: I reminded the Boys that Father and Son is coming up on May 30th and were going to Buck Creek. Daniel immediately started to laugh and said, "Dad -you just said we're going to Butt Creeep!!!" "No. I said Buck Creek." "OHHHH....you said Bucket Creeep??" Thats when I new the jig was up. Daniel was going to be a comic no matter what I said. Funny guy.

On the road again

Landoe's are doing what they can to contribute to the apparent fuel crunch, including riding the bicycle.

TRAVELOG: Friday - Joel is back on the bicycle, riding from work in Seattle once in a while. Total trip: 30 miles. Average speed: sluggish. Top speed Tortus speed.

Caught up to Brother Mike McDonald, on the Auburn trail. He started talking about his family and I said, "you must be Mormon." Then we realized the connection that he used to be Dad's counselor in the Puyallup Stake Mission.

General Conference

Landoe's attended the 178th annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, including the Solemn Assembly where we were eyewitness to the sustaining of the Lord's 16th Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. We attended the first session in the Conference Center and the second and third session in the Tabernacle. Karah fanagled some seats for us in the fourth session of conference in the lower balcony.

We enjoyed all the talks and Alaura took down names and notes from all 26 general authorities that spoke, including the new apostle, Elder Todd Christofferson.

The kids enjoyed some play time on Friday before conference including hiking up "Y" mountain, bought chocolate and books at the BYU book store, took a tour of Temple Square, showed the kids some gospel art, and played in the water fountain at Gateway Mall, in Salt Lake. And this happened all in one day!!!

Outside the Conference Center, the kids were exposed to their first dose of "Mormon Bashing" (a non-public video). Rhiannon didn't let those loud mouths get by her, she said "That sign says mormon's arent' Christians. That's not true! Someone needs to tell them they aren't true." Alaura said, "They're just trying to take away our faith -that's not very nice." Hunter thought they were just silly. We all enjoyed the Scottish bag pipes.

The last two days were very relaxing up at Wolf Creek Resort. If you just want some relax time, this is a good place to go with lots of low key but fun stuff to do.

The capstone of our trip was when Karah met the newly sustained prophet, President Thomas S. Monson in real life!!! She was leaving Trolley Square Mall at exactly 2:10PM on Tuesday April 8th when she intercepted President Monson who was just entering the Mall. They met in the air lock between the inner and outer doors. It was just Karah, President Monson, and his body gaurd. He asked her name, she said "My name is Karah Landoe from Washington" and he said, nice to meet you and shook her hand. She said, "Nice to meet you too." Then she ran out to our car and told me all about it. I race to the back of the building to see what I could see but only caught this picture of his car, and the door where they met. This was truly a blessing for all of us that Karah was able to see the prophet.

Snowy Spring day!!!!

We didn't expect to get a snowy day like this when it's nearly April!!!

Easter Birthday!!!!

Alaura turned 11 years old on the same day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This coincidence will happen only once every 200 years due to the schedule of the equinox. We had a wonderful day.

We are so proud of Alaura. She has been growing in her Testimony. Lately she has been tyring to be a missionary to a couple of her friends and has even give away a Book of Mormon and took one of her friends to church. She makes us so proud. Here is a picture of her at her birthday.

My Valentine

This is a candid picture of the girl that married me. She is such an amazing person. She used to play the piano on Friday's and Saturday's in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building or Conference Center. And I would sneak in before her shift was over to sit and listen to her play these songs that she practiced all during the week.

Karah's playing the Steinway in these halls is a priceless memory. I hope to build up many more of these kinds of memories over the next 80 years or so. There is a list of some my favorite songs that she would play as tourists, dignitaries, and investigators of our church would come and walk through. I can remember watching people come by the piano, and they would stop and just listen for a few minutes to her beautiful music. I wonder if they were captivated, spellbound, and enamored by her as much as I am.


Vintage Bach Well-Tempered Clavier
Brahms Waltz in A-Flat Major
Nocturne in E Flat
Traumerei
Chopin Nocturne in Fm Op.55
Somewhere in Time
Clair de Lune
Consolation No. 3
Intermezzo op.118 no.2
A medley of Schubert
Chopin's Berceuse, Op. 57
Sonata Op.31 No.2Tempest

Alaura's violin concert

You've previously seen some of Alaura's artistic abilities with her drawings. This past week, Alaura performed a concert with her school orchestra and you can see she enjoyed herself very much. Alaura has had to teder the balance between getting good grades in class versus doing well in orchestra and I'm proud to say she has pulled off success in both areas. I knew she would.

Rhiannon is baptized

Rhiannon followed the example of her Savior and was baptized on Saturday, Feb 2nd 2008. She was literally glowing all night. She has been so excited to be baptized for so long. What a privilege it is to be parents of such a valiant daughter.

Grandpa Dickson was the member of the Bishopric that was able to welcome Rhiannon into the ward. He bore his testimony to her. A six year old junior primary girl sang the Baptism song in perfect pitch, which set an amazing spirit for the whole baptism service.

Daniel turns 4!!!

Daniel turned 4 on the 18th and we had a small family birthday celebration. One of the highpoints of the party was when Karah tried to teach Daniel "present" ettiquite by reading the card before opening the presents. Daniel opened the card from Alexis and pretended to read the card..."It says, Daniel just open your present...okay, ready, GO!". Nice try...Daniel. He tried to weasel out of reading another card too but mom outsmarted him.

Here's a video of Daniel opening a present from his brothers and sisters.

Daniel, after opening all his presents declared, "Mom, I think I'm going to have another birthday, but not after Christmas"...implying that he liked the idea of having these parties more frequently.

Here's another recent video of Daniel base jumping without a parachute.

Alaura's artwork gets featured on Puyallup District Home Page

Alaura's teacher told me she was going to submit some of her art work for the district calendar. But I didn't realize she would post it on the Puyallup District Homepage. It's a neat picture.

~Joel added:

Alaura's Art is just one of Alaura's many talents. Some of you may be interested to know that Alauara is into extreme sports. Amazing girl.

Rhiannon turns eight !!!!!

We celebrated Rhiannon's eigth birthday today! We had Cousins, Aunts, and Grandparents come over to share in the celebration. The kids danced and played an awesome game of musical candy (similar to musical chairs). Now that Rhiannon is eight, she will be baptized, join activity day girls, and finally be able to get her ears pierced as chelantly shown in these pictures.