He's Home

Dad is on Texas Soil.

Thank You Lord for getting him home safely.

He's coming home

Hi All,
DAD WILL FINALLY BE ON TEXAS SOIL WHERE HE BELONGS.
He will be flown home today from Utah. Please pray for a safe flight/transport. I cannot express enough thanks to all of you for your prayers, love, help, support and willingness to do anything and everything possible to help us. Getting Dad home is our first major step to carrying him as far as we can and laying him to rest with all the honor and dignity that he is owed.
Love you all-

Dad's (Jerry Griffis) Burial Information

Dear Family and Friends,

We will be laying Dad, Jerry Griffis, to rest on Saturday December 3rd,2011. We will have a procession at 10:00 a.m. for those of you that would like to join, please be at Alpine Memorial Funeral Home by 10:00 a.m. Graveside Service will be at 11:00 a.m. at Hillcrest Cemetary in Ft. Davis. Hillcrest Cemetary is located on Cemetary road off Hwy 118. Following the service we will have a gathering at Buster and Pam Mills home. Everyone is welcome to come and visit, share stories and honor Dad. If you plan to send flowers, please call Forget Me Not Flowers in Alpine, Tx at 432-837-2233 and they will make sure that all flowers are delivered to cemetary for us. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any of our close family and friends. Thank you all for your prayers, support and love.

Sincerely, Laura Griffis-Potter and Family

Headed Home...

I am leaving in the morning for home. I am going by myself so I can have a few days to get things done, planned and organized. John Allen will be meeting up with me and the family in Ft. Davis on Monday. We have a lot to do. My precious babies and Pat will fly in on Thursday, the 1st of December to join us all. Ironically, the 1st is my youngest (Lil' Griff) b-day. He will be 2 years old.
As of now, we are awaiting a signature on Dad's death certificate. It should be done as of today. This enables the funeral home in Utah where Dad currently is- to file all the permits we need and book the flight to finally bring him home. John Allen and a few others will be building a pine box to bury him in. This was one of Dad's requests and something that we are more than willing to do in order to honor his wishes. As long as there are no glitches/hang-ups with the permits, etc from Utah...Dad should be home by Wednesday, the 30th. We do not have an exact date set for the burial, but I can tell you that it will be in Ft. Davis.
I want to thank everyone for all the kind words, prayers and thoughts that my family has received since this terrible tragedy has taken place. I still have no words- please just keep praying for us all to have the strength and courage needed to get through the next few days and weeks. I will post more updates as they come. Love you all.
In His Grip- Laura & Family

Update-

This is the latest info I have on Dad's accident. It doesn't help me much, but maybe it will be off help to some of you. We are awaiting the State of Utah to sign his death certificate before we can get him home. There are no arrangements yet. I promise to post them as soon as I can.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52971269-78/griffis-pickup-canyon-fork.html.csp

It is with much dis-belief, and a very heavy and hurting heart that I am posting this news to you all. My Dad tragically passed away in a vehicle accident sometime early this am in a rural area of Utah. He was headed home from a 6 week visit here in Oregon with me and my family. ...We are all in dis-belief and complete shock. I have no words for anyone at the moment... I will do my best to get the funeral info posted as I can.

If you knew my father, you know what an amazing person he is. He will be so dearly missed by all of us. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to say goodbye and navigate our way through this. My entire family is in turmoil at the moment. Please keep them ALL in your thoughts...my brother, my poor kids that just kissed and hugged him goodbye yesterday a.m. My Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nonna & Pe-Paw, Close Friends...Everyone.
This is just un-believable to us all. I will be headed home (to Texas) very soon-

Happy Birthday Pat!

Happy Birthday to Pat! (it was on Friday)
We didn't do anything big like last year, but we did have a small celebration and enjoyed our evening. We had the Lekberg's over for a nice dinner and some yummy cake. I put all 43 candles on that cake and when he blew them out...we had some smoke!

We also woke up to our first little snow dusting of the winter...I told Pat that it snowed just for his birthday! It actually snowed pretty good that night. The kids all went out and played in it. It's all gone now, but I have a feeling it will be back very soon!

OTPA Fall/Winter Showcase Inquiry

The kids had their first showcase at school last week. It's always neat to see what they have been learning in each planner they do. Lilly's class sang a few songs and they were all very cute. We then went into her classroom to see all the cool things they have been studying. She enjoyed showing us some dog and cat bones!

Mac 's class has been doing experiments with all sorts of different things. Mac chose to do a study on After School Stress. If you zoom in on this picture you can read his question, purpose, hypothesis, process, observations and conclusion. It's pretty funny and entertaining to read the thoughts of a 10 year old! Grandma Kathy should get a laugh out of the piano part!

Trip to Newport

On Veteran's Day we made a trip over to the Coast. It was a gorgeous day over there!! We could not have picked a better day. It was sunny, warm and there was NO WIND. It was just awesome.

The kids were begging to play on the beach first, so that's where we headed when we got there. They found a HUGE sea kelp that had washed a shore. They were running around with it and decided to name it "Bob". We even brought him home with us and Grandpa Tex is going to take him home...funny, I know. It looks like a big bull whip or something along those lines. I think it will end up hanging in the cook shed at Nonna and Pe-Paw's.

The pictures below were taken on the beach at the end of the day. It was raining just a bit, bit it was still just gorgeous out!

We also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It is such a neat place. It use to be home to Keiko, the whale. The kids' favorite section of this place is "Passages of the Deep". It is really impressive. You walk through Orford Reef, Halibut Flats and Open Sea. There are tunnels that are submerged in the water...it's all around you and and all the fish, sharks, reefs, kelp forests sway and swim above and below the tunnels. Pretty amazing. The kids were in awe...
Dad was admitted in free of charge because it was Veteran's Day- I thought that was really COOL!

After we drug the kids away from the tunnels, we had lots of other cool things to see and do!

The Sea Lions even gave Dad a "proper" salute! I wasn't able to get a picture of it, but it was really special.

Our next stop was the Hatfield Marine Science Center. It was full of really cool experiments, science info and exhibits. We didn't have a lot of time there because it closed at 4:00 and we got there at about 3:30. It was worth the stop in, very neat info!

We spent the rest of our time doing some sight seeing, shopping and eating Mo's clam chowder, Dad's favorite. Was a great trip!

I think I may have found the perfect birthday gift for Mac while we were there...you can purchase tickets for kids to have over-night sleepovers in the tunnels where the fish and sharks swim. It looks pretty neat and would be something he would really enjoy! I am contemplating it at this point. Last year we did The Reptile Man, which totally rocked and I have been trying to figure out how to "top that"...I may have just found it!

It's almost here...

Here's proof that Ski Season is just a few short weeks away!
I pulled out all our bins of snow gear to see what the kids had outgrown and what we need to replace before the first day of skiing gets here. Griff was enjoying trying on all the gear and he seems just as excited about the winter weather activities as the older kids.

I am not sure we will have him on ski's just yet, but he would definitely try it if we let him!

* Let It Snow *

End of Football Season

The 5/6 Sandy Black Team finished in the 2nd spot for the season. Our championship game against West Linn for the #1 title was a great game. The boys held them off all the way to the end of the 3rd quarter! Score was 0-0. It was a nail biter of a game. The boys played their hearts out!

This was great year for Mac. He learned a lot about the game and had one touch down for the season. It was great. I enjoyed being "Team Mom" to these boys! I am very proud of all of them. I hope we end up with a lot of them on our team again next year!
GO PIONEERS!