Christmas Disco

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas dance!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Pictures from Jeff and Family

Janet sent me these cute pics from Jeff and his clan:

Cheryl Godfrey - Burton

Okay, I'm finally making my post. Took me long enough, eh? Since our fateful summer in '87 I've done a few things . . . . certainly hasn't been as exciting as some of you though!! After high school graduation I attended Boise State (Go Broncos!!) and earned my BA in English with a minor in music in '93. I married Ryan Burton in '91 and we've been on a wild ride ever since!!

After graduating, I worked for the summer at Wanapum Dam in SE Washington while Ryan worked an alfalfa farm close by. Then we returned to Boise where he worked in a machine shop and I worked for Micron Electronics (now MPC). I started in customer service, became an rma coordinator, then inventory supervisor for their retail store, and then moved to IT where I loved it!! The most exciting claim to fame I have is assisting our security department with a sting operation at one of our retail locations. I got to help an FBI agent bust the bad guy!! It was pretty cool. I worked there until '99 when I quit to stay home and open an in-home daycare.

At the same time, my husband quit his job and opened his own machine shop which he is still a partner in today! You can check out his websites at PreciseInnovationsLLC.com and MetadyneIndustries.com. He's currently working for an aerospace company here in Ogden while on nights and weekends continuing to help with his shop in Boise. We are planning on moving back to Boise someday - maybe sooner than later. We'll see.

My daycare days didn't last due to complications in my third pregnancy. We have three beautiful children - a girl and two boys. I've continued to stay home helping Ryan with his shop and the several businesses it includes. I currently substitute on occasion and have volunteered to teach music at our elementary school. Our school district doesn't have music teachers for the elementary schools so our principal was kind enough to let me come in once a week and sing with the kids. It's so much fun!!

I was also very excited to be certified this summer with our dog Oreo as a therapy team and a READ team. That means that we are certified to enter nursing homes, hospitals, etc. and visit patients. The READ program allows us to enter schools and libraries and read with children. We visit the hospital and attend a group therapy session in the psych dept, as well as visit patients in the psych dept and the physical therapy dept. It has been very rewarding to be a part of this kind of service. The patients miss their pets at home and really enjoy the visits. I'm really enjoying it and Oreo loves the attention!! We also visit the local elementary school where children who are below grade level in their reading, come and read to Oreo. Reading with a dog helps the children relax and makes their reading experience more enjoyable and less intimidating. We're loving it. If you want to learn more about animal therapy teams, you can visit therapyanimals.org.

I also just started my own blog for our family. I don't know how often I'll get around to updating it - after all, look how long it took me just to write a post for this one!! But if you'd like to see my very first post you can see it at burtonators.blogspot.com.

Thank you, Trent, for your hard work in tracking us down! I so enjoyed getting to know all of you that summer and it's fun getting reaquainted with you. I hope we can get in touch with everyone! I wish you all the best!! -Cheryl