This summer and fall we've been doing some traveling. First we spent a week in New York state, at the country house. We had a lot of fun, most of it in the country, swimming and boating in the lake, playing monopoly on the porch, dressing up, dancing, etc. We also spent time in the City and got to see the Statue of Liberty. A few weeks later we went camping with some others in the family and stayed at a lake about 45 minutes west of Winston Salem. The weather was just right for camping, warm during the day and cooling down at night. We had a campfire and made s'mores in the evening. The next morning we walked up the road to the ampitheater and had church in the open air. Plans are already being made for another camping trip.

All of eastern North Carolina got some snow this year. It arrived Friday night and was gone by Sunday afternoon, so it was the kind you could enjoy for a day, but it didn't interrupt things too much. We estimate we had about 4 or 5 inches of snow. An hour north of us had upto 7 inches. Either way it was a lot for our area.

After some interruption, and disruption by spam on top of that, the guestbook is working again. All the old entries were restored as well.

The Christmas holiday is over, and a new year has arrived, but I can look back and say that this holiday has been one of the best. Almost everyone was able to make it home for Christmas, and we were able to visit those who didi not. On Christmas Eve we took the now traditional family portrait. These two captured different aspects of the evening, so I'm posting them both.

This was from one of the last times we went to the beach with Dom and Amber this year. The water was getting colder, but still not cold enough for the kids. Everyone enjoyed playing in the sand.

We needed some new portaits of the girls to use for cards and other things. So Crystal and I took one of each. Enjoy!

At the beginning of this month we had Chloe's party at the local park. Family and friends were invited and all appeared to have had a great time. Before cutting the cake, we let the children play at the playground. Later on, her cousin Lucas found a way to make his own fun.

Jakim took the week off to teach Morganne how to swim at Lake Leamon. She didn't quite make it to swimming, but she is much more comfortable going under the water. She learned how to go completely under water holding her nose, how to blow out of her mouth, and is still in the process of learning how to float face first. On Friday, the four of us went to the Lake. Here are some pictures from that.

Crystal and Jakim also made his mom's Swedish bread recipe. Mom lived in Sweden for a while and brought back this wonderful recipe from the family she lived with.

Crystal's dad turned 70 this past week. On Saturday, Crystal's sister, niece and her husband from Georgia came up to celebrate with the family. All of the Miller family was once again re-united.

Since Easter, Morganne has attended Bring Your Daughter to Work day on April 23rd. She had a lot of fun with Jakim at work. She did not care that much for the server room and the work in there, so she did what other "adults" do and she talked with the IT secretary.

On May 2nd Morganne's dance center had their Spring Recital. Morganne did a great job. All the kids in her class were fantastic! Their tumbling was wonderful. Doing dual somersaults, back-bends, and more. Rebecca does a great job teaching such a wide variety of ages and a great job with the young ones.

Our school is wrapping up for the summer break. We finished Friday, May 29th and had a party at the park to end the school year with some friends. Morganne has done really well with all of her subjects. I will be incorporating a Music class into her lessons next year. We will be learning about the various periods of music and who were composers during that time.

Jakim will be teaching Morganne how to swim shortly. He has to wait until the water temperature is warm enough for him to get in above the ankles. Right now, he says the temp is still too cold! She just laughs. She's ready to learn how to swim. Crystal is hoping it'll be sometime in June. Beach trips will begin for Crystal and the girls the first of June. We will be meeting up with some friends every week as we have in the past. Woo-Hoo! The kick off of summer.

Our family is looking forward to the warmer weather, gardening, and planting flowers come the spring. The girls are looking forward to the annual Spring Egg Hunt with Great Aunts Wavy and Niddie. Easter time is a wonderful time for us to remember what Christ did for us on the cross. We all love the season of Spring. The new growth coming alive all around us, the birds coming back and chirping! It's truly a glorious season.

Not far behind spring, comes summer and that is probably the girls' favorite season. Summer means Beach time!! And this summer, our hope is to make more trips to the beach and Lake Leamon. Jakim is planning on teaching Morganne how to swim this year. We have many plans for the upcoming seasons.

We have a new gallery for pictures taken during the holidays this year. So far we have some pictures taken during Thanksgiving and the first of December.

Dear Family and friends,

Merry Christmas! Another year has flown by for all of us. Here is a little recap of each of us.

Crystal and Jakim: Jakim had a national conference to attend in Washington, D.C in the spring. Crystal joined him and while he was not in classes, we were able to tour Washington. Crystal also turned the big 3-0 this year. To celebrate we had a family day at the Wilmington Arboretum and then headed to Jacksonville where Crystal and Jakim went canoing. Kicking the summer off, we celebrated our 8^th wedding anniversary. Again, we had a family day, this time at Lake Leamon in Wallace.

Morganne: Morganne graduated from Burgaw Presbyterian Preschool in May. She loved going to the beach, swimming at her friends' pools, playing outdoors this summer. Summer time fun came to an end as she entered kindergarten at the end of August. She is doing very well and learning a lot in our lessons. I allow her input on what she would like to learn in addition to our regular school subjects. Some of her choices have been to learn more about ladybugs, butterflies, alligators, horses, plants, as well as about Christopher Columbus, the New World, George Washington, and the recent election. She is learning to read on top of showing me, Crystal, that she is taking after her father in the Math and Science department! She started dance classes in September. In October, she turned 5 and we celebrated with a party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Chloe: Chloe follows Morganne around and loves to play dress up, ponies, playing with her stuffed animals and “reading” books along with anything else Morganne likes. Her personality has really come as well as her talking. She enjoys talking on the phone on occasion. She also enjoyed the summer time events. This was the first year she liked the waves at the beach and wanted to do more then ride in a floaty in the pool. She participates in our school by coloring, drawing and “writing” along with Morganne.

At the end of October, we took our first family vacation in two years to Lake Lure, NC. It was our first time visiting there and we enjoyed our week long stay. We were able to appreciate the beauty of the autumn season God created by taking walks and doing some sightseeing.

Yesterday we celebrated Pop's birthday (and the Fourth of July). I took pictures for those of you who couldn't make it to enjoy.

Lucas was baptised at North Grove church this Sunday. Ivan took some pictures during the service.

Congratulations to Dom and Amber on the birth of their son Lucas. Born today, he weighed around 9 Lbs.

They've found a house out in Colorado. After staying a while in temporary accomodations they are now going to be moving into something more permanent. Heidi has posted a picture at myspace.com.

Congratulations to Heidi and Seth! They had a wonderful wedding at a Bed and Breakfast in downtown Wilmington. Of course you can see the pictures here.

Today we had a memorial service for my grandfather.

The following was Published in the Jacksonville Daily News from 12/14/2007 - 12/17/2007.

Maurice C. Shepard, 91, of Jacksonville, died Dec. 12, 2007, at Pitt Memorial Hospital.

He was a retired civil service microbiologist for the U.S. Navy.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Ruth Erika Shepard.

Survivors include his three daughters, Julia Shepard Friant of Jacksonville, and Jean Shepard and Evelyn Shepard, both of New York City, N.Y.; one sister, Miriam Shepard Peterson of St. Paul, Minn.; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society, 930-B Wellness Drive, Greenville, NC 27834.

Arrangements are by Jones Funeral Home in Jacksonville.

We have been taking pictures this Christmas season and some of the better ones have been put up in their own album. We also took pictures of the entire family on Christmas Eve (1, 2) that are now in the family portrait album.

The most recent pictures of the whole family -- taken last year around Christmas time -- has been uploaded to the photo gallery in a new album for family portraits.

Over the Fourth of July holiday we had the pool set up in the back yard. The girls had a great time playing in it together. The was was just deep enough to crawl (or scoot) in and there was plenty of splashing going on too. We didn't get any pictures this time, but I posted some pictures of them playing in the pool the previous week.

My father has long had a document that lists the date of the birth, marriage and death of my Great-Grandparents, and the names and birthdates of their 16 children. Today I added some of that information to the family history page.

Ruth came up from Mississippi for a visit last month and we took some pictures that you can see in the gallery now. You can also find more pictures (of various things) on her MySpace page.

I created a new layout and look for the web site after reading a web design article. I hope everyone will like the new look and find it easier to navigate. You will also notice that I expanded the links for family pages to include the pages some of us have on MySpace.

In case you were curious. The skyline graphic in the title is of Wilmington as seen from the River Walk near the Pilot House. I traced it from a stock photo.

Celebrating the coming of spring with a day of yard work... and a few updates to the web site. Crystal's Kitchen has some new pages, including some recipes that she likes.

Chloe was born this morning. Take a look at pictures.

Nothing new on the website, but there are more pictures in the photo albums.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas this year!

We're counting down the days until we leave for Japan. You'll be able to follow our journey in my journal. I hope to post pictures and notes every day (that I have an internet connection). One day down, six to go...

We've been getting ready for our trip to Japan in March. Check out the details if you're interested.

Morganne was dancing around and having fun and I had the digital camera handy. You can read the full story here.

I'm starting a "Photo of the Week" gallery where I'll try to post a new picture every week (probably on Monday). I still have a backlog of pictures from Morganne's birthday and from Thanksgiving that I want to post, but I haven't had the time to go through them and decide which to put on the web site. Maybe with a weekly picture, I'll be able to keep them more up to date.

Along with this website, friant.org supports email addresses. For those who have one set up as a mailbox, you can access as webmail it through the front page link. If you just have a forwarding alias, this won't work for you.

I added another picture gallery with photos taken over the past couple of months. Mainly of Morganne (of course).

I've gotten a few e-mails over the past years from other Friants asking about my family name and history so I've put up a page with a short summary of where my family is from.

Now that we're starting to accumulate a number of picture galleries, I have organized them into a seperate page. The newest galleries will still be showing up on the main page, but now you'll have a "more" link to find the rest of the galleries on their own page.

My brother Dom and I finally got around to purchasing a domain name. We don't have a particular purpose for it yet, but it's intended to provide web space for the Friant family (at least the ones located in eastern North Carolina, USA).

With Crystal's help I've added a couple of galleries to the website. The first has pictures of family gatherings, and the second has pictures of Crystal and Jakim.

For those who have heard it before, I'm sure you're tired of hearing how I'm moving my web pages around... ;-) but... I think I'm finished for now. The jModule has taken up residence here at friant.org, after I chopped it down to 3.5 megabytes worth of files and pictures(!). The rest of the pages are linked off of the main jModule page to reduce confusion for the couple of people who manage to stumble in.

I'm working on putting up some picture galleries. So far I've put one up... more of a test than an actual gallery. The pictures aren't the best, but it will give you an idea of what the future galleries will look like.

The dark look wasn't working. :-( So it's time for another face lift. Hopefully this change will stick longer.