Cabin Fever

We had been home from St. George for a whole 18 hours and we started to get cabin fever.  So, we went to the cabin!  Just getting from the car to the cabin is an adventure in itself...

The log walls are always so full of laughter, fun, warm fires, tasty meals, good movies, and love.  Our kids look forward to it every year.  I do too!

We spent several days out in the snow putting our new Christmas snow tubes to the test.  The kids got to slide down the small hills in the meadow and then moved on to some bigger hills on the mountain roads.  The adults even participated.  It looked like too much fun to just stand and watch!

We love that we get to spend time with Granny B.  She is a good sport to come up and play with us.

How many cousins can fit on a sled?

Going for rides with Bronson in the Meadow.  Check out how many kids he can handle at once!

I am glad that we are friends!  

The cousins all made up dances to songs on their ipods and performed them for the rest of the group.  My favorite dance was Natalie and Kayla dancing to the song, "Marry Me."  It was a slow number that involved lots of partner turns and even a wedding proposal or two!  Kids are so creative.

Hunter got his workout in for the day by throwing Natalie up in the air and then walking around with her and Gage attached to his legs.  What a good sport!

The Snowmobile Ninjas!

Dennis brought a big pile of fireworks for the New Year Celebrations.  We did them on New Years Day evening so that we could all be there to watch.  It was fun to walk over to the meadow at night.  The stars were out and it was a clear cool evening.  It was certainly festive watching the colorful fireworks light up agains the white snow.  It was a great trip for sure!!  A perfect way to start the new year.

From St. Nick to St. Geroge

The morning after Christmas, we decided we'd had enough of the North Pole, and headed SOUTH to stay in Ryan's new condo with some of our cousins!  Red and green wrapping paper covered the living room floor, shiny new toys were scattered about the house, and there were even a few dishes in the sink, but we left anyway.  There is always time to clean later, right?

This was our first time staying in "the" condo.  We were excited to see it.  The place did not disappoint.  It is beautiful and new and giant!  Their vacation home is bigger than our house.  Ha.

On our first night, we basically just went grocery shopping and then plopped ourselves into the hot tub to relax.  All of the busyness of the holiday season melted off of our shoulders as we soaked in the warm bubbly water.  It just so happened that the Evans family was staying at our same resort!  We got to chat with Jen and Aleigha that night in the pools.  What a fun surprise!

The next day, Matt and Brooke's family arrived.  The kids were excited to see Woody and Pepper!  We drove into St. George to the Pioneer Park area to explore.  The kids crawled through the giant crack in the mountain.  We found little sandstone arches and caves to play in.  Then, we walked through the nature garden area.  It is such a beautiful place.

That afternoon, we swam.  Again.  Apparently swimming is habit forming, because the kids wanted to do it ALL THE TIME!  The water was totally heated in the pools and the hot tubs were nice and toasty.  So, December swimming worked out just fine.  We even had a chance to put our feet up and watch a movie after the kids were nestled all snug in their beds.

Monday was Matt's birthday, so he and Brooke drove down to Las Vegas to see a special show in town.  Cord went on a nice long bike ride (and scored a whole ton of trophies on Strava.  He is amazing!)  So, the kids and I had a nice chill morning.  They played with the pin ball machine and did puzzles.  They made music videos with their stuffed pet hampsters on my phone.   I cozied up on the couch and read a book.  It was great!

Then, we walked around the neighborhood to the fish pond.  When we got there, a giant truck came and shot fish into the water.  It was nuts.  The fish were flying out of the back of the truck in a giant stream of water.  Lucky timing!  Right when the fish started flying, Ryan's family got to town.  The cousins jumped out of the car and joined us on our walk.

That afternoon, we...WENT SWIMMING.  Are you shocked?  :)

After the pool we had a birthday dinner to celebrate Matt's birthday.  I made a tasty batch of peanut butter bars for the birthday boy and we played a game of cards around the table.

The next morning, we went on a hunt for Dinosaur tracks!  It was Woodrow's birthday and he wanted to find some REAL tracks.  We headed to new stomping grounds that we had heard good things about.  It was a little tricky finding the spots with the actual Dino Tracks, but we had fun looking!  The kids climbed all over the mountains like little goats.

We discovered a sand dune slide and a frozen ice skating rink.  It was quite the adventure.  Isn't Southern Utah stunning?

Natty was up the night before with a bad ear ache and as we were on our hike Cord noticed that her ear was draining a lot of gross yellow fluid all the way down her neck.  I called the doctor and they said her ear drum had burst.  OUCH.  No wonder she couldn't sleep.  So, they called us in an antibiotic to the local pharmacy so we could get her healing.  She was a trooper and didn't complain at all.  I am so grateful for doctors and medicine when you need it!

That evening we...WENT SWIMMING!  And then we had a birthday cake and celebration for little Woodrow.

Wednesday was an awesome day at Snow Canyon.  The weather was beautiful and warm.  There was only a slight breeze.  (Big improvement from the previous day!)  We started off at Snow Canyon with exploring the Lava Tubes.  They are big caves in the ground that were made when the hot lava flowed through the area.  The rock surrounding the lava cooled first and then formed a tube around the flowing magma.  We strapped on our head lamps and headed to the middle of the Earth!  Ok.  Maybe it wasn't quite to the center of the Earth.  But, it was dark.

A lot of the terrain was climbing down and up big ledges.  It was not flat.  All of the kids helped each other past the sketchy parts.  We had to have Ryan and Cord do some lifting at times.  It was nuts.

 

But, totally cool.

After we finished exploring the tunnels, we hiked around a few other places in the park.  I love climbing on sandstone.  It sticks to your shoes and it is really grippy.  You can almost walk straight up a mountain.

The kids thought it was totally hilarious to take pictures while pretending to fall off the cliff.  Because, falling off cliffs is something to joke about.  Or not.  ;)

We had a beautiful picnic lunch and found some narrow canyons to goof around in.  It was a perfect day at Snow Canyon.

Happy Family!

That night we...WENT SWIMMING!

Thursday morning, we cleaned up the condo and headed home for our New Year's Eve celebrations with our neighborhood friends.  We had such a nice vacation.  I love my family and traveling with them.  The kids have a blast with their cousins.  We saw beautiful places and felt the warm sunshine on our faces.  It was a great little break from the winter weather back home.

Cliffnotes of Our 2015 Holiday Season

Ho, Ho, Ho!  Have you ever heard of Christmas in July?  This is kind of like that.  Only, it's March.  I bet Santa likes Green Eggs and Ham.  I have decided to write a little bit about our holiday season.  It is almost impossible to begin.  We seriously did something fun and festive every single day in December.  Really.  Every Day.  But, what are the holiday's for if not for celebrating!

To kick off the Christmas Season, we headed down to The Gateway for the official Tree Lighting Ceremony at the outdoor mall in Salt Lake City.  This year we had freaky warm weather.  I had the kids bundled up like sausages and by the end of the night I had mittens in my pockets, jackets hung on low hanging tree limbs, and snow caps thrown on the lawn.

They handed out free cookies and hot chocolate.  The kids thought that was perfect.

The Gateway planners invited a really fun a capella band to perform.  They did some  upbeat Christmas songs and the kids had a blast dancing along.  They stood up on the rocks and did jumping tricks onto the grass.  Until, Libby noticed the sign that said, "Please Do Not Play On The Rocks."  Then, she just stood on the grass and danced along.  Nat and Gage didn't seem to mind that they were breaking the rules.  In fact, I think that made it even better in their eyes!  Even Oliver got into the spirit of things and busted out some pretty hilarious break dancing moves.  After the concert, Santa arrived on a giant fire truck.  He gave everyone a big wave and a, "Merry Christmas!"  Then, we did the tree countdown.  This is my favorite part.  The Christmas Magic is so thick you can almost cut it with a knife.  When the countdown ends and the lights of the tree start to glow and dance, it is seriously hard not to let out a "hoot!"

At the beginning of the night, I entered us into a drawing for Utah Jazz Basketball Tickets.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but I did make sure to insert it into the box with a little wish in my heart.  Well, after the tree was lit and the event was winding down, they announced the winner of the drawing...and guess who's name they called?  MINE!!!  It was totally exciting.  There were a lot of people there so it was pretty awesome to get chosen.  What a fun way to kick off the holiday's!

A few nights later Cord, Me, Brighton, and Brent headed back to the big city for the Jazz Game.  We ate first at the Crown Burger.  A classic tradition.  Then, we watched the game.  We had cool seats and we could totally see the players as they ran around the court.  The Jazz got slammed.  But, we had a nice time anyway!

My parents had the girl's over to their place for the "middle cousin" party!  They had a slumber party.  The two sets of cousin twins got to be together to the event!  They had a fancy dinner at the dining room table.  They opened presents and played with their new puzzles.  They did some finger painting and read a story.  In the morning they had homemade scones--Libby's favorite.  My parents are seriously awesome grandparents.  We love them so much!!

December was counted down with chocolate!  The kids did a pretty good job eating one candy each day.  

Except for Ollie.  He decided to just do it all at once.  "Advent, smadvent."

We had a chance to see the lights at Ogden's Christmas Village with the Belnaps.  It is getting easier and easier each year as our kids get older.  They can keep gloves on their hands and they sort of stick to the group so I am not going crazy looking for them all the time.  The lights can be stressful.  But, was had nice weather and it was fun to wander around.  We like eating pizza beforehand at Ligori's.  I couldn't believe how good all the kids were at the kid table.  Nicholas kept them all entertained.  Libby thought he was hilarious.

After the lights, we came back to our place for freshly fried donuts and after party conversation.  It is nice to sit back, listen to good holiday tunes, and catch up with our family.  Aren't those four little boys cute?!

We watched the girls sing their hearts out at their Christmas Choir Concert.  Libby was as expressive and energetic as ever.  Natalie had a nice little spring in her dress that would bounce up and down as she moved to the beat of the songs.  It was so fun to watch them perform.     

We went caroling through our neighborhood with good friends on a perfectly wintery night with lightly falling snow.

We had our annual Most Wonderful Time of the Yar party at Ryan's House with Christmas songs and plenty of Christmas Spirit.  Ryan bought a new wooden shuffle board game that we all got to try out.  We read a story about the gingerbread man and colored his picture.  Cindee made some awesome big Jenga games for Ryan and Matt's birthday gifts.  They were fun to play too.

 
We saw "the real" Santa at the Dance Academy Christmas Breakfast and sent him a letter so that he had a hard copy as well.  Gage wrote, "Dear Santa, Surprise me!"  It was adorable.

The girl's sang at the Tree Lighting Ceremony at North Ogden Park.  Another beautiful night surrounded by the Christmas Spirit.

The kids rolled around in the pile of loot at the Chick-fil-a Christmas Party collecting goodies onto their duct tape bellies.

Gage and Ollie and I went to Grandam's house on a cold frosty morning.  We walked around the pond and checked to see if it was frozen enough to walk on the ice.  It wasn't.  But we did have success a few weeks later.  Natalie wrote in her school journal, "Walking on the frozen pond was my favorite thing about Christmas Break."  I am sure it was because we had to do it sneakily.  She likes that kind of stuff!

We actually got snow this December!  It made the holiday's so special.  One evening we headed over to the sledding hill when Cord got off work.  We took turns racing down the track.  Everyone had a blast!  We had snowball fights.  Cord pulled Ollie up the hill when he got too tired to walk.  The kids doubled up on the tube and giggled down the hill in a pile of bodies on the tube.  It was so fun.

Throughout December, we watched Christmas movies, wrapped gifts, shopped online and watched for the postman.  We snuggled in pajamas and woke up to snow on the lawn.  We found treasures on our front porch from friends and neighbors.  There were parties at school and parties at church.  It was a perfect season.  Simply perfect.

On Christmas Eve day, Gage and Cord spent an hour building an awesome snow fort!  They made a huge pile of snow and then dug out the center as an igloo.  Gage came into the house with red rosy cheeks and the biggest smile on his face.  He called out in the cutest excited voice, "Mom, mom, do you want to come take a picture of me and Dad in our snow fort?"  I immediately slipped on my boots and did just that.

That night, we drove down to Bountiful to spend time with a bunch of my family at Cindee's house.  We made a crazy amount of homemade pizzas and then decorated sugar cookies for Santa.  Who doesn't love the excitement of Christmas Eve?  It is so very special.

We came home and read the Christmas Story from the Bible and let the kids play along with our nativity puppets.  Later that night, Santa came...

Christmas morning was a success!!  It was so fun to watch the kids open their gifts one at a time.  They were so excited about all of their presents.  Natalie was my favorite this year!  She was going nuts over everything.  When she opened up her little plush hamster toy, she seriously giggled and giggled.  Natalie made a family portrait of our family that I am keeping as a lifetime treasure.  She is an artist for sure.  One of the kids' favorite gifts were their buff headwraps.  They all got one in their stocking and they wore them for the rest of the morning.  It was the year of the buffs!

Waiting for Daddy to tell us we can come down to the living room.

After the opening was finished, we got ready and headed out to my parent's house for brunch.  What a tasty meal it was!  Christmas brunch is one of my favorite traditions.  It is festive and everyone is always so merry.  The kids show off their favorite toys and the adults even talk about the magic of the morning.  Jake was in town and he whipped up some of his famous smoothies.  We played some board games and gave some gifts to Mom and Dad.  They gave all of us some emergency supply essentials.  As the afternoon was drawing to a close, a lot of my fam headed to the Star Wars movie down at the Junction.  Cord and I took our little fam to party with the Belnaps!

We took one big panoramic picture with my phone.  I held it for the first half of the photo and then Matt came and held it for the second half.  That way, everyone could be in the picture! Cool right.

Our Belnap party was traditional as well.  Lorna had a nice dinner buffet for everyone to eat when they arrived.  We had homemade chocolate fudge and haystacks to satisfy our sweet tooth.  The kids exchanged cousin gifts and opened presents from Granny B and Grandpa.  We chatted and opened more presents as adults.  Cord got kind of sick as the day wore on.  He had to take a nap!  Lame for Christmas day.  The kids played with each other really well.  It was a great evening with family.

 WHAT A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!