Easter Weekend

 

We had a wonderful Easter weekend.  Easter is such a wonderful time of year.  I love spending so much time thinking about and talking about our Savior and all that he did for us.  It always helps me put things back into perspective.  We did our usual dying of Easter eggs, our spiritual Easter egg hunt, the Easter bunny visited our house (which Brooklyn questioned this year and now knows the whole truth and it kind of makes me a little sad, but she helps keep the magic alive for McKay), we did Easter egg hunts, got together with family and ate way too much.  Brooklyn had a soccer game Saturday morning so I dropped McKay off at my mom's house and she took him to her ward's egg hunt.  After the soccer game, which she won, we headed back to my Mom's house for Melissa's baby shower.  We kept it very low key, but ended up having a decent turn out.  The kids were amazing and played upstairs almost the entire time.  After the shower we did a cousins egg hunt, but had to do it inside because the weather was not cooperating.  The kids didn't seem to mind because they still got their candy.  Easter Sunday after a wonderful church meeting where Craig spoke and did a fabulous job, we headed back to my Mom's house for Easter dinner.  Everyone went all out and it tasted amazing.  It was a little weird to not have an Easter egg hunt and other festivities out at Stan and Diane's this year, but they were in Florida visiting Craig's sister.  We had such a fantastic Easter weekend and every year I am amazed at how much more my testimony can grow for our Lord and Savior and his infinite love for all of us.

Oh and we did a thing the day after Easter....We traded in my Acadia and bought a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee L. It is quite the beauty. I am pretty stoked.  We didn't think we would buy a new car quite yet, but the Peterson's really hooked us up and made it pretty impossible to say no.  I have loved driving it around and the kids are not allowed to eat in it and McKay keeps asking when he will get to eat in it, some day buddy, someday.

Winter Adventures

 

We had a lot of fun this winter as a family.  We were finally able to get up on the ski hill as a family.  We were able to get up to Brundage a handful of times and I was able to get the kids up to Bogus Basin a few times too.  McKay of course picked it up super quickly and after just a few times he was the master of the Bear Chair.  His slogan for the year as we were getting off the chair lift was "Skis up, Farts out".  He thought that he was pretty funny. Brooklyn also improved a lot this year.  She could go on any of the chair lifts.  It was so fun to be able to explore the mountain with her.  The best part was that they were always excited to go and they can't wait for next ski season.  Since we were on the mountain a lot, that meant we also spent a lot of time at the cabin.  The kids loved playing in the snow and I am just grateful that they don't need me to play out there with them.

Brooklyn also had her first ever volleyball season.  She picked it up really quickly and made some big improvements throughout the season. She also had basketball season.  We worked a lot on her lay ups and dribbling.  I was able to help coach which was a lot of fun. We also had the chance to go to the Monster Jam.  It was our first time taking the kids to a monster truck rally.  It was very loud but we sure had a blast.  I love that the kids are old enough to take them to do fun outings like these.  We had a lot of fun this winter, it was busy, but sometimes that's the best.

Brooklyn Turns 9

 

Once again another year has passed and I can't believe how old Brooklyn is getting.  She is already 9!  At her well visit she weighed in at a whopping 60 lbs and was 53 inches tall.  Of course the first thing that came to her mind was if that meant she was tall enough for all the rides at Lagoon.  She is such a fun, sweet, smart, caring, kind and beautiful girl and we are so lucky that she is ours forever.  She stays super busy with her sports, activity days, and homework but she does it all with a smile on her face.  She is a great big sister, even if she gets annoyed with her little brother at times, but you can typically count on her to have a great attitude and to include her brother.  She loves to read and devours books constantly, she does great in school, she loves playing soccer and basketball and even tried out volleyball this year.  She loves to be with her friends and teammates and can be quite the social butterfly.  We are so grateful that she is happy and healthy!

We had such a fun time celebrating her for her birthday.  As usual the celebrations carried over a few days.  It started out with a birthday dinner from Grandma at Casa Mexico Saturday evening.  She loved the sombrero she got to wear as everyone sang to her. Sunday evening we then headed back to Grandma's for birthday dessert where we once again sang to her.  She requested Better than... cake, which I am always happy to oblige.  Not only is it delicious, but it is so easy to make.  That night she got to open her gifts from grandma, a lava lamp (thank you the floor is lava for making those cool again) and a new boogie board.  On Monday the kids didn't have school because of President's Day so we let her choose one friend and I took them out to lunch and the she had a little play date. Her actual birthday, the 22nd, was on Tuesday.  She requested Blaze pizza for dinner where we met Nana and Pops and they brought her their gift, a new Garmin watch. After dinner we headed back home to give her the last few of her gifts, a new bike that actually fits her, a big stuffed pillow/animal thing and some clothes.  It was a great few days celebrating our favorite girl.  I hope that this year is just as great for her and that she can continue to grow into the wonderful young women that she is becoming.

Weekend Getaways

 

Craig and I had the opportunity to get away a couple weekends in a row.  We weren't planning on them being back to back but Craig's work conference got moved after we already had our first trip planned.  The first trip we went to was just a quick trip down to Utah.  We left Friday February 4th after we got the kids off to school and drove down to Salt Lake where we went to a Jazz game.  They played the Brooklyn Nets, but sadly a lot of the players were injured, but still fun to go.  Saturday morning we then packed up and drove up to Craig's uncle Mike's place in Eden and went with him and Craig's cousin Alex skiing up at Powder Mountain.  Mike has worked there for years and was able to get us free passes and was our own personal tour guide of the mountain.  The snow wasn't great, but it was a bluebird day and was a lot of fun.  After skiing we went back to Mike's house for some yummy chili and then hit the rode and were back home before the kids even went to bed.  We just had one of our teenage babysitters stay the night with the kids and it worked out really well.  It was super quick, but a great little get away.  We love skiing with our kids but it has been fun the last few years heading to different resorts just the 2 of us at some point during the winter.

So, we got back from Utah on the evening of the 5th and then headed back out of town on Wednesday February 9th.  This time we were heading over to eastern Idaho and into Montana.  Every few years there is a Vision Source (optometry stuff) conference held in West Yellowstone and they pretty much pay for you to come have a weekend of free fun stuff as long as you are willing to sit and listen to reps speak while you eat meals.  It's a pretty good trade off if you ask me.  We have been to the conference once before 3 years ago and were excited to go again, especially because another doc from Craig's office and his wife were coming too.  So we drove over to Rexburg Wednesday afternoon after we picked McKay up from preschool and dropped him off at Craig's parents house.  We met up with our good friends the Siddoway's who had moved over to Rexburg the year before (don't ask me why, no one in their right mind moves to Eastern Idaho) for dinner.  It was so good to see Alisha again and to see their house.  After dinner we headed over to my sister Sunni's house where we slept for the night.  Thursday morning we headed over to Grand Targhee with my sister and her daughter Akirah to ski for the day.  We did not get the type of snow that we were hoping for or that we were blessed with the last few times we skied there, but it was still a lot of fun and a beautiful sunny day.  After parting ways with Sunni we then headed over to West Yellowstone.

Thursday evening we just went out to dinner as a big group and then Friday morning we got up and got ready to snowmobile.  We got all decked out in our gear and headed out as a big group for about 3 hours before we came back to the hotel for lunch.  It had been super fun, but we hadn't had a chance to get up to the top of the mountain yet so they were planning on taking us up there after lunch.  Originally I had planned to just snowmobile until lunch and then I was going to hang back at the hotel and workout and take a nap, but I was talked into going back out.  It didn't take a lot to convince me though.  So we head back out and get to the top of the mountain and it was crazy beautiful, we were all having a blast until... Craig smashed his face against the handle bars of his snowmobile.  He and his friend Hans had been going off a jump a few times and he just came down awkward and got his face.  When I pulled up he was spitting out blood and checking his teeth to make sure he hadn't lost any.  Luckily all of his teeth were still there but his lip and jaw were swollen and he had cut up the inside of his lip pretty bad.  About 10 minutes after Craig's mishap I was just tootling around on what I thought was just some small rolling hills but then one dipped a lot more than I thought it would and I then smashed my face against my handle bars.  Now it was my turn to spit out blood, but I was also spitting out crushed tooth.  I knew instantly that I had shattered one of my front teeth.  About half came off the front and about 2/3 off the back of it.  I also had a nice swollen lip and quite the headache.  At this point I just decided to hangout until it was time to head back to the hotel, but our friend Hans ended up busting the windshield of his snowmobile about 10 minutes after my crash.  I swear that drive back to turn in our snowmobiles took forever.  I was so ready to be done with them.  Craig and I were quite the sight.  Once we got back to the hotel we both took a bunch of Ibuprofen and got ready for dinner.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures of us right after it happened, I was too mad at myself for not just staying at the hotel after lunch.

Saturday morning after breakfast we drove about an hour and a half to Big Sky ski resort.  Quite a good sized group headed up there.  We broke off in to groups kind of based on experience.  We ended up with one of the docs from Twin Falls who knew the mountain pretty well.  Again the snow was not great, but when you don't have to pay for it, it doesn't seem to bother you as much.  The mountain is huge and we only saw a fraction of it.  We did end up with a few scratches on the bottoms of our skies from rocks and I had to ski the whole day with my tongue covering my broken tooth because it was so sensitive to the cold, but other than that it was a fun day.  You will notice that my smile turned into a closed mouth smile at this point.  After skiing we headed back to the hotel for one last dinner and some more Ibuprofen. Sunday morning we were up early to start our drive back home.  The kids had been with Craig's parents for two days and then with my sister Melissa for two days.  Luckily by this point they are really easy and do great when we are gone, but we had missed them and were ready to get home.  By the time we got home we were both ready to be out of the car, we had done way too much driving over the last 9 days.  Monday morning I called my dentist and got a temporary crown put on a few days later and I'm still currently waiting to get the permanent crown put one later this week.  What started out as a pretty cheap trip turned into quite an expensive one since we don't have dental insurance.  Craig's jaw stayed swollen for about a week and it took a few weeks for the inside of his lip to fully heal.  I told Craig the next time we go I want a mouth guard and a full face helmet.  Besides our snowmobile mishaps, it was a really fun weekend, but I am good taking a break from snowmobiling for a while.