Spring Break

So last week was "Spring" Break for the kids. We were kindly greeted by 10" of snow.... so we had that going for us, which was nice.

We took the kids up to Park City for a few days and stayed at the Canyons ski resort. Most of the ski resorts had just closed for the year so the crowds were gone. It is only an hour away, but when we got there the kids asked what state we were in now. Sam's answer... "the city of Park". Sam is always full of good information.

It was very nice and very relaxing to hide away in the mountains for a few days and spend some time with the kids. We did a lot of arts and crafts things, painted aprons, made bead designs, etc. It was great to see how creative these kids can be.



We also went into Kamas, about 15 minutes outside Park City, and went to their very nice indoor pool. If you are in Midway or Park City and looking for something to do, I highly recommend it. The two favorite activities at the pool where the high dive and the slide. We spent a good three hours there before the lifeguards quickly got everyone out of the pool, someone found a.... "Baby Ruth" in the pool, wink, wink. Anyone that has seen Caddyshack knows what I am talking about, if you haven't seen the movie, first, what's wrong with you, second, I think you can figure it out. Don't worry, no one pulled a Bill Murray (again, watch the movie).

Here is a video of Sam flying through the air and a couple pictures of the kids on the slide.

We all had a great time over Spring Break this year.


Posted by Matt

Ellie Gets Glasses

So, we found out that we all look like blury blobs to Ellie. No wonder she likes Jeff so much, she can't really see what he looks like.

As a father I am always proud to see specific things that my kids got from me; blond hair, blue eyes, smarts.... wait a second! I think I need to ask some more questions about that.

Anyway, Ellie did seem to get my eyes. We found out she is nearsighted. Sitting really close the TV, not a big deal by itself, but she squints to see a lot of things as well. We decided to get her checked out and sure enough, the little girl needs glasses.

So, here is a picture of Ellie stylin' in her first pair of glasses.


Posted by Matt

Maybe one day....

....that is what I say to myself every time I think about updating my blog. Over the past few days I have decided that maybe the time has come to announce that we are, indeed, still alive and kicking, but then it took me a few days to even remember how to post. I know...I'm awesome.
I was planning on posting a big Christmas update, but that didn't happen. We had a great holiday season. The kids were so much fun and we really enjoyed spending time together and with family. At the beginning of January I had sinus surgery, so January was pretty low key for us, but I kinda liked it! (not the surgery, but the month of winter hibernation) We are starting to wake up from our long 'winter's nap' and over Feb-Mar we enjoyed a fun visit from "Nana" (my mom), had a great trip to Mesquite, celebrated Ellie's 4th birthday, and I have even attempted to cook a few meals here and there! Life is good!

Thanksgiving in Washington

I know that this is a little late, but oh well! It's not like I have the best track record with this blog! For Thanksgiving this year we drove to Vancouver,Washington, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We weren't so sure how things were going to go when Ellie yelled out after only 30 minutes into the 14 hour drive, "I can't take it anymore!" and then 45 minutes after that Ellie and Sam simultaneously threw up! Sam did have a rough journey, but all things considered the kids did a great job.



Once there we did a lot of fun things. We took a little trip to Seaside, OR. It is the cutest little town. On the way there we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and Arcadia beach to play around for a while.
Can you imagine how many 'say cheese' jokes we used while taking this picture?



Arcadia Beach, The Oregon Coast

Aside from our trip to the coast there were other fun things that we did. For those of you on Facebook you can see more of our photos there. Here are some of your Thanksgiving Day highlights. The kids ended up taking most of the photos, so some of them are kind of wacky, but I actually love them! We had a great time.
Jesse, our RM. It was great to have him back home.

Here are all of the grand kids that were there.

It was really fun to have Grandma & Grandpa Dunn there.

We had a wonderful time with our family, and really enjoyed spending so much time with our kids. It is amazing to us how quickly they are growing up and what wonderful personalities they have developed. We have been mindful this year as we have gone thru certain trying times that we have so much to be grateful for and we were certainly thinking about our many blessings these past few weeks thru the Thanksgiving season.
As my brother in law would say- "Peace out!"

I heart Edward, and now everyone knows it!

So the time has finally come, the release of the Twilight movie! I know that there are some people who think that this is annoying, a big waste of time, all Twilight fans are fat,ugly ladies who neglect their kids (not my opinion), blah, blah blah... I have heard it all, but who cares! I HAVE SEEN TWILIGHT!!!This was actually one of my favorite scenes!

This has been a big day for me and my 'I heart Edward' t-shirt. It started this morning with being quoted in an article that happened to be on the front page of the Deseret News. If you care to check out the article,(thanks for caring Mom!) here is the link: www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705264485,00.html
I must say that while I am very grateful that I am still represented well, I am completely misquoted. That said, I have never been in the paper before, much less the front page!
This afternoon I 'neglected' my family yet again and headed out for a night on the town. First stop- The Cheesecake Factory. Yum.
Here are the twins, Karen & Kay, and Char.
After dinner we headed to the theater where our wonderful friend Melanie had reserved 2 entire theaters for a 7pm premiere!!!On the way into the theater they actually checked our purses and wanded us! Since my purse is so big the usher wanded the inside of my purse too! I wish I could have taken a photo, but they were checking for cameras and recording devices. My friend Abby was asked if her baby had any hidden recording devices on her...nice.
Here is a large chunk of our group...


and of course, no event would be complete (see jason mraz post...) without a 'long arm' self portrait with Candice. What a great night!!!!

I'm Getting Excited...

Things are kicking into high gear around here! The Christmas tree (in all it's sparkling grandeur) along with all the other decorations (indoor, anyway) have found themselves in their rightful places all around the house, the majority of our Christmas shopping is done, and the Christmas music is finally organized into various helpful play lists on the ipod....so now what? Now we can focus on:



Tomorrow my brother Jesse gets home from his mission to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He was part of the evacuation that took place several weeks ago and finished these past few weeks in the Lima, Peru mission. We were certainly grateful for his safe arrival in Peru, and we will be relieved tomorrow when he arrives at our Mom's in Washington. ***Can I just take a moment to brag about my brother? of course I can, he's wonderful. By the time he graduated from high school he had his associates degree and a full time job at a bank! He will be joining us here in Utah in January as he attends BYU, so if anyone has any cute, single sisters.....

Anyhoooo....Friday night we kick off our Thanksgiving holiday with an early Thanksgiving dinner with Matt's family, and one of our famous game nights! They are so fun! Scott will be in town for the BYU/Utah game so we will have a fun filled night of food, family, & fun...all while playing Scott's "fat dog" game I am sure. I was going to take the opportunity to learn to bake pies, but will be going to Costco Friday morning instead! Then Saturday morning we are driving to Washington for a family Thanksgiving/reunion with Jesse. We have been busy scurrying around making the necessary arrangements for the trip and things are finally starting to fall into place. Today I was able to find us a hotel that is right across the street from a sports "restaurant" so that we can stop in Boise to watch the BYU/Utah football game.(GO COUGARS!) I felt kinda silly calling hotel after hotel asking them if they got 'the mountain' channel, but all worked out!


In other great news, in exactly 48 hours I will be sitting in my seat with warm, buttery popcorn watching a premiere of TWILIGHT!


What a great week.....

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year. I have to say that it is one of my favorite holidays, second to Christmas, of course! Trick or treating with the kids is such a blast! I am not sure what I love most- the boys racing from door to door, Ellie announcing every piece of candy she got at the top of her lungs, or just walking around with my hubby enjoying the evening and our kids. We spent the evening with some family and some friends, and made out with loads of candy! The kids still fit into last year's costumes, so that was nice. The boys were power rangers and Ellie was Jo-Jo of 'Jo-Jo's circus'. We hardly took any pictures, but here are a couple from our pit stop at Grandma & Grandpa's.



The weirdest thing was going to bed that night, full of candy and thinking about ghouls and goblins, and waking up Saturday morning to the radio in the boys' room blasting Christmas music! I thought that I was freakish about Christmas, but this year I look perfectly normal. I usually have our decorations/tree up around our anniversary which is Nov 12th. It drives my hubby crazy, but I love it. This year, though, I have been shocked at how many fanatics out there have beat me to the punch. The radio is playing 24-7 holiday tunes and last night I actually saw a tree up and lights on! I guess I'm not the only one feeling festive this year!