Utah!

It had been a long time since we'd gotten out . . . so a trip to Utah was a perfect get-away.  Well, almost perfect.  Ben had to leave a few days earlier to Denver for some work conventions and so he couldn't come with us.  Plus, he had to work for 14-hours on President's day, so he wouldn't have been able to come even without the Denver trip.  But Ben did have a good time in Denver with both his work conferences as well as hanging out with his family.

I checked the kids out at noon on Friday and we made it to Provo in time for Cafe Rio dinner and then BYU's gymnastics meet.  The gymnasts (from all three teams) were amazing and it was fun to watch!

 Lucy was an awesome little cheerleader for team BYU!

 The girls were impressed with all the fancy tricks those gymnasts do.

Miles finished a book while there.  I'm not sure he even watched one full routine.

We stayed for 3/4 of it and then headed up to my parents' home.  (My parents were away in St. George.)

Saturday we got up very early and got ready to go skiing.  I wanted to go on Monday, but seeing a high of 17 (versus 37 for Saturday), I opted for Saturday!

We skied at Brighton - a place I think I skied only once while living in Utah.  It had been almost 20 years since I've skied in Utah.  It was a first for the kids.  The snow was great.  The kids did great.  Lucy is totally independent on greens and did some short-sections of blues (though they seemed more like double-green to me . . .) and did awesome.  Jonas was obsessed with jumps and it was practically all he wanted to do.

 A cool spot overlooking the Heber Valley (where my parents live).

 Two cute ski babes.

 Two handsome ski bums (I don't know what you call boys?!).

Jonas going off a jump!

Here are a few videos of the kids skiing.  Yes, in every single video (there were a couple more than I'm not posting), I commented how I couldn't see.  Because I couldn't!  I really had no idea where the kids were and if I had even captured them on video.  But I did!

We stayed up late each night watching the Olympics.

Sunday we got to sleep in as church started at 11!  Yay!  Then when we got back from church, my parents were home!  They had decided to come home a day earlier because of the storm that was on its way . . .  So we had a nice dinner together and enjoyed our evening of Olympic-watching.

On Monday we woke up to about 10 inches of snow (my prediction the night before . . .).  I went on a super-awesome run - it was still snowing, but luckily the roads were plowed and so it was great.  The kids went out to sled.  The girls lasted as long as it took me to get them ready; the boys stayed out for a while and had fun.  Then we went for a quick swim at the pool, ate lunch, then headed to the Olympic Park in Park City - where some of the 2002 events were held and where athletes still come to train and practice.  It turned out to be pretty cool and the kids had fun!

 Sledding!

 The kids announced they were a 4-man (and girls) bobsled team!  They maybe went 5 feet before totally crashing!  :)

 So much snow!

 Jonas helped Grandpa "shovel" the driveway.

 This is at the Olympic park - they had some "virtual" experiences.  The kids were doing some paragliding ski thing.  Miles looks like a typical teenager in that shot.  No, I did not force him to do it.
(Jonas choose a different experience - a mountain-bike ride.)

 The kids also got to try the Nordic ski-jump.  My girls crashed all three attempts.  My boys landed 2 of the 3.

 Snowboarder Emmy.

 Maybe they would have made it more than 5 feet in this bobsled?  Or maybe not . . .

 We also took a tour at the Olympic park.  The bus took us to the top of the bobsled runs as well as here - the top of the Nordic jumps.  So scary!!!

Miles lighting the Olympic torch!  :)

I went for another run on Tuesday morning - it had snowed maybe an inch or two that night.  But it was super cold - 7 degrees!  I was fine during my run, but got cold as I had to pack up my car and trunk-trailer thingy.  My dad had to help my blow-dry the bag that goes over our trailer because it was so icy!

We headed out by 9:30 and stopped at BYU to talk to their Independent Study department.  We are very seriously considering having Miles (and if all goes well with him, all our other kids) do their high school courses through the BYU High School online program.  We met the director of the high school program and just asked a few questions.  He was super nice and afterwards walked us over to a room and got the kids a whole bunch of BYU swag.  :)

The drive home was good, thankfully - dry roads!

It was a dandy of a trip (except when the kids weren't so dandy)!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Haha.

Too bad I don't have a video of Jonas giving his chocolate heart-box to his friend Aly . . .

Valentines and More Home-Improvement Pics

On Saturday the girls and I worked on their classroom valentines.  They are fun to do, but it's also nice only having two kids that have to do them now!  Lucy picked the most time-consuming of pinterest choices - but she loves them and they did turn out super cute.  :)

 Fun, fun.

 Here's a close-up of her valentines.

 Emmy wanted gummy bears and so came up with her idea - based on others she had seen.

Her close-up.  This one in particular was the only one that said "Love."  The others say "like."  You might think this one is for the boy she is "going on" (even though I don't know if that is still happening?), but it isn't.  It's for her crush, Reggie.  She didn't want to sign his because Reggie told her he would not be her valentine and so she wanted to do it anonymously.  So funny.

Ben and I painted the wall and the girls' room on Friday.  It turned out great.  On Saturday I did a fun little project and painted the girls' door on their room-side.  I made some DIY chalkboard paint and the girls love it.  In fact, they woke me up a little before 7 on Sunday asking if they could draw on it.  Super cute.

 Pretty fun!  It will look even better when it gets all trimmed out.  I might have to take another picture.  :)

 Still awaiting trim, but here is their room - one wall is yellow and the rest are green.  The girls will be getting new bedspreads and we matched the colors to those.

 Just giving you an idea.

As Emmy said, "Now it looks like a kids' room!"  When I asked her if she likes it, she replied, "No.  I love it!"  :)

Nothing really . . .

Life has been . . . just life lately.  Busy with the every day stuff of school, work, church, callings, gymnastics, wrestling, swimming, building a wall, etc.!  Here's a little update on us all:

Lucy - she is now in pre-team at gymnastics.  Woo-woo!  So she goes with Emmy on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30-6:30 (although she still has her music classes on Tuesday and so for the time being, she arrives late on Tuesdays for gymnastics).  She also gets to go to one Saturday practice a month.  She loves school, has a crush on Miguel, and loves her rat.

 Today was 100-day for the elementary kids.  Lucy's class did all sorts of "awesome" activities.  Her teacher is the greatest.  There are 100 cheerios on her necklace.  Fun, fun. Yum, yum.

Emmy - she is in level 4 gymnastics, which means she goes to the gym a lot.  Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  Plus, three Saturdays a month.  She still loves it - but isn't happy when she has a bad day.  She sometimes gets caught up with the drama that goes on in school with other girls.  I just wish she had some nice, non-drama friends!  But she's happy, for the most part, with school.  She is "going with" some boy named Abriam (sp?) - although I'm not really sure what that means.  This boy tends to get in trouble a lot and so the deal with Emmy "going with" him was that he could not get any think-times (like time-out sheets at school).  Ha.  But the funny thing is that she has a crush not on Abriam but Reggie.  But apparently Abriam knows that.  All's fair in love and war?!

Jonas - is doing well.  I guess he has a "girlfriend."  Again, whatever that means.  :)  Basically it means she talks to him in his Crew class.  She tried to sit with him once at lunch but her friends were annoying and so that was the end of that.  Yes, I stalked her on facebook and everybody had fun seeing who she is.  :)  While obviously we aren't promoting serious relationships and dating with our young kids, it's also part of life - girls liking boys and boys liking girls.  He had the gall to tell Ben how he was doing things wrong in building the wall.  What the what?!

Miles - is in his last season of wrestling.  He has no plans to wrestle in high school (Plus, we are seriously thinking of doing a BYU home/online program for high school . . .).  He enjoys it - a lot of his friends are doing it - both church and school friends.  He stays after school for about 1 1/2 hours every day of the week.  It's a lot, I think!  But a great thing for him to be involved in.  He invited a school-friend to mutual last night and the friend actually came.  He (we) always bring Malachi - another friend - to Tuesday's activities and it was pretty cool that he invited another kid, too.

Me - just staying busy with home, church, Girls on the Run, and work.  I'm doing an 8-week health challenge, that I started on January 1st.  Ben is pretty much doing it with me, too.  He has a few more "cheat" days than I do, but not much.  The challenge involves eating 2 and 3 servings of fruit and veggies each day, no food after 9 pm (although Ben and I had already decided to do 8pm - except weekend nights), no sweets except for one day a week (yay for FHE treats and chocolate chips on Mondays . . . not a ton, but enough to satisfy me . . .), working out, drinking 8 cups of water, and doing a food journal.  It's been good but I've missed my chocolate chips.  :)  I haven't seen any real weight loss because my body doesn't like to let any of it go.

Ben - finally got a few callings in our ward.  He is now the deacon's adviser and scout assistant and Scout Chairman.  He's happy about it.  He is staying busy with working on the wall and with work in general.  He takes Jonas to swimming on Wednesdays and Thursdays nights - Wednesdays he does some weights and swims and on Thursdays he now plays racquetball with a co-worker.  Someday Ben will beat him!

 The view coming up from the back stair.

 Looking down the hallway/wall.  The mud is up and so now Ben basically has the trimming to do and painting.  It's coming together pretty awesomely!

Brigham - he now has a white tail since, on his way to stare at the rats, he walked by Ben's wet wall and got some mud-splatter on him.  He is still quite taken with the rats, but not as much as those first couple of weeks..  But still enough to be considered "excessive."

The rats - they are getting quite large.  They still creep me out.  But not as much.  But I still refuse to be near them when they are out of their cages - or to pet them.  The kids sure do enjoy them, though.

There was our January!  Time is flying by!