March Madness

 March flew by.  Thank heavens cuz not my favorite month.  We started off visiting my cousin Season in the hospital.  She's now had a heart transplant, but let's just say there have been many miracles to keep her alive.  It was good to see her.  Kate had her last ever piano festival.  The beginning of the 'lasts'.  It was definitely bitter sweet.  These festivals are a lot of work.  It was fun to see her finish strong, but sad to see this chapter ending.  Then we headed to St George again.  This trip was drama free, thank heavens.  We did lots of biking.  Sage had her first of many bike races for the year.  Somehow bike season has gone from 4 months long to now being 9 months long.  Not sure how this is possible.  

Season managed to wink for the picture.  Somehow she's still hilarious even after almost dying.

Kate's teacher Lillian has been amazing.  She helped Kate a lot getting her own studio going.  She flew in from California just for this concert!

The girls were very excited to get a pic with this gentleman.  A pro biker.

Grandma and Grandpa had a fun Easter gathering

Sage begged me to go to the temple with her...

We split up during Sage's race and the rest of the fam went Jeeping.

February Fun

 I cannot get caught up on here.  Oh well.  February was mostly uneventful.  Sage invited a bunch of girls over for a galentines party.  She's so good at making her events fun.  She always has great ideas.  I'm very grateful for her event planning skills.  Without her I would be lost.

We went to St George for Presidents Day weekend.  While there we had a horrible, no good, very bad day.  The plan was to go mountain biking, make it back for lunch, and then go jeeping.  The mountain bike ride was good fun.  Until we got back to the truck and Zack said he'd lost his keys on the trail.  We looked all over in the truck, around the truck, and then realized we were going to have to get back on the trail to find them.  It wasn't just his keys (his spare Jeep key was in Logan), but his wallet was attached so license, credit card, etc.  Jake and Zack ended up riding almost the whole loop again.  I would stop at random intervals to meet up with them in the truck and see if they had any luck.  No luck.  We miraculously found a mobile key maker who came that day and had a new key for Zack in like 20 minutes.  Only cost him $100 (he should charge more).  We were exhausted and starving by the time we got to the house at like 3:30.  Jake decided he still wanted to salvage the day and go on a short Jeep ride.  Tracy ended up coming with us.  So we rolled out at like 5:00 in Jake and Zack's Jeeps.  This was a trail they'd done before.  Shouldn't have been a big deal.  But it was.  Halfway in Zack was having a hard time making it up an obstacle.  His Jeep ended up tipping (he was the only one in the car because I'm smart and get out on scary parts).  Zack was fine, and we were able to winch his Jeep out of the hole.  The car started and Jake drove off thinking we were good to go.  I was in the car with Zack and we weren't really good to go.  We went down a steep, scary hill not sure how well the brakes were working.  Survived that part only to get stuck at the bottom of the hill.  Things were broken on the Jeep that didn't let us move (don't ask me what things.  I have no idea.  Just things).  Jake and Zack decided to somehow get Zack's wheels so they would roll, right there on the trail.  We frequently do trail repairs in Jeeps.  They're super fun.  Let me remind you that Tracy was with us this whole time.  She was a good sport but will probably never come with us again.  Smart.  By the time the Jeep could move it was dark and it had been a really long day.  Zack's Jeep could move but it didn't have 4-wheel drive.  We were down in a wash, so this was a problem.  I've learned to be wary of washes.  They can be difficult to get out of.  We found a place to go up, but we had to tow Zack.  Jake needed to be outside and able to communicate with Zack, so somehow I found myself driving the Jeep.  Not just driving the Jeep, but towing Zack up an obstacle, in 4-wheel drive, in the dark.  I had to put my big girl pants on for sure.  Somehow I pulled him out and we slowly made our way off the mountain.  Got back to the house at like 10:00.  LONGEST DAY EVER.

We almost went home early due to the unenjoyable events detailed above.  But we decided to power through and went to see the Candy Cliffs.  This was an enjoyable way to spend the day.  Super pretty.  The best part of the day, though, was when Zack said that he should probably keep his Jeep off the really hard trails while he's using it as his daily driver.  Hallelujah.  Almost made everything worth it.

Just in case you're wondering, we towed the Jeeps home and Zack had his Jeep fixed and back up at school a couple of days later.  He's definitely learned a lot with all of these repairs.

I took Kate and Sage with me to a big service project

Sisters In St George!

 We got to have some sisters fun in St George!  Mel even flew in, so all of us were there.  Well, I'm sure Linz was there in spirit.  It was so nice to get away for more than a night, or a few hours.  The weather wasn't super cooperative, but we still had a great time.  We talked, laughed, talked, ate, and talked some more.  We managed to put together a 1000 piece puzzle in the middle of all of our talking.  We went to a temple open house, got pedicures, went on a small hike, and mostly just enjoyed being together without kids.  Hopefully we can make this an annual retreat!

Greg and Tracy let us use their e-bikes.  We had great fun!

The annual hot air balloons at Sand Hollow.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, so they were struggling to just get in the air.  

We Survived January

 January is always the longest month.  But we managed to survive.  I decided to up my skiing game for once and took Sage and a friend skiing on MLK day.  I knew the lines would be huge, so we got up early, took the shuttle, and got to the resort way before all the crowds.  Perfect!  We had breakfast and then got ready to ski.  And realized that the whole resort was on hold for the wind.  We got in line anyway because we just knew it was going to open up.  And we waited, and waited.  We ended up spending a few hours at the resort and skied a total of one run.  Best laid plans...

Jake and I made a quick trip to St George without the kids.  We had good fun, and also an adventure.  On Saturday Jake wanted to do a bike ride and I wanted to hike.  We decided I would hike in Snow Canyon and Jake would bike and meet me there.  As usual, we didn't discuss this well and we both just took off.  Well, it takes a while to get to Snow Canyon from our house, plus I had to get gas.  By the time I parked and was ready to hike Jake had already been riding for almost an hour.  I was only like halfway through my hike when he got to the truck.  So Jake kept going and I sped up my pace.  I figured Jake would get to the top of Snow Canyon and then turn around.  He did not.  He kept going all the way to the Veyo pie place.  When he got there I told him to stop and wait as I had just gotten to the truck.  He decided it was too cold and rather than wait inside, decided to keep biking.  He said, "I'm going towards Gunlock, just find me on the road."  So I start driving up the road and just keep going and going with no Jake.  And of course there was no service.  I didn't know if I had somehow missed him and should turn around, or just keep going.  I kept going and finally, at the very end of the canyon, found him.  He ended up riding like 53 miles.  He'd planned on going like 20, so he essentially had no food.  I still don't understand why he didn't stop or turn around at some point.  He stands by his decisions.  I hope that next time he'll make different choices;)

Anyway, that's about all the excitement from January.  The rest was full of regular days and praying for sunshine.

While were in St George the kids met in Ogden and went to dinner.

My Snow Canyon hike

My friend Audrey and I have been skiing together every week for like 10 years.  We finally got a picture to document our fun!

Christmas Vacation

 We went to St George for all of Christmas vacation.  It was glorious.  So nice to get away for an extended time with the whole family.  We did some biking, of course.  So nice to be able to do in December.  We used the grandparents Christmas present to go to Top Golf.  We're pretty much pro golfers.  And we did a lot of Jeeping.  Jake and Zack were very excited about this.  Kate got to try driving and did a great job on a hard trail.  Jake's dreams came true when we went with the Dixie 4X4 group on a Jeep ride.  We did Milt's mile with Milt himself.  It was fun to do some hard obstacles with good spotters.  Makes a huge difference.  I'm not a good spotter, in case you were wondering.  I had to get out of the Jeep a lot.  I can't handle staying in on scary parts.  I closed my eyes as Zack tried to do crazy things in his Jeep.  The fact that it's his daily driver doesn't seem to stop him.  Which is terrifying.  Anyway, we had a great time.  Jake and Kate made us good food and I cleaned it up.  Totally happy with these roles.  We celebrated New Years.  Kind of.  We're like the worst New Years people in the world.  We ate some food, played some games, and I think even the kids were in bed by 11:00.  Party people we are not.  

Most of December

 We started December out with our annual neighborhood food drive.  I think the same few people come every year, but as long as people come we'll keep doing it!  It always feels good to pull up to the food pantry with a car full of food.  

We got to spend a day with both of our extended families.  We got the annual Spjute rest home performance back on track after missions.  Always a good time.  We went straight from there to celebrate Greg's 80th birthday with everyone.  I hope I look as good as he does when I'm 80!

Our next weekend was a musical one.  Friday night we went to our annual Charlie Jenkins concert.  I love going to that every year.  We even got Zack home from school to join us!  The next night we went to a Peter Breinholt concert in SLC.  That was a blast from the past!  We walked around and looked at lights for a bit, and finished the night perfectly at Crown Burgers.

Christmas was so great.  We went to the Spjute homestead for Christmas Eve.  Really great to have everyone there (except the Ball Family).  It was a most excellent night.  Christmas with all teenagers is a different beast.  Definitely a holiday where I miss having littles around.  Jake and I just hung out reading and stuff until the kids finally woke up at 9:00.  I thought for sure Sage would wake everyone up earlier.  Even she is now truly a teenager.  The kids seemed happy with their stuff.  I was relieved to be done acquiring gifts.  The rest of the day we actually did nothing.  It was quite enjoyable.  A lazy Christmas with everyone here.  I'll take that every year.

Our small but mighty food drive.

Kate and Sage played a long song together.  This is how Sage arranged her music.

The traditional male singing of 'We Three Kings'

A few of the 60+ people gathered for Greg's birthday

Sage randomly made delicious brownies.  We all appreciated them.

Good ol' Peter

Jake's favorite new toy is the floor cleaner for the office.  Sage got to try it out.

Loved having Christmas Eve on a Sunday!

Delicious Christmas Eve dinner!

I love that the Dittos brought us the tradition of the burning of the goat!

Kate filled in for the kids.  She was the right size;)

Christmas Eve jammies!

The aftermath