Piano Festival

Kate got to do her second piano festival over the weekend.  Its a great event here in the valley that 150 students participate in.  They perform 3 different songs, accompany, do a duet, sight read, do technique, take a test, and compose a piece of music.  It's a little stressful, but a great experience.  Kate learned some good lessons this year.  She's been so sick of her songs because she's had them for a while.  However, the week before the festival she didn't have them memorized.  So she started essentially cramming for the test.  She was literally memorizing the day of the performance.  Somehow she pulled through and got them both memorized.  As we walked out she said, "Maybe next year I'll memorize my songs right away."  Yes Kate, that would be great.  She ended up getting superior ratings in all 9 categories.  Good job Kate!  She's excited to play new songs and I'm just as excited to hear her play new songs.  Maybe next year Sage will do the festival too!...

Cutie Kate at the festival

A random picture of Sage enjoying the outdoors

Colorado or Bust!!

We went on our first ever ski vacation last week and it was a definite success!  Our season passes to Park City also work at a few ski resorts in Colorado.  We figured out we could use points for the hotel and ski for free, too good of a deal to pass up that's for sure.

We've never been on a ski vacation before and I was a little nervous.  The kids like to ski, but I was worried three days in a row would be too much for them (and let's not lie, that's a lot for me as well).  However, we all rose to the occasion and loved it.  I kept chocolate protein bars in my pockets to refuel Sage with on the lifts.  As long as she had those she was good to go.

We were able to ski at Beaver Creek and Vail.  Both places we loved and were super nice.  Every day of skiing was followed by swimming.  It really doesn't get better.  We all made it down some black runs.  The kids are better than me on those, especially if there are moguls involved.  Sage will out-ski all of us in a couple of years I think.

A couple of stories:  We were skiing down a black run and a guy slid by on his back all the way down.  I skied up to him and asked him if he was ok.  Then Sage skied up and said, "you made it all the way down, maybe next time you'll make it on your snowboard."  Poor guy.  Schooled by a 6 year old.  Then Sage decided she loved racing.  When she was racing, watch out.  There was no stopping her.  I was racing her once and had to go in front of her on a steep section.  I stopped and waited for her at the bottom and as she zoomed by she said, "Mom, don't you know you never ever stop when you're racing!"  Good to know.

Anyway, we really had a great time.  Everyone voted that this should be an annual tradition.  In fact, Jake, Zack, and Kate said it was their favorite vacation ever.  Sage said it was second only to Disneyland.  I say I would still take the beach over the snow.

Hanging out in the hotel lobby with hot chocolate.

Sage has taken to doing some crazy poses for pictures

Notice Yoda in the background.

Cutest skiers ever

Pretty good looking himself;)

Happy Birthday Linz!!

I haven't done one of these posts for a while, but it seems appropriate this year for some reason.  Yesterday was Linz's birthday.  She would have been 31.  I've been thinking of her a lot lately.  Sounds like a lot of other people have too for some reason.  She must be out and about lately or something.  A couple of weeks ago she was in my dream.  This almost never happens, so it's always a treat when it does.  This dream was especially good because I got to just hug her and hug her.  It was so great!

Yesterday I talked about Linz a lot with my kids and we watched her movie.  Sage said the prayer before bed and she prayed that we could all be happy like Linz.  I loved it.  Love that they could feel of her happy spirit, though I still wish like crazy they could actually play with her.

It's been 8 years since she passed away.  That's such a long time that it seems like everyone would have forgotten her (except her family of course).  It made me happy this year to see that people still remember her, and it made my heart happy that there are so many good people around.  People wore blue to remember her, thoughts were shared with my dad, and people came by to visit.  Of course people still remember Linz!  How could they not?  She had a grand spirit that is not easily forgotten.

So happy birthday Linz!  Miss you a ton!!!!

Winter Fun

I was doing so well at posting, and here we are a month later.  Oh well.  We've had some good fun happening, even though its January which is probably my least favorite month.  We had a fun sledding day with cousins from my mom's family.  We don't see them a lot, so it was great to get together.  We all had fun sledding, eating good food, and swimming.  The good news is that they had enough fun that they're planning on coming back next year.  Hooray!

We got to go to where its nice and warm for a weekend, which was wonderful.  We went biking, climbing, hiking, and I took the girls to get manicures.  It was great to get away.  Yesterday we went skiing and it was the best family ski day we've had.  We are finally, finally, after lots of hard work, able to ski blues and double blues as a family.  It was so great.  I thought Sage might struggle with the double blues, but she went down them no problem.  I need to take lessons so I can keep up with my kids.  Awesomeness.

Sage having great fun sledding with Chloe

Good fun sledding with the cousins

Manicures!

Professional bowlers

They all pose so well

On top of the world with the whole family!

Christmas!

Look at me, already writing again.  I've discovered that if I try to write on Sundays I keep up a lot better.  Anyway, we had a great Christmas.  We started out the week with a Spjute Christmas party.  Lots of yummy food of course (although the stinky ham somehow turned into stinky turkey which isn't nearly as good).  Some caroling, talents (we use that word loosely in our house) and testimonies followed by pie.  It was wonderful.

We went skiing twice this week, which is also wonderful.  My kids finally got to experience skiing in new snow.  It was awesome.  Sage is hilarious to ski with.  She yells, "wahoo!" and "this is awesome!" the whole time.  Which makes it awesome for everyone else.

Christmas was great, pretty low key.  We continued our tradition of skiing on Christmas Eve.  It was so cold that Sage had to go to the lodge to warm up after one run.  I had to work that night, so Jake took the kids up to his mom's where they had good fun.  I made the kids wait for me to open presents on Christmas.  I assured them I would be home by 7:30, but of course that didn't happen.  As usual, things went crazy right at shift change and I didn't get home until after 8.  Needless to say, they were very excited to see me.  They opened presents and we had breakfast, then I slept for a few hours while they played with presents.  In fact, we've hardly seen the kids the last few days because they've been playing so much with their new toys.  Which makes me happy because it means they liked what they got.  Success!  We did manage to go sledding on Christmas.  It was lots of fun, especially watching people go off the jump.

Anyway, we had a great week together.  We're super blessed and grateful for this time of year when we can remember the birth of our Savior.

Our group for the Christmas Bus - there are a lot of us!

The kids waiting for me to get home

Opening presents

Sledding fun

Sage rocking it on her own

Snow angel

The Christmas Bus and Other Fun Things

We got to experience the annual Christmas Bus last night.  My kids count down to this event almost as much as they count down to Christmas.  This year my sister Mel and her family braved horrible roads to drive from Seattle and experience the Bus.  It was good fun.  Wonderful chaos as usual.  This year we went to an apartment complex in Salt Lake where elderly people live and did a program.  All of the kids participated and it was great.  The old people didn't know what hit them with all of the noise (I mean beautiful music).  Temple Square was beautiful and chaotic as usual.  The red tree was up this year, which is always awesome.  We managed to make it back to the bus without losing anyone, always a minor miracle.  On the ride home we had hot chocolate and cookies while listening to "The Polar Express".  Awesomeness.  My dad and Kathy are pretty amazing for pulling this off.  I'm sure it takes them a few days to recover from their hard work, but my kids sure love it.

On another, more sinister note...  I've included a frightening picture of Santa that Zack made at school.  For some reason, known only to Zack, he decided to make a vampire santa.  And its scary.  So scary that his teacher had to move it from the hall into the classroom because she got so many complaints.  Maybe we need to do some therapy?  Hopefully this is somewhat normal boy behavior.  He just laughs when we ask him about it.

Most of the kids.  See, its a miracle no one gets lost

Sage is peeking her head out somewhere

Kate helping Grandpa with the program

The kids singing

Frozen yogurt!

Super creep Santa!

Our first ski trip of the season!

Merry Christmas From Linz!

I know Mom and Linz are around a lot.  More than we'll ever know.  And every once in a while they make their presence known.  I love it when this happens.  This year, Linz sent my siblings and I money for Christmas.  The State kept calling my dad to let him know that Linz had money they were holding.  He could have it as soon as he showed them her death certificate.  Long story short, my dad finally got what he needed and sent it in.  Soon a check came in the mail.  We don't know what it was from, maybe a pay check she forgot to collect.  Anyway, my dad wasn't sure what to do with it.  Gut instinct was to buy some food storage, because that's what he does these days.  But then he says Linz made it known to him, very clearly, that she wanted it sent to her siblings for Christmas.  So, for the first time in lots of years, we got a Christmas present from Linz.

I told the kids about it, and we of course decided we needed to do something fun with the money.  Because Linz was all about having fun.  So we all went ice skating at the outdoor rink in Midway.  It was so much fun!  My kids were a little nervous because they'd never been, but they ended up loving it.  We all had great fun and can't wait to go again!  Thanks Linz!

Sage loved cruising around with this walker thing.  By the end she was going really fast!  Zack fell a million times but loved it

Kate did let go of the side, and really ended up having fun.  Which surprised her I think.

And this is an unrelated, hilarious, picture of us at the Midway Creche.