December Happenings

 I'm trying to persist in getting caught up.  Someday....

December was fairly low-key.  We never have lots of family things, friend things, or recitals.  Obviously we're super cool.  We did have a fun Christmas.  Although the 2.5 week long Christmas break about did me in.  Who plans a break that long in the middle of winter??

We did our annual neighborhood food drive.  Mostly just the old people come, but we still love it.  My friend and I that is.  Not so much my kids.  Kate had a piano recital.  She's getting so good at the piano!  We made some yummy Christmas cookies.  Not sugar cookies.  Learned my lesson with those.  And we went to a family Christmas thing with the Wrights.  We don't see them very much, so we had a great time catching up with everyone.

On Christmas Eve we went to the Johnson's for yummy dinner and fun.  We even went caroling to a couple of houses without Dad there to make us do it!  Funny the things you find yourself doing when you don't even have to.  Some of the families did a talent.  The Ditto's won by burning and goat and dancing around it.  Not sure how anyone will top that!  Christmas day was epic in that Jake and I were the first ones awake.  You know you're getting old when...  We opened presents, had a good breakfast, and then went skiing.  I love skiing on Christmas because it breaks up the day.  Still time to play with new presents, but not too much time.

New Years happened.  By far my least favorite holiday.  Definitely not a holiday made for introverts.  The girls both invited friends over and had lots of fun.  Jake and Zack let me watch the new James Bond movie with them.   And then I think they were both in bed by 10:30.  We party hard here.

The only picture I have of the service project we did.  In addition to the food drive we did, we got to help distribute the food this year.  Loved it!

Seran wrap ball!

The live nativity in Heber gets better and better every year.  This year they even had a camel!

The YW who came.  Notice they're all young.  It's mostly impossible to get the older girls out.

Kate's piano recital.  Her teacher looks like one of the kids.

Christmas cookies!

Jake dressed up for caroling this year!

A really blurry picture of the goat dance.

Christmas pajamas!

Zack and Kate both got new coats.

Sage got a sherpa.  She looks like a walking blanket.

Christmas day skiing!  Yes it was cold.

Sage got up one morning and made pancakes from scratch, cut up an orange, and had hot chocolate.  

I didn't get a picture of all the girls at our house, but you can tell they were here.

The only New Years picture I have.

November Happenings

 November was a fairly low-key month.  The highlight was probably the weekend we got to spend with family right before Dad and Kathy left for their mission in New York.  The Dittos were kind enough to offer up their house so that we could stay for the weekend and not just be there for a few hours.  The adults had great fun hanging out, and the cousins had a great time.  Sometimes the teenagers are unsure what to do with themselves, but they survived.  It was great to have everyone together since it's going to be a while before that happens again!

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful.  We were supposed to go to Moab, but that ended up not happening.  We went to Greg and Tracy's for Thanksgiving dinner where we ate lots of delicious food.  Then we spent a lot of time working at the office so we could get footings in before the ground froze.  The glamorous life of a contractor.  We'll all be really happy when the office is done.  For a lot of reasons...

The Spjute Family!  Minus Dad.  We kind of forgot him...

A YW activity making truffles.  I had to include it since YW takes up a lot of my life right now.  Thank heavens both of my girls are in there!  Makes it so much better!

Two years later we finally got to go see Frozen.  Worth the wait!

We took the kids to a trampoline place so they could get some energy out.

This is Zack climbing up to that steel beam.  The one that's really high.  He proceeded to jump into the foam pit and almost break his back.  It's a miracle that more teenagers don't die or become disabled from stupid decisions.

All of the grandkids!

A sunny picture of our annual turkey trot.  There are no words for how much my kids complain about this.

This was Thanksgiving dinner.  Even though it looks like Christmas

Sage looking way too old.

My grandma who's still going strong!  She's amazing!

The Last of Mexico

 On Sunday we took the bus downtown to see the sites.  This bus ride was much more calm than the one Jake and I took last time.  It was sooo hot that day.  We tried not to die as we walked along the boardwalk.  We happened to be there right before Dia de los Muertos, so we got to see a lot of the stuff set up for the celebration.  That was pretty cool.

On Monday we went surfing.  We went with a local company and ended up splitting up to fit in their own personal cars.  We drove quite a ways out to the beach, so we again found ourselves chatting with some of the local people.  When we got to the beach we did some warm ups and then tried surfing.  Sage and Zack were the best.  Especially Sage.  She got ride up and rode all the way in like it was nothing.  We had great fun and finished it off eating some delicious tacos by the beach.  They were so good.  Good thing because I think they made us all sick.  In the taxi ride on the way to the airport, Zack threw up.  Sage threw up when we were about to land.  And Jake was sick for the next couple of days.  But those tacos were really good.  So maybe it was worth it.

Anyway, we had a great trip.  Met lots of great people, made some good memories, and got to relax.  Can't wait to do it again!

Sage and I got our hair done.  This lady takes the bus for 2 hours, 6 days a week, to work on the beach.

We were there for Halloween.  The resort did a little trick or treat thing.  That night we got to watch the best Michael Jackson show I've ever seen.  The guy was amazing!

Sage wishes we'd spent all of our time here in the pool.

More Mexico

 On Saturday we got to go on the zipline tour we'd been looking forward to.  Jake and I did this same tour when we came without the kids, so they'd been hearing about it for a while.  They were super excited, but also a little nervous.  It ended up being a great adventure!

We headed to the lobby to catch a taxi to the marina and ran into a guy who worked at the place we were going.  We told him we were on our way there and he told us not to get a taxi.  Apparently we were only 10 minutes from the starting point of the tour.  He had us return in an hour and we went with him on a 10 minute taxi ride instead of an hour ride.  We had a lot of fun with him.  He spoke great English and taught us a lot about speaking Spanish.  When we told him we were from Utah he immediately asked if we were Mormon.  He talked about how much he likes Mormons because we make the effort to learn their language and everyone else expects them to learn English.  He also said all of the Mormons he's met were very kind and humble.  Good to hear!  Sage interviewed him for her Spanish class.  One of the highlights of this trip was definitely the Mexican people we were able to meet.

Anyway, the tour was amazing.  I was really proud of the girls, especially Kate who has a real fear of edges.  Yes edges, not heights.  Apparently that's a thing.  So poor Kate went off a lot of edges.  We started out riding mules up the trail.  That was probably my least favorite part.  I don't have a lot of trust in animals.  Both of the girls were most nervous when we rappelled down a waterfall.  But they did it anyway.  The workers were really good with them.  Since Jake and I were there last they added a rollercoaster.  That was probably my favorite part.  But the whole thing was so much fun.  I'm really glad we did it.