St. George Get-away

On Thursday, January 21st I taught my two preschool classes and then we loaded up the van and took the kids to their grandparents' houses. Lily and Cedric stayed with Tom's parents and Jeff and Cedric stayed with my Dad and Suzy.

It was so nice to know they were in good hands and had fun while we were gone.

Cedric had fun with Charlotte.

Lily went to her friend, Amanda's house for a bit too.

Jeff and Sophie loved going swimming with Paha (that's how Sophie says grandpa).

After we dropped the kids off, we headed home and grabbed our stuff, then Kenny and Tiffany came and picked us up. We then went and picked up Nick and Chris, and then headed toward St. George.

We stopped in Nephi and had dinner on the way.

We made it to my Aunt and Uncles vacation house in St. George around 9:30pm. We unloaded and then headed to the grocery store to buy food for the weekend.

When we got back we played games and went to bed. I was surprised to be in bed before 2am this time!

The next morning we slept in a bit and then went for a nice hike.  Tom had fun "rock climbing" (the ground was only a foot under him).

After the hike, we went back to the house and cleaned up, had a delicious lunch, then headed to the temple and did sealings.

After, we swung by Swig and got some refreshments.

After we got back, Tom and I drove out to a condo my sister is building and checked out the progress for her.  Then we played more games when we got back.

Then we went to dinner at The Pasta Factory.

After dinner, we stopped by Swig again. We are a silly bunch of friends.

We headed back to the house and went to the hot tub for a bit.

Then we came back and watched "When a Stranger Calls". I hate scary movies, but the rest of the group loves them. Kenny and Chris slept through most of it and I tried to distract myself with games on my phone. It didn't help, I still had a nightmare that night about the movie.  Again, we were in bed not long after 1am.  We must be getting old.

The weather was so nice and mild the whole weekend. While we were getting ready that morning, we saw three coyotes running around the turtle refuge in the back of the house (can you spot the coyote?).

We did another morning hike. My legs were sore after the second day.

The guys played a little one on one on one while the girls jumped into the showers.

After we cleaned up we made another delicious lunch (both days we had deluxe grilled cheese sandwiches, veggies and chips with different dips).

After lunch, we went to the outlet malls.

It's nice to not be rushed or worried about kids.  We were there for quite a while. 

After shopping we went to the nearby Megaplex and saw "Daddy's Home". 

We then called ahead at Texas Roadhouse and put our name on the waiting list. It was over an hour wait being 7:00 on a Saturday, so we did a bit more shopping/browsing while we waited.

Then we enjoyed a tasty meal at "The Roadhouse".

We did our third and final trip to Swig and ended up with quite the collection of cups by then.

We got back and headed to the hot tub again. 

We decided since it was our last night, we'd better enjoy it, so we played games until about 1:30am and then watched a few episodes of "Friends" until 3am. We didn't want the weekend to end.

We got a few hours of sleep. Tom looked funny with his feet twisted in the blankets and his sleeping hat on, so I took a picture of him in the middle of the night. (Actually, it was about 7am, but when you go to bed at 3am and wake up at 10am, that's about the middle.)

We got up, cleaned the house and started heading home around noon.

It was such a gorgeous, warm day in St. George. It was hard to leave knowing five inches of snow had fallen back home, and more was coming.

It didn't take too long before we started to see snow. These pics were taken about an hour and a half apart.

We stopped for lunch in Fillmore. It's hard to see the trip come to an end.

We are currently still driving as I'm putting this blog post together (it took several hours, though for it to publish, seeing as it was on my phone). The roads haven't been too bad and we've only seen a few snow flurries, but we are only to Nephi.  I figure, I'm not doing anything else right now, and since all my pictures are on my phone, I'd just use my blog app to write this now. 😊

We love our friends (aka the CLAW Club)!  It's nice to get away, build stronger relationships as a couple and have fun with our friends. We are grateful for the amazing parents we have that helped with the kids too.  

Christmas 2015 and New Years 2016

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas decorations.

 We were excited to put up our new tree that Tom got for Christmas last year.  It can be either white or colored lights (or blinks both)!  The sad thing is, the angel has nowhere to plug into.  The girls wanted to help put it on anyway.

 The following weekend we had our ward Christmas party.  I played my flute, the boys and Sophie sang with the primary kids (Jeff got to be the conductor).

 And Lily sang a beautiful solo!  She had so many compliments afterwards.

 On Monday we had a red and green dinner with our friends, Amanda and Jeff and their kids.

 We used to be in the same ward together in our previous neighborhood, but they moved shortly before we did.  It's fun to still keep in touch and get together occasionally.

 The following weekend, Lily sang in her school choir Christmas concert.

 (Shes' the second one in on the left, front row).

 The place was packed!  We ended up just standing/sitting on the floor in the back.

 That weekend, our Elf on the Shelf, Dolfie returned.  He had a nice letter with him that talked about the true meaning of Christmas and that he has a new boss (his boss sounds a lot like a young girl I know ;)

Sophie drew this picture for Dolfie.

 Saturday night was Sophie's turn to perform.  She had her Christmas dance recital.

 (she is the second one in on the right)

 She has loved taking dance this year with her friend, Tessa.

 Sunday night we did a Christmas party at my sister, Aimee's house with my side of the family.  The kids did a talent show, we had dinner, the kids acted out the Nativity and we watched the Luke II/Breath of Heaven video.

 The next day, the kids got to open their presents from each other.  

 Jeff gave Sophie some Play-Doh

 Cedric gave Jeff a Hot Wheels track.

 Lily gave Cedric Groot for Disney Infinity.

 And Sophie gave Lily some new skinny jeans.

 We had a big extended family party later that week as well.  It's with my grandpa's generation on down and is just a big pot-luck dinner.

On Christmas Eve we did our traditional swimming party with some of my family.  Although, Tom was at work and missed it.

 That night we met at our church for Tom's side of the family's Christmas Eve bash.  We all brought our own dinner and enjoyed our meals together.

 Lily must've over-done it swimming and had some anxiety, because she wasn't feeling very well when we first got to the church.  She ended up throwing up (luckily my motherly instincts kicked in and I was able to help her rush to the kitchen before it all ended up on the carpet).  So she spent some of the party in the women's bathroom where she had some sprite, soup and watched her iPod.  I'd brought a Snuggie as a wise man costume, which she used to keep warm with.

After she ate a bit, she started to feel better and was fine the rest of the time.

The kids acted out the nativity.  My niece Brooklyn, was the pregnant Mary since she really was eight months pregnant with her own baby (she didn't really sit on Jeff, the donkey). 

 Then we did the traditional singing around the Christmas tree.

 Cedric loves his uncles.

 Next we did our gift exchange with everyone.

 When we got home from the party the kids opened up their new pajamas and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

We let Cedric sleep downstairs with Jeff.  The kids were not supposed to come upstairs, but Jeff kept running up to our room because of bad dreams.  I finally just put him to bed in Cedric's bed upstairs.  The older two were up a little after 7am.  We were able to get them to wait downstairs until Sophie got up, around 7:45 before we all went in and woke up Cedric.  The kids all lined up at the bottom of the stairs, excited to see what they had gotten.

 Santa always seems to go a bit overboard.

They were excited to see the stuff Santa brought, and it kept them busy for a while before they asked to open any of the other presents.

 Jeff's stuff: Hot Wheels track, Airzooka gun, Sunday clothes, and a basketball.

 Cedric's stuff: Disney Infinity 3.0 with several "guys", a glow pillow pet, and Avengers bedding and room decor.

 Lily's stuff: A sewing machine and sewing supplies, new clothes and boots.

 Sophie's stuff:  Chubby Puppies, a princess castle and costumes and a glow pillow pet.

They all got electric toothbrushes in their stockings too, which was a hit!  And much better than more candy.

The kids played with their new stuff for a while. 

 I made scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  Cedric asked if we were watching General Conference, since that's normally the only time we have cinnamon rolls :) 

 Then my dad and Suzy stopped by for a bit.  They enjoy going around to all their children's houses to see what they got.

After they'd gone, and Tom had finished shoveling (we had gotten a HUGE snow storm that day), we opened more presents.

The kids all got a game from us, as well as a few more toys and such.

The kids had each purchased stuff at the $1 store for Tom and I too.  It was fun to see what they picked out. 

 Then Tom and I gave each other presents.  Our big gift this year was an Apple watch for each of us.

Lily and Jeff had fun trying her Bean Boozled game (they have to spin the dial and eat the color of jelly bean it's pointing to.  The trick is, you don't know if it's a good flavor (coconut, chocolate pudding, peach, etc.) or a bad flavor (baby wipes, dog food, barf).  It's a pretty crazy game.

 We also enjoyed playing Jeff's new game, Exploding Kittens.

I felt like the day just cruised by so fast!

That night, we headed over to my Dad and Suzy's house for another party.  

We enjoyed a nice dinner. 

 And then we did a gift exchange.

 And the kids opened their presents from their grandparents.

 Then the adults did their present exchange too and we visited for a bit.  Afterward, we stopped by Tom's parents house to give them their gift.  they gave the kids all some money, which they had fun spending a few days later.

The day after Christmas, we got up early again and headed down to Eagle Mountain for a party with Tom's high school buddies.  We had a nice brunch.

 Then headed over to a park for some sledding!

 It didn't take long for Sophie to fall asleep on the way home.  It was a fun morning.

That night, we got pizza, tried out our new popcorn maker and watched one of our new movies "Home Alone 2".  It was nice to just be home and relax.  

Monday, Lily and I went and got mani/pedi's.  That was one of her gifts from us and it was fun to take her for her first time. 

On New Year's eve we ended up having a party at our house with quite the potpourri of people. We had our friends, Tiffany an Kenny from the ward, and their kids, Tom's siblings, Maren with Charlotte and Kurtis with his girlfriend, Shara and her two nieces and a nephew. 

We enjoyed some yummy party food.

 Cedric and Shara's nephew, Xander hit it off and had so much fun together!

 Say Cheese!

We played several games (including Bean Boozled again).

It was fun to do games that everyone could participate in.

The little girls, Sophie, Charlotte and Tessa had fun playing together and were running all over the house with Cedric's weapons and hiding under the tree.

Sophie went to bed before midnight, per her request.

Soon it was midnight, the kids all popped poppers.

 

And some even braved the cold and did sparklers outside.

Happy New Year!