Skiing at Sundance

This year our whole family got Sundance ski passes.  We have already been 4 times! Turns out to be a cheap family activity once you pay for the passes, the ski's, the snowboards, the ski outfits, the lost gloves, the hot hands, the new helmets you feel guilty not buying for the safety of you children and last but least the sundance chili and nachos that taste extra yummy when you come in from the cold.  We sure have fun though and everyone is getting really good.  It is beautiful up there if it would just warm up a titch!

Cousins

We went to festival trees again this year with the cousins.  The next week we had a huge cousin sleepover with all the Stalker side kids.  It was a blast.  We cooked, made ginger bread houses, and danced.  We hung out at Pirate Island for hours, everyone got a ballon animal and tons of tickets.  All the cousins then slept together on the family room floor and watched Kung Fu Panda.  The next morning we loaded them all into Grandma's van and took them to Kripsy Kreme in their pajamas.  This has become an Aunt Sandi tradition that they all expect when they sleep over at our house.  We came home and gathered everyone up and they went home.  Now that I have no more little ones in the house I really appreciate those little ones so much more.  They are just adorable! Kids, I'm not in a hurry but it makes me excited to be a fun, spoiling grandma!

The New Year!

Another year has come and gone.  2010 was a pretty good year.  We did a ton of stuff as a family together. We all grew emotionally and spiritually through various trails thrown our way.  We had some great trips to Moab, Disneyland, and San Franciso. Excited for the new year and all it has to give.  Bring it on we are ready to face the good and the bad. ( Hopefully more good times)

Conner, the Incident, and some great things.

No Mother wants her kid to come in and tell her the neighbor kids are not allowed to play him until you go talk to kids parents.  Conner apparently one day got into a fight with one of the neighbor kids and jumped on top of him and started either choking him ( as the neighbor reported) or pulling his ears ( which is conner's story) neither of which is a good thing.  Conner has always had trouble controlling his temper.  He has the sweetest heart but if you get him mad watch out.  We have been dealing with this at home by sending him to his room until he calms himself down and comes out.  This has been working great.  He knows when he is ready to return to life and be kind again.  He usually comes out and gives hugs and smiles and says he is sorry.  Big Lesson learned for Conner you can not act out in anger physically towards your friends.  Conner sat with Scott as he spoke with the parents and Conner apologized and felt very bad. This was 6 weeks ago and he has been better than ever since this incident. It was hard for both of us to go through but taught valuable lessons!

On a brighter note. This week Conner was invited to a marble party organized by a child in his class.  Ari has a handicapped mother and they have no money ect.  Conner kept telling us all week how important it was that he go to this party because Ari didn't have many friends and he didn't want him to be sad.  Even though it was terribly cold and raining Conner insisted on going to the park that day and meeting Ari.  Ari and Conner were the only two kids that showed up.  I was proud of Conner for caring so much about someone elses feelings! Maybe I'm not failing him after all.

Nikki is 12

One of my least favorite birthdays is when someone turns 12.  They go into YW or YM and it just seems it's a turning point when they aren't your little child anymore they are a teenager.  I love my Teens don't get me wrong but they are that much closer to leaving home and that makes a Mom sad :(.. Nikki has told us she wanted to go to the temple for her 12th birthday since she was 10.  So that's were we went first thing that morning.  Scott baptized her for a few family members and continued with some other names.  It was the greatest thing to be in the temple with Nikki and her loving every moment of it!  She also had a bowling costume party and a huge family party! Then a few days later she told us we hadn't celebrated her birthday as a family.  OH MY so we went to spaghetti factory for family night! My kids are never going to be able to complain that we didn't celebrate them enough on their birthday!

Love You Nikki!  I love that you always want to hang out with me, work with me, get straight A's, take care of your little brother, always smiling and helping out at home! Your friends all love you and you have the kindest heart of anyone I know.

Hawaii

Scott and I spent 9 days in Hawaii thanks to Lynne!  We had a blast tons of food, fun and adventure.  We spent the 9 days with his parents and Cary.  It was good to spend so much time with them and have a chance to reconnect.  My favorite parts of the trip were watching Scott go down for a dive, hiking almost every morning, and taking SUP lessons.  It was hard being away from the kids for so long and the last time we were in Hawaii they were with us but it was still super fun!!

The Vegas trip from *&%#$%^^^%$$#

The day after we got home from Hawaii.  My sissy and I decided to attend my Uncle Tom's funeral in Vegas.  He died of Cancer after a long struggle. My Mom was speaking and we felt strongly we should be there for her.  Well.....

After discovering this was Stephanie's first trip out of the state in 5 years I was actually excited to go with her.  We took off around 1:30 in the Jetta.  We had a tire blow out in Nephi and Scotty had to leave work in Salt Lake and come and save us.  2 and half hours later he had the Denali down to us and we took off again.  The time passed by super fast after that. Steph and I talked and talked.  We made it all the way to the strip to meet my parents for dinner when the Denali stalled and would not start in the center lane of the strip on a Friday night.  Ugh!!  A pregnant Steph and I pushed the car to the side of the road and waited.  My Dad came over and got the car to start and putted to the parking lot.  We then drove it around and it drove just fine.  The next morning I took it to Auto Zone to see if they could tell what was wrong, when I got to the parking lot it stopped working again.  This time for good.  I pushed it over to the Mechanic 3 doors down and asked them to fix it while I was at the funeral.  4 hours later they called and said it was running great!

We decided to take off for home.  We got to Mesquite fine and then........the denali died again on the Virgin River bridge in the dark.  We called 911 and fastened our seat belts and prayed for 15 minutes until the highway patrol showed up!  So Scary!  That was the most frightened I have been in my life but I always still felt a peace around us that we would be OK.  (Just hard to not be afraid watching Semi Trucks in your rear view mirror barely miss you!)

The tow truck towed us into St George where Steph graciously paid for our hotel and we spent the night.  Scotty borrowed a flat bed and a truck and left at 4:00 am to come and get us.  We drove it home and now a week later it is still sitting in my garage waiting to be fixed!  We are selling it as soon as it is!