Visit with the Giles

We planned to take a trip to New Mexico just after Christmas to see Joseph newly returned from his mission.  The weather had another plan.  The roads were closed until just after our trip preventing cutoff time.  We decided to meet Jenny in Utah the first weekend in January when they took Joseph back to BYU.  We went up a day early to spend some time with the Giles.  We had a pizza and game night on Friday night and Wendi's famous sourdough pancakes and sledding on Saturday.  Even Rusty and John got to ride down the hill together.  Ridge's partner in snowball crime was Rusty, causing havoc among the throng of girls.  Kyleigh and Alyssa are inseparable when they are together and Katelyn and Abby are the best of friends.  I am so glad to know and love the Giles!

Winter Zoo Visits, 2015

Our very favorite time to visit the zoo is in the winter.  One-it gets us out of the house when we are feeling cooped up and antsy (mostly me).  Two-the animals are all out and active.  During one of these trips a little fox was running back and forth in his exhibit.  The kids started running back in forth in front of him and he started trying to chase them.  They were so excited.  And, Three-there are about 10 people in the whole zoo which makes for lots of time and opportunity for the kids to yell "take a picture of me!"

Here is an excerpt from Rusty's journal from a winter zoo visit...
"After breakfast we took the kids to the zoo.  It was very fun.  The lions were right next to the window and were yawning.  I said you could stick your head in their mouth.  Ridge thought that was hilarious and said it over and over.  The kids loved to see the geese sitting on the roof of everything."

Christmas 2014

Our Christmas tradition continues.  It was Kyleigh's year to top the tree with our Santa hat.  We had our delicious turkey dinner with all the fixings in the early afternoon on Christmas Eve followed by a Christmas light drive.  We did the nativity puppets as Rusty read the nativity and had a Home Alone movie night.  Ridge thought Home Alone was the funniest thing he had ever seen.  We opened our thrift store gifts that we had bought for each other and left cookies for Santa.

Christmas morning was very exciting.  Kyleigh got her kindle that she wanted so very, very much.  Katelyn got a balance beam to practice, practice, practice on.  Ridge was most excited for his Captain America costume, complete with nerf dart shooting Captain America shield.  He also got a little car that whips around the corners of the kitchen and moves by steering the wheel.  I think that was a favorite of the whole family along with Ridge's magnatiles.  Our family gifts included popcorn glazes and toppings.

We had our traditional Christmas breakfast of a sausage egg casserole, blueberry muffins, and juice. Breakfast is already made and ready to put in the oven on Christmas morning so I don't have to do any work and can enjoy the whole day. We ate a lot of pie and delicious leftovers on Christmas Day.
We spent the whole day playing.

We had planned to go to NM the day after Christmas but the roads were closed.  By the time they opened the roads it was too late in the week for us to leave.  So we spent extra time in our snuggly house by the warm fire playing with our new toys and enjoying each others company.

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread Houses

 It wouldn't be Christmas time without gingerbread houses.

McCall with the Keeps

 In December we spent a weekend in McCall with Shawn, Debbie, and Mitch Keep.  It was timed perfectly.  The roads were clear to drive up and then we got snow.  Besides movies, games, swimming, and lots of good food we had a really fun snow afternoon.  The pictures show the progression of some snow to a giant snowman to a snow cave and eventually snuggling into bed with a story from Auntie Debbie.