Snow Day!

We spent the week after Christmas up in Eden. We wanted a nice little retreat and a break from the world. While we were up there it snowed and snowed and snowed some more!! That put smiles on our faces and then we put our snow clothes on and went outside for some fun.

Emily and Allie enjoyed making snow castles with their little shovel and bucket.

The snow was still coming down while we were playing but that didn't stop us from having fun.

Josh liked playing on the driveway where it was shoveled otherwise the snow was too deep and he couldn't move around.

Snowball fight! I don't know if they actually ever hit each other with a snowball but they had fun trying.

Christmas 2010

The rush! The thrill! The anticipation! Oh, to be a kid on Christmas morning! Actually, I quite enjoy watching my kids on Christmas morning.

Joshua was the 1st one downstairs to inspect everything out. Well, actually the only thing he was interested in was his basketball hoop. This kid LOVES balls so he was absolutely in heaven when he saw what was waiting for him.

For family home evening a few days before Christmas we all wrote notes to each other and then put them in an envelope, sealed it up and then stuck it in that persons stocking. So the first thing we did Christmas morning (besides Josh shooting some hoops) was read those letters. It was so nice reading those letters and it brought a nice spirit into our home.

Now let the mayhem begin!

The girls both got helmets to wear when they go skiing.

Josh loved his Woody and Buzz toys. About 1.5 weeks before Christmas Josh noticed Woody and Buzz on his wipes container and carried around for days and even had to go to bed with it. I thought these little guys would be more fun to play with and snuggle with than a wipes container.

We spent the rest of the day visiting grandparents and great-grandparents.

Puzzles and books to keep the girls entertained. Wahoo!

Sleeping bags from Grandma and Grandpa Conlin!

We had a great Christmas. Let us not forget the real reason for the season!

Christmas Eve 2010

Like every year in the past we got together with Tyler's extended family on Christmas Eve for some tasty food and for the kids to reenact the Nativity. Emily and Allie were angels and Joshua was a cow.

Then Jordan, Tyler, Jeremy and Andy sang us a few Christmas songs.

And Tyler and Andy yodeled for us all.

And as per tradition all those who are newcomers to the group (or somehow have evaded the embarrassment in past years) go up and perform The 12 Days of Christmas- with actions.

The part the kids most enjoyed was seeing Santa and telling him what they wanted.

Tyler and I even joined in on the fun.

New Name

Allie has a hard time dealing with things when they don't go exactly as she wants them to go. It can be quite challenging for the rest of us(mostly me) to say the least. The other day something set her off and she was throwing quite a fit. Joshua and Emily were trying to eat their lunch while Allie was hollering away. Now understand that Joshua does not talk a lot, although he is becoming more vocal. So as he and Emily were sitting there eating their lunch Josh turns and points to Allie and says "Whaa, whaa". That was his name for her the rest of the day. Every time we would ask him what Allie's name was he would say "whaa, whaa". We all (minus Allie) got a chuckle out of it. If only that was enough to teach her not to throw fits.

Gingerbread Houses

As per tradition we had our annual family gingerbread house making night. Well, I think it is a candy eating night combined with a little house decorating.

Emily and Allie had a lot of fun decorating their houses.

 Emily said her house was like the witches house in Hansel and Gretel.

Allie house was named the party house.

Tyler created a trailer park masterpiece. He said the little brown chocolates represented all the dog poo around the park and the broken grahams where piles of trash laying around.

Joshua had fun munching the treats and playing with dad's trailer park teeth.

Field Trip To The Grocery Store

Allie's preschool class had a field trip to the Winco grocery store down the street.

They got to go in the bakery and watch them make some bread in the big mixer.

 Then we got to go in the back storeroom to see how they store all the extra food. They also got to check out all the really big refrigerators.

They let each kid pick out an apple to take home and eat..

Then they learned about how the checkout process works and about bagging the groceries. The kids had a great time learning about all the things that happen at the grocery store.

Halloween

Emily and Allie had a Halloween party at their friend’s house a few days before Halloween. The kids had so much fun.

We played some fun games like pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Then we made some tasty spiders.

Then the kids all helped make some witches brew. They each got to add a special ingredient such as a frog, eyeball, spider, skull, and snakes. YUMMY!! While the brew was brewing we made some tasty caramel apples. The kids had a great time. 

Halloween afternoon we had a ward Halloween party. We ate dinner there and then had the kids parade around in their costumes and show everyone how awesome they looked.

 Pretty sure these 2 girls were the prettiest princesses around!

Joshua was a handsome, little cowboy. 

 Miss Allie as "Crimson Princess" as she so named herself.

 Emily as "Pink Princess"

It was raining just before we headed out to go trick-or-treating but stopped just in time for us to head out and enjoy a chilly night collecting some tasty treats. The girls were pros and Joshua caught on very quickly. He looked so cute standing on the porches holding out his treat bucket.

Apparently Tyler has had SOOO much fun dealing with people from his trailer park that he decided to dress up like one of his tenants. I can honestly say he wasn't very handsome looking. When we were at the ward Halloween party the Bishop came and was talking to me and gave me 2 little treat bags and said "here's an extra one so you can take one home to Tyler." I kind of gave him a confused looks then turned to Tyler who was standing right next to me and said "Here you go babe." The Bishop looked at Tyler and just about dropped to the floor. He did not recognize Tyler at all. It was quite funny.

The Land Down Under

My sister, Keely, and I just got back from an amazing trip to Australia. Tyler, being the awesome husband that he is, told me to plan a trip (using my passport) and get away for a little while. He would stay home and take care of the children. Really?? Who could pass up that offer? So Keely and I planned a trip to Australia. We went October 12-22.

This is going to be a VERY brief summary of our trip. I have made a book on Blurb that describes my whole trip. I don’t really want to type it out twice and I am not going to load 1000 pictures onto my blog.

We started our trip out in Sydney. We rented a car but took it right back because driving in Sydney is absolutely crazy and we didn’t want to die. We spend our first day walking around the city checking out all the sights. We went and saw the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge then we went to the Hyde Park Barracks for a history lesson. 

October is international food month in Sydney. They have a celebration every day/night celebrating a different culture/type of food. It was noodle night when we were there. We joined the locals and enjoyed sampling some different foods from the different vendors that were there.

Next we were off to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days of hiking. Beautiful! is the only way to describe this place. 

The Three Sisters. The rain let up just enough for this rainbow to appear right behind The Three Sisters.

The next day in the Blue Mountains was absolutely freezing!! It snowed on us all day long. Good thing we had good gear to keep us warm. We went on a nice long hike down into the Jamison valley.

Can you see the snow coming down? To get back up out of the valley we had to hike up 861 very steep steps. It was a killer workout.

We were then on our way back to Sydney for a good nights sleep so we could catch our early morning flight up to Cairns.

Upon arriving in Cairns we hired (rented) a car and drove up to Cape Tribulation. Driving here was 1000 times better than driving in Sydney. The roads are wider and there are less people. I have been on a lot of road trips but I can say that the drive from Cairns up to Cape Trib is probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. You have the ocean on one side and the rainforest on the other side. The drive through the Daintree rainforest made it feel like you were in Jurassic Park. 

 We enjoyed some kayaking. Of course our luck with bad weather continued. It rained on us and it was super windy. We had 4-5 foot waves the whole time. Sometimes the waves were even bigger. Keely got tossed into the drink when we were hit by back to back 7 foot waves.

Good thing we didn't let the bad weather bother us. We still had a blast. 

Climbing up to get a coconut. Pretty sure they were 100 feet up there so we decided to just grab one off the ground. SUPER YUMMY!

The amazing coastline of Cape Trib. Where 2 world heritage sites meet. Right behind where I was sitting in this picture the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef.

Next we were off for a day of snorkeling. This was our 2nd (and last) day without rain or snow. Right when we jumped in the water there was a black-tipped reef shark right underneath us. Too bad we had to hear about it from the girl next to us. Some how both Keely and I missed it.

I think I'd rather swim with this fellow anyway.

 Mr. Turtle and a huge bat fish.

After snorkeling we went and grabbed some ice cream and went on a walk along one of the many boardwalks they have there. As we rounded the corner we came up this guy (actually this one is a girl). It is a cassowary. A flightless bird related to the emu and ostrich. It is endangered. There are only about 1200 in all of Australia and 65 up in the Cape Trib area where we were. It is very rare to come across one in the wild. Keely had always joked about running into one. Although joking might be the wrong word. Keely was terrified of running into one. You see they can kill you with just one kick. Kind of scary, eh? 

The Cairns Night Zoo was a great adventure. First they fed us some super yummo food. Then we were off to check out the animals. We were able to pet some koalas!

 And feed kangaroos. I have dreamt about this day since I was a little kid. My bed was littered with stuffed animal kangaroos and koalas. I have always wanted to be able to pet a kangaroo or koala and I was finally able to.

Our last day in Australia we spent at a croc farm. We learned about how they raise crocodiles there and use them for clothing, purses and the like. They farm them so that people don't hunt them out in the wild, which is illegal. While we were there they asked for a volunteer to help them feed a quoll. My hand quickly shot up. A quoll is a relative of the Tasmanian devil. They are feisty little things and aren't afraid to attack people. If they bite you will you have to be on a plethora of antibiotics because of all the bacteria in their mouth. They are carnivores. I got to feed this quoll some dead baby chicks. It was pretty cool. Keely was jealous that I got to be the one to do it I think everyone else there was glad they weren't.

We only had 29 hours of flights and airport time before we got home. SOOO long. We flew from Cairns to Guam to Hawaii to Texas to Utah. On the flight from Hawaii to Texas a guy who was sitting 2 seats in front of me got up to go to the bathroom and got dizzy passed out and hit his head as he fell to the ground. And wouldn't you know there was no doctor on the flight so I had to play nurse. Maybe I should mention he did it a second time. Seriously? Oh, well! Glad I could help. I was even more glad when that flight was over.

I had a great trip. It was a nice break from everything. It was nice to come home though. I missed my husband and kids. Thanks Toque for letting me get away from it all for a little while. You are the greatest husband ever! Now lets go on a trip together!!