Amazing Sunset

One day during the girl's dance lessons it was so beautiful on the lake that everyone couldn't help taking photos of the sunset.  

In other news it was this same week that Cameron called me to let me know that the sun would be setting on our time in Running Springs.  He was informed that he would be moving to Utah in order to help with some needs for his company there.  It was bittersweet news as we have loved our time in the mountains but we have felt for a while that the time was ending.  We are ready for a new day in Utah which will start sometime in the summer... although Cameron is already going to be working there starting in February.  

Annika's Birthday

The girls all saw Frozen with their grandparents and when it came time for a birthday idea for Annika we had to do Frozen.  She got a frozen dress and cape plus a crown and earrings to wear.  

 She invited a few friends from the area and we had quite a little princess birthday party.   We pinned the nose on Olaf, decorated a snowy landscape picture, colored some pictures, played freeze dance to frozen music and had a princess pinata.  All in all it was quite a fun day!

Horse Back Riding Lessons

For Christmas Santa brought Ali a horse back riding lesson.  Here she is enjoying her day.  

Christmas Vacation Day 10- skiing at Snowbird

When we got up in the morning it was sunny and fairly warm and we were excited to spend one last day on the slopes before heading home.  I actually bought sunscreen which was a joke because we skied almost the whole day in the shade.  By now we were pros at getting ready and everything went smoothly  and we were quickly on the slopes.  We rode up the lift and took a family picture at the top because it was so beautiful.

This run ended up being quite a steep run for us all and since we didn't know the mountain well we took the hardest way down almost every turn.  Here is a picture of Annika skiing down a steep hill that doesn't look so bad in the picture but seemed hard at the time.  See her very intense pizza!

The little ones were tired as was I and we decided to regroup with hot chocolate.  (One thing to realize when skiing with kids is that a break and hot chocolate fixes everything.)  Ali and Cameron got in a couple more runs.  The highlight of the day for Ali was her dad saying that she skis almost like an expert.

After a break we put our skis back on and met Cameron and Ali at the bottom of another lift that only went half way up the mountain.  This run provided us with exactly the length of skiing that all parties were interested in.  The girls skied great and we all had fun together on the run.  After a few runs we stopped for lunch in the sun.  Snowbird was kind enough to refill our thermos and so we all had more hot chocolate.

After lunch a new area was open for the first time called Baby Thunder.  We went over to that area and found a fresh stash of powder that no one had skied on yet that winter.  There were not very many people over there yet and we enjoyed some of the best powder of the trip.  The runs were fun and we had a great time skiing them together.

The highlight of the trip for Ashling was skiing in the fresh powder.  Here is a video of her skiing it.  

We skied all afternoon over there until we were ready to go.  It was a great ski trip and we will be excited to do it again!

Christmas Ski Trip- Day 8 Christmas Eve and back to Utah

Christmas Eve was the morning that my kids got to open their presents from David and Samantha, Stacey and Tony, and Natalya, Amanda and Grandpa Putnam.  They were very excited and couldn't sleep... which was annoying because we were in the same room as them.  Eventually we got up.  It was the first clear day in Star Valley and views from the house were amazing!

We made breakfast and then let them start opening presents.

My brother said it best when he texted us earlier in the week and let us know we better have a lot of extra space because "it looked like Santa threw up in his car."  Thanks guys for all the presents for the kids!  They had a great time opening the presents, getting dressed and then doing their hair and makeup.  We had a not so great time loading the car... again.  Finally it was done.  We said our goodbyes and headed back to Utah.

I was not happy.  I didn't realize how sad I would be to leave Wyoming but I was.  We got a call after driving for a half hour only to realize that we had somehow missed Ashling's ski boots.  We had to drive back on the ice packed roads and take another hour.  Our car was covered in ice boogers... look.

 We ended up stopping for lunch in Afton and then driving the rest of the way to Orem.  

We had a great dinner with the Bushnells in Orem.  The kids played several minute to win it things and then they opened a big present with matching pjs using socks on their hands. It was a funny game.  We went back to Wade and Melissa's 

Christmas Day

The kids woke us up on Christmas and waited patiently until Wade let us all come down.  It was cute to see their pjs all match!

They all found their Christmas presents from Santa laid out on the couch and looked at all of them.  Ali got a horse book, an outfit and a horse back riding lesson from Santa.  Ashling got a tumbling mat and an art kit as well as an outfit.  Annika got a couple books, an outfit and a flutterby fairy.

We enjoyed opening presents together and we made orange rolls for breakfast.  The kids enjoyed their toys and then Wade and Melissa and kids went back over to the Bushnells while we enjoyed playing with our new things too.  We made a nice Christmas dinner and then later enjoyed playing my new game, Seven Wonders.  It was a great day and we are glad we could spend it with cousins.

Christmas Ski Trip Day 7 - Skiing at Jackson Hole again

We all loaded up to go skiing in the morning trying to get there in plenty of time for opening... it still took us a little too long and we were not there by the time it opened.   It was snowing... again.  It was beautiful snow in big flakes.  We had a much easier time this time getting up on the slopes.  Cameron and David headed up to the top while the rest of us girls skied the bunny slopes for a while.  Annika and I tried skiing through the trees on a little trail for fun.  After Joni and Chris got their ski legs we took a couple trips up to the blue traverse and did that.  It was fun.  At lunch time we got more strange looks when we ate our lunch out on a patio close to an outdoor restaurant.  The snow was actually quite wet that day and we kept getting soaked.
After lunch we decided to all ride the tram to the top.  Cameron didn't bring his skis and was really disappointed when he realized there were some runs with descent coverage from the top.  The view from the tram is really amazing!  We even saw a moose half way up the ski slopes!

Ali felt tired and ended up going home with Jodi, Chris and Holly while we all decided to ski more. We skied the traverse again as well as a couple bunny hills and then Ashling went with Joni and Samantha up the gondola to ski off there and Annika and I stayed on the greens.  Annika learned to ski quite well, she turns on a dime and it was fun to ski down the runs with her since she was skiing fast and well.  Eventually we got soaked and Annika and I had a cinnamon roll while we waited for everyone to finish.

Ashling had her own adventure with Samantha and Joni.  They skied down the mountain from the top down several traverses.  They had a crash on a steep hill between Joni and Ashling where they ended up hugging.  They had to stop for some hot chocolate...  it took forever and they were very tired by the time they got done.  But it was fun.

Cameron and David also had an adventure where Cameron tried to kill David.  He ended up calling mercy and skiing to the bottom after several steep runs that did him in.  We all met at the bottom and headed back to the house.  Ali had made us taco soup for dinner and we all relaxed after a long hard day.

Christmas Ski Vacation Day 6- Visiting Grandma and Poppy

After getting to sleep in for the first time on the trip we enjoyed Cameron's crapes with strawberries and home made buttermilk syrup.  We then dressed for church and went to the Auburn Ward Sacrament Meeting.  I was surprised to only recognize some names and to realize that all the kids I grew up with were the ones in the meeting with kids of their own!  Funny how I never imagined them growing up too.  I hardly recognized a soul and realized that I really have been away for way too long.  I said hello to a couple of friendly faces and then we left to meet David and Samantha and family at the cemetary.

On the way we saw a field full of at least 200 horses.  Since right now horses are Ali's favorite thing this was very exciting to her.  The girls got out of the car in their church clothes while it was still snowing and headed over to the horses.

They walked along the horse pasture while we followed in the car.  Finally they found one close enough to touch.  

We met everyone else at the Auburn Cemetery.  We added some snow clothes to our church clothes and walked out to my family's Putnam grave plots.  We found Poppy and Grandma's grave marker and showed the kids.  I brought them a pointsetta which reminded me of Grandma.  It was anti-climatic for me.  I wanted to visit Poppy and Grandma's graves and bring something to them.  Although their bodies may be buried there I didn't feel  them the way I wanted.  I can't wait to someday meet them again in Heaven and really see them.  

After the cemetery we drove through Auburn and looked at Grandma's house.  It wasn't green and white but yellow and they had added on to it... It wasn't her house and I was sad that we weren't stopping in to see grandma and opening the fence to see her on the porch.  It wasn't exactly the same and it made me sad.  

That evening we watched an important Sea Hawks game... that they lost and decorated the Christmas tree.  

Cameron tried to snowblow the driveway and David found something to melt the ice off the steps.  We had a great evening and a wonderful dinner that Samantha cooked.