A spring ski day at Snowbird

We decided to ski one more time at Snowbird.  It was a spring ski kind of day with a little ice in the morning and a little slush in the afternoon and it was nice and warm!  I thought the day was wonderful!  I enjoyed skiing with my girls... and watching their skills improve throughout the day.  In the morning Cameron went off to ski the tall slopes and I sent Ali and Ashling to ski by themselves while Annika and I skied together.  After lunch we all enjoyed some skiing together.  

At the end of the day we all enjoyed a ride up the tram to the top... It was quite a steep place to be and I was a little leary of the ledges where the snow rounded off but it was beautiful and we could see Heber from down there.  

Day Trip to Zion

We went up to St George for Grandma Moore's 85th birthday.  I would have pictures of that but the incredible wind and dust caused us all to look such that I didn't feel like taking pictures.  Nevertheless we had a great afternoon playing birthday party games and watching the second cousins play around together.  All the great grand kids who were there were girls and they all got along great.  

The next morning after church we decided to drive through Zion on our way to Utah.  Here are some pictures of our drive.  

 Annika really loves her Papa

 All the girls really wanted to do was swim in the Virgin river.  

I climbed this peak (Angels Landing) several years ago.  I like this picture of it.  

 We went on a little walk and Annika had to run around.

I have also hiked the Zion Narrows which was a great hike.  

 Annika learned to climb the rocks. 

 Wow!  That is one hot guy!

 The girls playing in the river

 Mike hiked the narrows with us when we went.

We are reluctant about being photographed.  We like this picture of our back half just fine.  

 My kids have the best Grandparents.  

 Here is an actual family picture of us.  

Field Trip to the Living Desert

Annika's class went on a field trip to the Living Desert.  

Here is Annika who wanted her picture taken on a wild pig.  

 This is the bird that Annika took a picture of from the show we watched

 The best part of the Living Desert was the bird exhibit. They gave us a stick with bird seed on it and we walked into a room with a ton of birds.  The birds landed all over everyone trying to eat the bird seed.  Annika loved it... me not so much...

     The living Desert always reminds me that I have a serious weakness for heat.  I could not handle the hot 95 degree heat and was grateful to get back in the car and refresh ourselves with ice cream on the drive home.

Family Walk

We went on a walk by the Jordan River near our hotel one afternoon.  It had rained all morning but the afternoon was beautiful and it wasn't even that cold.  Pretty amazing for February!  

A New House

Our Lot 

We are purchasing a new house to be built in Heber City, Utah.  Here is a picture of the lot.  It is full of rocks but it has some views of Timpanogos and also is in a nice neighborhood.  We are excited to move there as we are relocating for Cameron's work.  

We have been to all our construction meetings and have decided a lot of things.  It is fun to decide how it will all come together and I am excited to see how it will be.  Here is a sneak preview of some of our choices.  I really like the process of buying a house and choosing how it will all end up.  

Color choices - carpet, wood floor, laminate counters in bathroom.  

wood floor, cabinets and granite counter top in kitchen.  

cabinets, laminate counter top, and tile choices.  

Neptune Park

We really like this park that we visited while in Utah.  It is a fun play to play for the adults and kids.  

Home School

I decided to try Home Schooling the kids for the rest of this school year.  There were a variety of reasons for this including annoyance at the downside of public education, boredom of my kids due to teaching with no child left behind in mind, I was curious if I could do it, and Cameron's job has a lot of benefits for travel if we could not have school to hold us back.  So in January we were finally admitted into the charter school I chose to use.  

It has been a fun process to watch my children learn and to have more control over what they learn and how they learn it.  They are happy to have extra time each day and sometimes bored with the choices available for that extra time.  They are great learners most of the time although they complain when they  do an assignment.  I feel there is a lot more time for individual instruction and for fixing holes that were in each of my child's progress.  I do not feel I will do this forever but have enjoyed the process and recommend it to all parents if they are able for at least a little while.

Some of my favorite things are doing math lessons with Ashling, teaching from Story of the World to the girls, and doing Ali's hated language arts text with her.  I have been very happy with the Sky Mountain Charter school.