Burley

Saturday night we got to Burley to visit my parents and grandparents. We enjoyed a lovely relaxing weekend with my family. It was nice to see them since we will be missing out on Thanksgiving and Christmas this year thanks to a job in retail. I have tons of great pictures because my mom never misses a picture moment.

Visiting great grandpa Bruce and great grandma Dora:
Maddie looking through grandma's giant magnifying glass-



giant towers-

All the cousins will be doing the Swedish Christmas, Santa Lucia the day after Thanksgiving. Since we won't be there my mom let Sophie and Maddie dress up ahead of time. Garen wanted nothing to do with it.

getting some homework done since she missed 3 days of school-

some other fun moments-

I had to give Sophie a piece of licorice, it was the only way to make her stop crying!

Monday my friend Alisha came over (we forgot to get a picture :(). It was fun to visit with her and see her kids.

Then we headed home about 1:00. We stopped in Syracuse at Sara's house to take a little break from the car. Thanks for letting us run around your house, play the Wii, and eat your banana bread, Sara! Then we were off again. We made it to Evanston before we had to stop again to take a break and get some dinner. The kids got their wiggles out in the McDonald's playplace. Andy did a great job getting us home safely through all that black ice.

I thought it was funny as we came through the tunnel by Green River, Maddie was trying to convince Garen that it was a time travel tunnel and that we were going to end up someplace else.

I made the mistake of turning our heat off before we left and when we pulled in last night at 9pm the temperature in our house was about 45-burrrr! We quickly turned it way up and put everyone in warm PJ's for bed.

It did make me think, as I was changing Sophie ad she had a little shiver and I rushed to get her warm clothes back on, how did the pioneers do that? It was windy and about 15 degrees outside and I was sad to see Sophie cold for about 30 seconds. I can't even comprehend how awful that would be to try and keep your baby warm all night in freezing temperatures! This Thanksgiving I am thankful I can feed, clothe, and keep my babies warm!

Logan Weekend

We had a fun and busy weekend in Logan. We got to Logan on Friday afternoon (Maddie thought she was pretty cool for missing school-since that never happens). Friday night was Andy's surprise party which I already posted about.
Saturday first thing we got our pictures taken and Mack park. We did all of Andy's family, then our family of 5 and then individual kid pictures. I think they will be cute; I can't wait to get them back.
After lunch we headed to the temple with Amber and Zeb to do sealings. What a wonderful and spiritual experience we had. How grateful I am for eternal families and our knowledge of life after death.
Then we got to go see Brenda's cute new house and visit grandpa Ira in the nursing home.
Next Andy and I were excited to go on a date together (it's been awhile). First we ran a few errands alone (weird), then we went to the latest Harry Potter movie (it was even at the cheap theater because we are so late on going to see it), then we enjoyed a lovely meal at Olive Garden courtesy of my parents gift card. It was wonderful to spend that time with Andy!
Sunday we got to hear Andy's parents speak in their new ward, visit Grandma Pug and see grandma Margaret in her new place. Then we headed back home. We got here tired and unprepared for Monday morning, but it was worth it.
A moose we saw on our way to Logan-

cute Maddie in between getting pictures taken-

Sophie acting like the big kids-

sleepy Garen-

Bear Lake Vacation: Staying with Grandma and Grandpa

Andy's Grandparents were nice enough to let us take over their house for 5 days in Bear Lake. We truly enjoyed our time there. If we weren't at one of the places listed in my other posts we were relaxing and having fun with the grandparents.
The kids loved all the wind chimes hanging everywhere, the talking stuffed animals-mainly the talking deer head, the humming bird feeder that brought plenty of humming birds right up to the window to watch, throwing sticks in the creek that runs through their yard, playing croquette, making long roads out of grandma's blocks. Andy and I enjoyed the late night chats with grandma Janene, watching a movie with them, and looking through grandpa's old history books and baby pictures of Andy.
We also enjoyed seeing Grandma Jann, Grandpa Boyd, Amber, Zeb and Levi on Saturday.

Andy, grandma Janene, grandpa Roger-

Sophie loved the singing deer until I put her foot in its mouth, in which she full out screamed, not cried, screamed like a girl-

Everything was so beautiful as the sun was going down, I would make the kids go around the yard with to the barns, the grass field, and the creek so I could take their pictures. They were good sports and I love the pictures I got. I didn't get any of Sophie because she was always to tiered by 8pm from her lack of naps-

thumbs up-

I even got Andy in the picture action-

Andy and the kids found a dragonfly that was barely alive and freezing so they tried to save it. Maddie was cute and would go check on it every few minutes-

playing in Grandpa Boyd's truck with cousin Levi-

Sophie and Dad just chill'en-

Garen loved driving this Tractor around-

One cool baby-

Why do we buy toys when they could just play all day with a stick?-

play Croquette-

A little video recap of our trip-

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com