On Christmas Day the kids and I flew up to Utah while Lewis drove home with Georgia so he could work the next 2 days and then join us up there. (click on any picture to enlarge)
This is the "you might be a redneck if" part of our trip:
Cate became a master at the big wheels. Minus the pedaling part. She also became a master of following my dad around all day long and saying "Hi YaYa" to my mom.
Matt and Lewis took the kids skiing at Alta. Actually, A took a lesson all day and B took one run and begged to not have to do it again. It was freezing and snowing at the time so how could we force him! This is the only picture of that day, though. I took it while driving back down the canyon. A had a great time skiing in her lesson and learned a lot. Lewis, Matt and John also had a great day of skiing in lots of light, fresh powder.
Jordan and I got to see a few of our old pals at a lunch hosted by Brit and Jonna. It was fun seeing everyone and all their cute kids. When did we get old?
We of course rang in the freezing cold, windy New Year in style. Fireworks, poppers, and all.
Some of us rang in the new year with a little Beatles' Rock Band action.
While some of us enjoyed a little snuggle.
Some, however, chose to do a puzzle all night long. Awesome!! Livin' on the edge!
Nana started reading and the kids just surrounded her.
Meet frosty:
He didn't live too long due to the "snow angels" dumping his head and torso into the hot tub that night.
Cate with the enormous, gorgeous tree that Matt and Jordan cut down for my parents' house.
Luckily, we were able to squeeze in an evening with the Bullocks. Our kids love hanging out together and we love talking about the good old days in Provo before kids when we had dinner together every night!
Girl cousins.
These guys are best buddies (most of the time). They just ran and ran and ran and played hard all day every day.
My cousin came over a couple of times and brought his kids. In fact, they were there when we got in late on Christmas and as soon as we walked in the door the kids just took off running and didn't stop for a good half an hour. They love playing together and S even spent the night. We went to this pirate themed restaurant slash arcade the next day and it was a total hit.
B and the boys. It was hard, but they did all look up from the DS at one time.
All in all we had a terrific Christmas vacation. Every time we go to Utah we remember how incredibly beautiful it really is. The billboards crack me up, and the inversion is nasty, but the mountains are so amazing. Oh, and the family is too ;) If I could, I would only take away the day I had nasty food poisoning and the fact that the day before we left A had massive pink eye, B had the pukes, and C had a goopy nose and cold. They were all fine by the time we left, but on the plane A kept yelling about how she couldn't touch anything because of her PINK EYE (right mom!?!?!?!). But then a girl puked behind us and took the attention off us for a minute. Lovely. Oh yeah, and there was that lady traveling alone with her 3 year old daughter who walked by me as I was trying to fold up my stroller while holding Cate and two bags. She said "I thought I had MY hands full" and then we walked by her sitting in first class on our way to the very back of the plane. Classy.
This cute little house is a part of our zoo. I really do want a big porch like that someday. And maybe a little farm to go with it (then I can put these 2 to work)!!
Can you find the chicken? 
B's favorite part is always the sheep. He loves sheep, isn't that funny? Maybe it's because he loves brushing them. Just looking at these pictures of the barn makes my eyes itch. So maybe I should rethink the whole farm idea.
The weather was so nice on Monday and since we had no school and there were no Martin Luther King Jr. activities going on (weird but whatever), we decided to head over to the zoo. Our zoo has the coolest play area in and on a big rock and a fun petting area.
