Couples Retreat St. George 2013

Due to someone's aversion to her carseat after the 11 hour drive up to Salt Lake, I was very grateful to brake up our trip home by stopping in St. George.

Annie and Victor came with us, which is fantastic as St George is Annie's home away from home and it was great to spend some more time with them before they flew off to Japan for the next couple of years.

We stopped in Beaver at the Timberline Lodge for lunch.  (Apparently it's becoming a family tradition without Annie and me so we forced our way into their tradition!)

Luckily, I had Annie with me to drive while I kept Laila entertained.  She even fell asleep while snacking on Cheerios.

When we got down there, we went to Snow Canyon which is beautiful.  Sadly, we didn't hike much due to the fact that we had our puppy.  But, we still got to enjoy some unique scenery!

I loved being there with my sister.

That night we were supposed to eat at a cute Greek restaurant that my sister loved, however it is now being turned into a pizza place.  Sad day.  Luckily, we stumbled on a cute little place called, Cappelettis.  My salmon salad was pretty delicious. Therefore, it was a good find.

Thanks to Camille's suggestion, we frequented the Swig multiple times on our short visit.  Their Dirty Dr. Pepper was an explosion of amazingness.  I only got to enjoy a few sips, but it was totally worth it!

We had a great hotel room/suite set up which was perfect to just relax and hang out.

At bedtime, Michael went with Victor and Annie to the hot tub.  It was a cherry on top of a great day.

Saturday morning, we headed out to Zions National Park.  Thank goodness we had Mel's car.  All the clothes she had in there kept us warm.  Thanks, Mel!

He can definitely pull that jacket off!

We enjoyed some pretty amazing icicles and many closed trails because of those massive icicles falling.

 Laila loved stopping and looking at some dear.  She would point and delightfully babble something in her magical baby language.

 Adelaide loved being with Annie, my other siblings would say it's not fair because Annie looks like me so Laila would go to her. :)

Zions is beautiful!

Laila at lunch. I LOVE those little hands!

It was the perfect way to break up our dreaded drive back to reality and it was the perfect ending to a wonderful Christmas break!

 We definitely are going to miss these folks.  Japan is really far away.  And three years is a really long time. I guess we are just going to have to get our passports ready for a trip there....
Ok, Annie?

PS...

Oh man.  I forgot one of my favorite pictures from Christmas break over the last post, so I had to create its own post. 

Thank you to Camille for capturing this moment and staying with them while they slept.  And thank you to Mel Mel for being such a great babysitter.  Next time, put pillows next to her in case she rolls. Ok? :)

I love having free babysitters!

#weliketalkinginhashtags

Time goes by so fast when we are with our families. We have so much fun just being with each other and creating memories and inside jokes. This Christmas we had a lot of fun making some hashtags.  Thanks to Mel Mel constantly taking our phones and leaving us hundreds of gems like these...

 #melmelsmugshots

Will got his Eagle Scout Award.  I'm pretty darn proud of that brother of mine. He's also looking pretty handsome lately too.

After the Court of Honor, we went home and had a second Christmas morning.  Everyone was pretty excited to watch Adelaide open her gifts.  She takes the job VERY seriously.

 (Thank you, Annie for capturing this!)

 Laila loves being with her aunts and uncles.  They are constantly taking "5 minute turns" and loving on her...

#onlygrandbaby

We also went and got updated family pics.  Our photographer is awesome... (#melmelsmugshots)

She sure does love her grandpa...

New Years Eve was a pretty nice evening.  We all went out to eat at Buca Di Beppos. Delicious.

 Had a little Just Dance tourney.

Some cuddling...

 Laila went to bed like normal at 8ish.  However, she didn't want to miss a thing and woke up at about 8:30 and refused to go back to sleep until 11:58 PM.  I thought that was a bit of a cop out! After all that fighting she didn't even make it to the countdown?!  (No pictures due to needing both arms to wrestle- I mean hold my baby.)

My poor younger siblings had to go back to school on the second.  So the marrieds went to Provo for the day.  It was fun going back to our old stomping grounds- even if it was freezing outside. #gladidonthavetowalktocampusanymore.
We stocked up on some BYU gear, as it's hard to come by in our neck of the woods and made a stop at the Museum of Art to see an Andy Warhol exhibit they have.  Laila had her first experience with modern art... It definitely touched her. (Literally)

 Annie and Victor enjoyed it too.

Then, Annie and Victor convinced us to enjoy some food that our comfort levels have prevented us from trying before.  It's an authentic Chinese restaurant with a hot pot, dumplings and everything.  I felt like it was pretty much Chinese all-you-can-eat-buffet.  (I think that's why Victor likes it.)  They had preordered the dumplings for us. (Which were delicious- by the way)  Then you just have a boiling pot of broth on your table.  You pick up whatever you want to eat- chicken, beef, veggies, etc.  And stick it in the pot to cook.  Victor put a few more things in there than I would have cared for, but to each his own I guess. :)  For how very questionable it all seemed to me, it was actually really good.  I'm glad they forced us to not be babies. Plus, they had unlimited popsicles or ice cream sandwiches for dessert! NICE!  I was won over!

We had a great couple of weeks in Utah.  We are definitely blessed with families who love and support us. (And also spoil us to the point of being extremely full and having a jammed pack car + some!) We love them and are thankful everyday for the solid foundation that we were built from.

White Christmas

On Friday, December 21 we left the Valley of the Sun for our White Christmas. And that is what we got.  Although our thinned out AZ blood nearly froze, we all LOVED the snow! Even our puppy...

Watching my little girl try to crawl in her snowsuit was just too funny. "I can't get up!" -Name that movie...

I got to go skiing with everyone this year and it was beautiful being in that powder again.  Never mind the snot-cicles and frozen face.   It's just too much fun!

A big highlight of our trip was being able to Skype with Elder Shields in the Philippines! I have never seen him so happy and chatty before.  You could really tell that he truly loves the Message he is sharing to the wonderful Filipino and knows how true the Gospel is.  He is a great missionary and will definitely change people's lives for the better.

Getting a picture of these two cousins was not easy but they looked adorable in their Christmas Eve pajamas.

I love her little Santa bum.  And I love the way that Brycen looks at her.  And I love her crawling to her mama. It's pretty wonderful.

We had a fantastic Christmas morning.  And as you can tell, we were definitely spoiled.

Our little Adelaide went to her very first BYU Basketball game at the Energy Solutions Arena.  It was very nice seeing all those cougar fans in Salt Lake. BYU Blue is a beautiful color.  Just sayin...

In this next picture, I don't know if you can tell how excited Brycen was to meet Cosmo.  Just a little bit... He came back shouting "He touched my hair! He touched my hair!"

Overall, we had a fun week being together, playing games, having some volleyball tournaments, staying warm, and watching family love on our Sunshine Girl.

Laila loves Grandma- and carrots. And although bath time was a bust...

 She loved being with her family.  Especially her cousins...