Wrap it up, ring it in

Well hello there.  It’s been quite a holiday season for us here at home.  Seeing as it’s almost Valentines Day I’d best post how we celebrated the end of 2011!

We piled in the ol’ Navi once again and went to Utah for Christmas to be with family and friends.  The trip was almost canceled when our heater decided to act like a/c full time.  But after tweaking with it we realized that heat was still reaching the back seats just not the driver and front passenger seat.  So Carl and I put on some layers and packed blankets for each of us and made sure the boys were bundled up comfy.  And away we went, far too excited for the trip to let a little thing like -15 degree temperatures slow us down.  And it did drop that low, but only for about 20 minutes in one portion of Utah.  We blasted the heat in the back to compensate for the cold air up front (we had to keep it on in order for the backseat heat to work).  At one point Crew had stripped down to his undies while Carl and I were in beanies and coats.  He kept saying, “I’m sweaty!  Can you turn the air conditioner on?”  Pretty funny!

We arrived at our parents’ homes and spent 10 fun filled days with our kids, family and friends.  Here’s what we have to show for it:

We rode Trax to downtown SLC with Nana, Papa, Britney, Greg, Daxton & Boston.  We stopped in at Deseret Book for a free gingerbread cookie and met up with Jay and Janice, Janica (and soon to be baby), Seth and Warren and Nathan before seeing the lights at Temple Square.  IT.WAS.COLD!!

A quick family photo in front of the temple where it all began on June 6, 2000.

Or at least our best attempt at a picture.  Kids don’t like to hold still and smile when they’re turning into popcycles.

Aw, I just love this guy. (And I love that Carl’s beard grows in red!)

We made one quick walk around the grounds and then hightailed it out of Temple Square and back to the Trax station with minimum frostbite.  How quickly we forget how cold it gets in the wintertime there!  Yeesh!

The kids were the happiest when they realized we were leaving!

Goofing off and thawing out on Trax back home.

{Daxton and Crew}

{Britney and Boston}

{Nana and Jax}

Milo didn’t make it 5 minutes on the tram.  He was out like a light until the next morning.  Yes, I put him in his Pj’s.  Ha!

My parents have been holding a gingerbread house contest on Christmas Eve so we were pumped to be here for it.  There was a lot of trash talk and intimidating texts between me and my siblings leading up to this.  You better believe we came with our A game.  For the record, we made a special call in to Nana before arriving to find out what the rules of the contest were.  Structural support was allowed, we just had to provide our own supplies and bring candy to contribute to the pot.  Here’s what we started out with.

The timer was set for 2 hours.  Ready… Set… Go!  Carl, being experienced in construction (not really) began building the framework for our creation.  Milo sampled the candy to make sure it was up to code.

Brit, Greg and Daxton built a neat little bird feeder.

K

Kolby and Dustin recreated a scene from 300.

It was pretty awesome… and I haven’t even seen the movie!

Court and Joe built their dream home, complete with stained glass windows.  Peyton just wanted to know when she could eat the gum bricks.

Ryan and Ashley made a replica of my mom’s mantle clock.  And there’s no cardboard holding that stuff up.  Now that’s skill!

Milo carefully applied the candy, even Crew was impressed at how well he helped out.

And here’s our finished house.  Do you recognize it?  It’s the house from the Disney movie Up.  I love that the husband and wife in the movie are named Carl and Elle.  We modified it a bit.

Everyone voted on who should get the awards my dad had come up with.  We won most colorful.  Crew and Jax were pretty happy about that.  And I must say, I was a little nervous at how Crew would deal with this.  He tends to be overly competitive.  But he laughed, allowed Daxton to help us (even though he was technically the opposition), and cheered everyone else on when awards were handed out.  I love this tradition!

Then we had dinner.  Mmmm ham.

Peyton and the boys opened their pj’s.

And posed for a few pictures.

{Milo, Crew, Peyton, Jax}

And don’t forget the mandatory ninja pose.  It took Peyt a few tries to get this down but she was all set once she put Nana’s slippers on.

Then we read a few Christmas stories and said goodnight to the kids.

This is what they found the next morning!

Santa brought Peyton a new Tricycle and the boys Plasma Cars!

Jax and his new block set.  He LOVES to build.

Milo and his new race car track.  Did you ever have a marble track like this?  It’s awesome!

Crew and his new Spiderwick Chronicles series to read.

Dad and his new game to play with friends “Cidadels”.  Good thing, all our board games are long since trashed from the kids.

And here’s me getting all teary with my new Harry Potter series!!!  I’ve wanted this for so long!

Peyt and her hilarious bounce horse.

All ready for church.  I can’t remember the last time Christmas hit on a Sunday but it was nice to sing the carols (again, I cried.  Sheesh.) and be reminded of why we really celebrate Christmas.

Then we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for Christmas dinner with Car’s family.  It was a really fun filled Merry Christmas!

Over the next several days we did lots of fun things.  Carl’s mom and I took our usual trip to D.I. for thrift shopping.  I didn’t find anything fun this time but I did see this and couldn’t help but laugh.  I guess the craze if finally ending in Happy Valley.

We ate at Rumbi Grill, or “Rumbly Grill” according to Crew.  He still asks when we can go back!  I’ll admit, it was pretty tasty.

{Jax & Crew}

And we decided that Milo can and will sleep anywhere!

We went to Cabellas.

And had a few good laughs!

Another day we visited a dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  I’ve never been to a museum like this.  We were all very impressed.

Jax kept telling us he had to use the bathroom but then we’d all get distracted by the next cool exhibit.  Next thing I know, Jax is crying and both his legs are wet from his waist down to his shoes.  Yep, peed his pants.  So we had to leave before seeing everything.  Both Jax and Crew were devastated.  Carl and I felt terrible because we hadn’t paid closer attention to Jax.  But the ticket clerk was understanding and after talking with her manager gave us free passes to come back another day and see all that we missed.  The day was saved!

Carl’s buddy Charles invited us to go up to their property in the mountains and go sledding.  There wasn’t much snow to speak of (which was the case the entire trip) but we still had fun with our new friends.

The kids cooked hot dogs around this fire made from some tubing and an old tire.  Very cool!

Crew and Jax tried their hand at BB guns… and lived to tell about it.  Barely.

Jax made the perfect snow angel.

And Charles took us for a few sledding runs with the snowmobile.  I forget how fun sledding really is!

Paul and Lisa let us use their truck to haul the 4wheeler up the mountain.  Judging from this picture I’d say it was a successful day!  (Thanks Pauly!)

We all cleaned up and made a mad dash back up north to Matt and Deanne’s for a party with all our Utah buddies.  My boys absolutely adore their girls Macy and Peyton.  I must admit, they’re pretty rad.

Poor Jax.  He threw up when we came down from the sledding.  We diagnosed it as car sickness (he get’s motion sick all the time) and had him sleep on the drive to the party.  He ended up sleeping all night and woke up just minutes before the party was over.  Just in time to throw up again.  But even after all that, he was still all smiles.  That’s how much we love these girlies.

Jax was sick the rest of the night so we decided to skip a potential day of snowboarding (there wasn’t any snow to be heard of anyway) and opted to lay low all day.  We watched lots of movies and didn’t leave the house except to buy diapers.  This is what happens when you have several fun filled days without a nap.

Saturday was our last day in Utah so Carl and I split up to maximize our last few hours of fun.  He took the boys back to the dinosaur museum to make up for the pee incident.  This time they were able to dig for fossils and see all the other cool exhibits we’d missed.

I joined Joe, Court and Peyton for a shopping trip to an antiques warehouse I’d heard about called Euro Treasures Antique.  Apparently the story is this:  A man in London was a sort of antiques hoarder and collected all this stuff.  He became ill and sold all of it to the warehouse owners.  There was so much stuff that it took them 3 years to have it all shipped to Utah!  We walked in and oh.my.word.  I’d never seen anything like it.  The upstairs was dedicated to just chairs with a few tables and desks.  Look at it!  An ocean of chairs!  Some had their dates of origin.  I found one that was from 1200 A.D. and it was NOT cheap.

Downstairs there were pianos, old doors, stuffed lions (!!), everything you could think of.  And rows of old stained glass windows that were taken from old cottages.  Some glass cleaner and these would be beautiful.

One wall of the warehouse had been converted into a floor-to-ceiling shelving system for armoires and dressers and the like.  It was nuts.

Peyt was just as curious about things as we were.

There were so many great things to buy but the trouble was getting them back to Utah.  But I couldn’t help myself when I found this little chair for $20.  The antiques dealer said it was 200 years old.  This much was apparent when I brought it home to clean it up and realized it leans to the left.  Alot.  But I don’t mind, I think it just adds to it’s character.  And it reminds me of the fun I had finding it.

Joe took us to a great sandwich shop called Moochies for lunch.  Then we made one last stop to a shop called Home Again.

It’s a consignment and antiques shop with a totally different shopping experience from the last place.  Everything was staged so adorably that you couldn’t help but want everything in the shop.  Court and Joe bought a little table for Peyt’s room.  I chose something small this time, a little vintage water heater for $10.  Perfect for a making a cup of tea (or hot chocolate in my case).

A cord plugs into this socket and the coil inside heats up the water.  Cute, right?

It also happened to be my Grandma B’s birthday so we left our shopping and met the rest of my family at the cemetery to place flowers on her grave.  Jax still randomly says, “I sure do miss Grandma B.”

The next morning Carl packed up the car to the gills (he was a good sport about my chair) and we gave our hugs, kisses and goodbyes to everyone.  California here we come!  But the vacation wasn’t over just yet.  We planned to stop in Pasedina for a Rose Parade camp out with several of our buddies back home.  We found camp around 1am.  The boys had been asleep for several hours so they were awake and excited when we found “camp” on the street.  They snuggled in with their friends under blankets and air mattresses and drifted off to sleep.  But Carl and I had come unprepared.  Rather than trying to sleep on the ground we tried to get comfy in some beach chairs until sunrise.  Let’s just say it was a long night.  If I’d been smart I would have grabbed my phone from my purse before packing it away with everyone things for the night’s safe keeping.  All night I kept thinking I could be watching movies, playing games or web surfing to pass the time.  Oh well.  It felt like a lifetime, but morning did eventually come.  And so did the crowds.

We took down the beds and set up the chairs and mooched off everyone’s snacks.  We sorta forgot that we’d need to feed our kids breakfast and didn’t bring any food.  Ironically, our car was overflowing with travel snacks.  Again, oh well.  We had great friends that came to our rescue until Carl could get us some breakfast burritos.

And once the parade started, all inconveniences and discomforts were forgotten.  We were just a curb away from the floats.  You can imagine how much fun that was!

I’ll admit, as soon as we got back in the car to drive the rest of the way home I was totally exhausted.  And so was Carl.  He gets huge points for doing all the driving while the rest of us did this.

This past year has been crazy, fun, exciting, frustrating, sad, scary and magical.  I love closing out the year with so much family fun.  I’m really looking forward to what this year has in store for our little family.  Look out 2012 ’cause here we come!