Utah Trip - Part 1

Our niece, Emily, got engaged in September and planned her wedding for December 17th. We were so excited for her! Emily is one of Jenny's kids and Jenny is Kurt's sister that lives in North Carolina. We usually get to see them about every other year and our kids LOVE to see their Truman cousins. Since Emily and her fiancé were attending college in Utah, they decided to have the wedding in Utah and we were super excited since it would be so close to us and we would be able to attend the wedding.

Monday, Dec 12th - we left at 4 am and drove to Dad and Julie's house in southern Utah. We were so blessed with amazing weather while driving that day. Seriously, when you go to Utah in December you never know what you are going to get and we got lucky!

We got to Dad and Julie's house about 2 or 2:30 and helped them set up their village under their Christmas tree.

Tuesday, Dec 13th - we drove down to St. George to visit Kurt's brother, Paul. He wanted to go to a new park that was just opened about a month prior called Thunder Junction All Abilities Park. It was a park built to be more user friendly for children with disabilities. It was a super fun park for kids of all abilities.

Paul was able to get his wheelchair onto this ride called the Sway Fun.

The kids had an absolute blast playing here. It was so much fun! The only thing about this park was that you could not keep track of your kids. They just ran and ran and had so much fun!

Here is the 4 seater seesaw.

One of the kids' favorite thing to play on were these zip line things. One was a disk that you sat on and the other was a swing. There were not a lot of people there so the kids were able to just play and play and play on them. I might have even taken and turn (or 2 . . . or 3) on them too!

This was another cool swing.

The treehouse / fort thingy.

There was this cool water feature section where you could walk under the waterfalls.

Hailey in the waterfall.

Slides

Evan, Kurt, Paul and Rachael in the fort.

The boys in the fort.

Paul has a tile on the wall that has his name on it.

The musical section.

Hailey and Paul playing the drums.

We got this disk swing flying! 

This was a pretty cool slide. You climbed up the dinosaur's face . . .

and down his tail!

The kids named this skeleton "Bob." They all had a blast climbing to the top of Bob.

Bob ate dad!

When we got back, Evan had a chess lesson with Grand-dad. 

Wednesday, Dec 14th - our Truman cousins arrived a whole day early!!!! We were so excited! They decided to drive the whole night on Monday night so they were able to get across the country much faster than they thought.

Since they had been in the car a lot, we decided we should take them to the park we went to the day before. We knew their kids would love the park as much as our kids did.

Cousins, cousins, cousins!

3 cousins on a swing!

Our whole group.

Kurt's uncle George and aunt Judie live just north of St. George and invited us over for dinner. They built a beautiful house with their daughter, Cori. Their other daughter, Siri, lives super close and her and her family came over too. It was so great to see all of them again! We had a wonderful night!

Jenny and Chad, Me and Kurt, Judie and George, Cori and Andrew, Siri and Chris

The next day it was time for us to head north to the Provo area and prepare for the wedding!!!

Exciting times!

A Field Trip with the Kinder Class

November - Trevor's class went on a field trip to a mandarin farm. Field trips are always a fun time!

It was a pretty cool field trip. There was a lot of hiking around this beautiful farm.

They even had a maze set up in the mandarin fields. Me and T found the way out when everybody else was confused as to where to go. He was rather proud that we found the way. I scored big mom points that day!

At the end of the hike, you finish up at their store (imagine that!) where the kids get to put mandarins into a juicer and drink the mandarin juice. It was pretty tasty!

It was a very fun field trip and I didn't loose a single kid! Whoo Hoo! With all those rows and rows of trees I was worried someone might be a runner and take off but they actually all did a really good job of staying together.

When we got back to school, we waited for Evan to get released. He came out wearing this hat. Too cute! 

Every month his class holds an auction and they use "money" they earned in class (by doing their jobs, turning in homework on time, etc.) to purchase items donated by parents. Thus far Evan has not participated in the auction because he wanted to save his money for something good. Well, this was the day! Apparently everyone wanted this hat but because they all spend their money every month, no one had as much money as Evan so he won the hat. He was pretty excited. I just love it. It is just so cute! Good score Evan, good score!

Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year. I planned and shopped and had everything all ready. The morning of Thanksgiving, Kurt was on Facebook and saw a picture of a turkey covered in a bacon blanket and decided that he wanted to do that. Of course, I wasn't expecting to cover our turkey in bacon so I didn't have any bacon in the house so off to Walmart Kurt went. 

He came home with a ton of bacon and got to work on his bacon blankie for the turkey. Cooper was more than willing to help.

All tucked in with it's blankie!

I made a small little whoopsie of not putting the turkey in the fridge early enough. I thought it was standard for 3 days but we purchased a big bird and when I read the instructions, it said to give it 5 days. 😬

So it took the turkey a little longer to cook than I had planned. While we waited we went outside and played some games. Evan and my brother Bryan played catch with a football. Evan was in heaven! He loves to play catch and Bryan was a willing participant.

The turkey came out amazing! The bacon was nice and crunchy on top and the meat was so juicy with bacon juice. It was a definite success!

The kid table. Just love those little nieces of ours!

We had 5 pies for 12 people. There was plenty to go around . . . and around . . . and around.

We had a wonderful day!

Birthday Party Day!

November - So I am the worst, and I mean THE WORST, at throwing birthday parties. I am just not a party person. My poor kids. 

I used to do really good and throw big parties but I just don't seem to pull them off anymore. Evan's birthday was in September but he hadn't had a party yet. Hailey's birthday was the beginning of November and she hadn't had a party yet either. So I just bit the bullet and planned 2 parties for 1 day.

So, basically, I am crazy.

I planned them (like the week before) for the Monday of Thanksgiving break. 

For Evan's party, I took him and a few friends to SkyZone and let them bounce their little hearts out. Since it was a holiday week, I purchased the tickets online so that the time slot I wanted wouldn't sell out. One of the boys ended up not being able to attend so I had one extra ticket so I decided to use it for myself. 

I had a great time but definitely realized how uncoordinated I am. I face planted. Twice. Not my prettiest moments but I had fun nonetheless.

Then I brought the boys home for treats, presents and play time.

One party down. One to go!

Hailey turned 14 and had some friends over. They had a great time being girls.

Whew! Survived 2 parties in one day.