The Game of Life

For our first Family Home Evening of 2011 we didn’t make any specific goals or resolutions, but we did talk about looking forward and how our choices will affect this new year as well as the future.  We used this poster and quote from President Monson to talk about how important faith is in making decisions.

It was a perfect opportunity to play one of our new Christmas games.  We had a great time playing Life and it gave us more opportunities to talk about how our choices today will affect our future.

We had so much to be thankful for in 2010.  Lots of joys and good times, but also disappointments, struggles and stress that shaped us and helped us to grow.  But now we can look forward to a new year.  2011 may bring lots of new opportunities for our family and we will also have plenty of opportunities to look forward with faith.

Big Boy Haircut

Look at these curls:

Isaac grew a pretty good crop of curly hair.  But those curls were getting long.  Some days his hair looked like this:

Or even worse, like this:

The curls in the back were especially long and he was started to form a mullet, so it was time for a haircut.  Kristin got to play hair salon while we were in Arizona and she gave him his first, big boy haircut (along with a couple other haircuts for cousins).  Before we started we had to brush out his fro one last time.

It pretty much went downhill from there.

I think we traumatized the poor boy.

It was fun to see his two cowlicks in the back.  Bye, bye mullet!

Once he settled down, he was proud of his new look. 

And after I finished being sad over his lost curls, I liked it too!  He looks so much older.  I feel like we went to Arizona with a baby and came home with a little boy. 

Lee couldn’t be prouder of his little man, and now Isaac looks even more like his old man!  He sure is cute no matter what his hair looks like.  I’m glad Aunt Kristin left a few curls on top though…

Mesa Temple Lights

While we were in Arizona we spent an evening at the Mesa temple grounds looking at the beautiful lights. 

There were a ton of lights which just added to the beauty of the grounds.  The camels were a big hit with Isaac and Grace.  But they were both disappointed not to see Angel Moroni on the temple!

Not sure what Isaac was so upset about…

We met up with the Myers family that night, which made it even more fun.

We were glad we were there while the lights were still up, it was such a nice evening.

After the temple we stopped by Nielsen’s Frozen Custard which was pretty darn good! 

Polar Dip…In Arizona

The one thing that Emma was looking forward to the most on our trip to Arizona was taking a polar dip in Aunt Kristin and Uncle Darcy’s pool.  In the summer their pool is nice and warm, heated by the hot weather.  In the winter, it’s way too cold to swim in.  Emma didn’t care, she couldn’t wait to jump in.   She was joined by the other crazy members of my family.  David and Darcy went first.

Notice the look of shock on Darcy’s face!

Emma and Tenley weren’t far behind.

Crazy fools!  That water was cold!  Tenley and Emma kept jumping in after their first plunge.

It got crazier when the little kids wanted to join them.

Even little Ryder made it in.

After everybody else had called it quits, Emma and Tenley kept going.

She got her wish!  A polar dip in Arizona in December.

Once wasn’t enough for her though, she asked to do it again for the next couple of days.  Whose daughter is she anyway?

The Best Part of Christmas

The best part of Christmas was yet to come…

We hit the road bright and early on Christmas morning, at least it was Christmas morning for everybody else.  Bright and early the next morning, 22 1/2 hours of straight driving later, we pulled into my sister Kristin’s driveway in Gilbert, Arizona.  My parents, two sisters, and my Grandma Dorothy made the trek along with us.  My brother David and his family had arrived a few hours earlier after their long drive from Texas.   We were very pleasantly surprised with how well Isaac and Grace did on the trip.  They had a few moments, but overall did great.  Emma has always been an awesome traveler, so we weren’t too worried about her!  Needless to say we were all pooped.  We kind of lazed around most of that day, but later that night we had the treat of seeing our good friends Meredith and Molly and their families.  We don’t get to see them enough so we love any excuse to hang out with them and chat!  They brought along their Grandma Nadine, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Shelly who were also visiting from Oregon.  We thought it was funny that we had to travel all the way to Arizona to see them.  Hi Aunt Shelly! =-)   It was fun to see their kids and I’m bummed we didn’t get any pictures.  It was a crazy full house that evening!  We were also bummed that Meredith was leaving the next day on a trip so we didn’t get to do anything else with her, and then Molly got sick which squashed our plans with her later in the week.  Maybe next time.  Actually, why don’t you guys come to Oregon?

The rest of the week was filled with craziness and fun.  It was so nice to have my entire family together.  It’s been a couple years since we were all together.  Kristin’s house was full to the brim with 10 grandkids and 11 adults (we’ll count Tenley as an adult, just this once!)  The fights over the bathrooms weren’t too fierce. 

The first few days we were there the weather was beautiful.  Sunny skies and short-sleeves temperatures.  That allowed for walks, playing outside, and going to the park. 

Emma got lots of practice on her Heelys and Lee even got a lesson from Darcy.

The cousins had a dinner party outside on the trampoline one night.

Good thing we got outside a lot on those days, because then it got COLD.  The rain poured down in the middle of the week (of course on the day we were scheduled to have family pictures!), and then it was cold until we left.  It was in the 80’s the week before we got there, but when we were there and anxious for warm weather it was in the 40’s!  I didn’t know it could even get that cold in Arizona.  We still had fun though.  We went out to dinner with the Myers family one night.  It was great to see them and to catch-up with them.  We were able to hook up with them a couple other times during the trip which was nice.

Baby Charlotte and Baby Logan got fed lemons at our dinner out, they didn’t seem to mind!

BJ’s was a must while we were there so Lee could try a Pizookie.  It was yummy, and perfect for a chocolate chip cookie and ice cream fiend like Lee!

Notice Lee’s empty dish!

Lucky Charlotte was the only little kid to go out with us that night, while Grandma Dorothy stayed home with the rest of the cousins.  Emma got to go with us too as a reward for all the times she and Tenley took care of the other little cousins. 

Many movies were watched and video games played on Darcy’s huge projector screen.  It definitely provided some good entertainment!

We had our Christmas gift exchange for those gifts that hadn’t already been given.  The marble runs that Grandpa made were just as big a hit in Arizona as it was in Oregon!

My dad wrote a Christmas story for each of us kids that included his testimony.  Something I will always treasure.

One day we were able to attend a session at the Mesa Temple.   It was nice to be there with our family (we missed you Mom!) and to enjoy the beauty of that temple.  It is very different than the Portland Temple that we are used to.  I love older temples!  Afterwards we went to Café Rio for sweet pork salads.  Yum!  Me and Lee’s first taste of a real pork salad instead of just knock-offs!

Of course there were some fun and crazy moments.  There were also some crazy, pull-your-hair-out-with-so-many-people-in-one-house moments.  Kids fought over toys (especially the three 2 year olds), kids had melt-downs, we got tired, Kristin’s house was trashed, but it was all worth it!

It was totally worth it to see Grandma Dorothy playing and interacting with her great-grandkids.

It was definitely worth it to see all the cousins playing and having a blast.

They are one fun bunch of kids.

Most of all, it was worth it to be together as a family.

It’s pretty safe to say that everybody had a good time.  Isaac and Grace were in heaven with all the new toys.  Isaac quickly found the cars and trucks, and loved playing with the Legos.  Gracie would sneak into Avery’s room when Avery and Ashlyn weren’t in there and play with all the girlie toys.  The twins had some good fights with Ryder, but that made the many moments when they played happily even better.

Emma was so sweet with all her cousins.  She is the oldest by five years so she had lots of opportunities to cuddle and take care of kids. 

She left the sweetest notes for Kristin and her family when we left, she was sad to leave.

We were all sad to leave!  Not only would we miss everyone, but we didn’t want to get in the car again for another long drive…We decided not to be as crazy on the way home and we stopped in Sacramento, CA for the night.  We stayed with a friend who used to live in our ward, Erna Seibold.  She was Emma’s Primary teacher for quite awhile and so she was thrilled to see her again (I wish I got a picture of the two of them together).  Erna was so gracious and so kind to let us stay with her.  It made the trip so much easier!  On the way home we happened to stop for gas at a spot where they had a WWII museum complete with tanks and army vehicles.  Isaac was in heaven and he loved looking at them.  Emma and Gracie were impressed too, but Isaac talked about them several times on the way home.  Thankfully he didn’t seem too upset over the big tumble he took while we were there that left a scrape and bruise on his forehead. 

Emma was awesome all the way home, the babies weren’t quite as good this time around.  Overall they did great, but we had more moments like this on the way home than we did on the way there:

It didn’t help that they went home with colds.  Here they are in stereo:

Yah, we were glad to get home.  We had worked really hard before we left to have our house and all of Christmas cleaned up and organized.  But the kids were happy to see all their Christmas gifts they had forgotten about and our living room looked like this shortly after we got home:

It may or may not have stayed like that for several days…

We really had a great trip.  Some highlights will be coming in separate posts (this one is long enough!), but there are a few notable things I don’t want to forget:

*the tastiest pumpkin cheesecake ever!  Thanks Kristin!

*my first trip to Hobby Lobby.  I’m so jealous.

*making hair clips and baby legs.  Figuring out Kristin’s new sewing machine.

*family pictures in the RAIN

*blingy jeans

*the dessert nazi =-)

*Charming Charlies

*Half Price Books

*the orange stolen from the temple grounds

*steel cut oats and bran muffins for breakfast every morning

*Kristin’s kale smoothies

*A wasted trip to the Mesa Historical Museum because it was closed!  We salvaged that trip by finding my grandparents first house on Matlock St. in Mesa and then driving past my mom’s grandparents’ houses.  Then past the Russell property.  It was pretty cool!

Thanks Kristin and Darcy for letting us all invade your house.  Thanks Mom and Dad for being awesome parents and having pretty wonderful kids with even better families!  We love you!