Christmas 2017!

Oh, how I love Christmas!!

This year, as it's done for the past two, it snowed Christmas Eve!  We were so glad to wake up to at least a little snow...a little is better than none!  Hopefully mother nature will deliver soon because we are waaaay behind in our snow pack this year!

 This year, some exciting gifts were:

A record player for Haley.

iPad for Morgan.

Bed tent for Piper.

Mountain bike for Rory.

Another successful year in the books!

Thanksgiving 2017

 Here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving!  Where has the time gone?!

As per tradition we made our way south to Sedona for the holiday, and we were welcomed with temperatures in the upper 70's/80's!!  It was amazing!

Some highlights include:

Hot tubbing at Grandparents' house.

Lots of mountain biking!

This marked the first time I had mountain biked since the last Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good!

Piper and Morgan joined us a few times too!

Hit up Talaquepaque.

The girls coloring on a quiet morning.

We enjoyed an outing to the V Bar V Heritage Site.

This included the largest and best preserved petroglyph site in the Verde Valley!

Absolutely fascinating!

Explored around the nearby creek.

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our last evening we sat around the fire pit and roasted s'mores!

And somewhere in there we had a feast...which I seemed to have neglected to take photos of.

Such a lovely visit!

Until next year!

St. George Trip

A couple of weeks ago the girls had their fall break from school.  We decided to take that opportunity to soak in some sun in St. George.  It was quick trip, only three days, but it was so worth it!!

We stay in the same hotel pretty much every time we're there.  The main draw is their pool side rooms...it makes such a difference with a family to have access to your room poolside.  We'll pay extra for that luxury!

The kids swam every second they could!

 Haley had to take drastic measures to be able to look at her phone in the blinding sun.  Haha!

 We also spent some time at Snow Canyon State Park...one of our favorite places in Utah!

We've been going to this state park since Haley and Morgan were babies...and I have fond memories of going there as a kid too.  So, it's always so nostalgic...it seriously is one of my favorite places!

Halloween 2017

 Monday evening (the night before Halloween) we carved our pumpkins.  It makes me so happy when it's warm enough to carve outside!  And the dogs are happy too because they get a lot the scraps!

 I think they turned out pretty good!

And to make things a little extra spooky the girls found a black widow on our porch...lovely.

This is the second black widow that we've had around this house since we moved in...the other was found in my laundry room years ago!!  Yes...pretty scary indeed!  They both met their death by being blasted with ant spray...and then squished for good measure.  Sorry spiders.

 This year we have: Lydia Deetz, a dark angel, Dorothy and a cute little witch.

And as for us: Tom Petty (it had to be done this year) and his super fan.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Hello October

I love summer...I hate to see it go...I really do.

But I have to admit, fall is beautiful around these parts!

It's peak season for fall colors, and we knew if we didn't get out this weekend it would be gone and we'd miss it!  So we devoted Sunday afternoon to driving through the mountains and soaking in some of this beauty.  Unfortunately, about a million other people had the same idea!  So we aborted our original plan of driving the Alpine Loop  (seriously, the road was backed up for miles!) and decided to go off the beaten path to Squaw Peak road.  This is a dirt road that follows the ridge of the mountain behind our house.  It was much quieter!

Squaw Peak Overlook.

It was stormy and pretty ominous for most of the day, but it made for some amazing views!

We drove the dirt road and got out at various places to walk around and check out the views.

It was quite chilly!!  The temperature sunk down into the 30's at one point!  We even saw a few snow flakes!

After our little walkabouts, admiring the views, we'd jump back in the car and turn the heat full blast to warm up again.  And then when we got home we all put on warm pj's and cozied up on the couch to watch some TV.  I don't think any of us are ready for the cold season yet!

Happy October!