Rockin' the Wedge!

My bro, Jeffy, sent me these pictures from last week's ski outing with Rory.  I was going to pick just one, but then I decided I loved them all.  Rory is just so little!!  She looks like a little dumpling with all her ski stuff on.  

Here she is, rockin' the wedge!!

Speaking of skiing...I have my on snow assessment for my Level 1 Children's Specialist tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Our MLK day.

Yesterday afternoon marks a very monumental occasion…we got this little one (Rory) on skis!  Which means our entire family was skiing at the same time!  It was awesome!  It's a really great thing when our family hits a mile stone.  Ryan was skiing the mountain with Piper.  Haley and Morgan stayed together and skied on their own and would meet back up with Rory and me on the rope tow every now and then.

But yeah, I'm so proud of Rory!  We still have a bit of work to do as all she wants to do is zoom down the hill with straight skis…doesn't like stopping and doesn't like being helped (she's a stubborn one).  One good fall and she'll change her mind, but I opted to keep her safe and everyone around her for that matter as she was ready to plow into anything in front of her!  We'll keep working on that whole stopping thing again…she'll get it eventually!  But it was so fun to watch all the other girls cheer her on and encourage her.  Why can't they be nice like that all the time to each other?!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Happy Tuesday!

Everyday Life

We've been getting back into our more normal routine after the craziness of the holidays.  I worked nearly the entire two weeks the kids had off and I was pretty worn out by the end of it...especially with temps below 0 degrees!!  Yeah...with temps like that it makes teaching children how to ski quite difficult.  Our children's yurt was filled to the brim with cold crying children that needed to take breaks...(believe me, I was about to cry with them...I live in Utah, but there is still a little CA girl in me).  And we went through hot chocolate and hand warmers like there was no tomorrow.  

But we survived and now this week we are experiencing a bit of a heat wave with temps in the upper 40's!!

 40's...pretty much barefoot in the snow type of weather.

I've been trying to do more baking this month and trying out new recipes.

 Like these...Good Morning Muffins from The Pioneer Woman.

I've been watching her shows on Netflix and everything she makes looks so good!

And really, everything that I've tried of hers comes out delicious...I'm a fan.

And speaking of cooking...

 ...it's becoming more and more challenging with my limited counter space.

I'm sure this is not a new thing and kids all over the world love to sit on counters...(although, I don't ever remember doing it myself when I was little).  But my kids LOVE sitting, crawling around, standing (sometimes) on my counters!  I'll tell them to get down but then there they are again!  And Rory is like a little monkey...she can climb onto it without the use of a stool or anything.

In other news, we signed Haley and Morgan up for ski school.  It's a six week program through their elementary school.  Every week they'll get taken out of school a few hours early and head up the mountain for 2 1/2 hours of ski instruction.  It's a pretty neat program.  However, today was the first day and I was so full of anxiety!!  It's a lot of responsibility, they are in charge of everything...skis, poles, boots, helmets, goggles, gloves...also changing clothes, making it to the bus....sheesh! Yeah, I was a total stress case.  In these cases it is very hard for me to let go of being in (somewhat) control.  I need to let them spread their little wings and learn on their own...but it's so hard for me!!!  I'm a worrier...that's just what I do.

Morgan loading onto the bus on her way up the mountain.

I'm happy to report that their first day went very well, except for some technical difficulties with Haley's ski, but we'll get that taken care of before next week.  Haley (along with her bestie) and Morgan are all in the same group, which is nice!  So here's to five more weeks...hopefully I won't be a stress case for all of them!

And speaking of skiing....

....I'm going in for my Children's Specialist in PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America).

I have a seminar next week, a workbook to complete and then an on snow evaluation at the end of the month.

Wish me luck.

Happy New Year!

My dad took this photo of our house Christmas evening...I love it.

Another picture from Christmas...me with all my (once again) bearded brothers.  We just about have our own Duck Dynasty going on over here.  And yes...Jeff totally has a naked woman on his shirt.  And yes, I totally bought him that for Christmas.

Did I mention how much I loved having all my family together for Christmas?

It was wonderful!

We spent New Years at my folks' house and it was so much fun!

We celebrated with an authentic Dutch menu complete with Oliebollens for dessert...super yummy!

And, I might add, we all made it to midnight to ring in the new year (except for Rory who crashed around 11).

Happy New Year to you all!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning we woke up to SNOW!!!  And lots of it.   We hadn't had any in the Valley yet, and we were hurting pretty bad at Sundance for skiing.  So it was a Christmas miracle!!  

Santa Came!!

The kids...well, okay, Haley got up at 7:00 Christmas morning and pretty much paced around our room until we got up.  We woke everyone else up (which is sooooo hard for me to do when we had such a late night the night before...but you know, gotta do what you got to do!)  

The girls were thrilled!

Favorite gifts have to be the Zoomers that Haley and Morgan received from Santa.

Piper and Rory were thrilled to get princess dolls  from Grandma and Grandpa.

I gave Ryan a skateboard (he's been wanting one to use for quick trips to the market or taking the girls to school...also it's pretty nostalgic for him...he can reminisce about his old skater days).

And my big give was a Fitbit.

I get a D- for picture taking.  Not sure what happened...shame on me.

But the day was good fun!

I'll try to hunt down some more photos!

Merry Christmas!

So, a few weeks ago I had this dream.  

I was probably stressed about everything that needed to be done this month, and with starting work again my time is little more limited.  

So yeah, the dream.  I dreamed that we needed to get our Christmas cards done and to save time I had everyone get together to take a quick selfie with our phone.  I slapped it into a Christmas card and wrote, Have your "selfie" a Merry Christmas! 

I woke up loving that idea and got to work...

Behold, our Christmas photo for 2014.

Hey, it's December people!  It's all about survival at this point!!

And I might add that this was the easiest photo we have EVER taken as a family...it was meant to be!

And I do hope you have your "selfie" a Merry Christmas!!

From our family to yours!

Saying Goodbye

Last week Ryan drove to St. George for work...for those out of the know, it's about four hours south from us.  It was just a day trip, he left at the crack of dawn and was going to be home by nine that same night.  (I find it fascinating that he can do 7-8 hours of driving round trip, meet his dealers/work and usually squeeze in a bike ride in there at some point, all in one day.)  

Anyway, unfortunately he broke down in Cedar City on the way home (Cedar is still about 3 hours away from home).  He got it towed to a place, but everything was closed or closing, so he had to stay the night there.  He found out in the morning that the timing belt (this would be our second one) snapped and ran havoc to the engine, untimely killing it.  The guy quoted Ryan $9800 to replace the engine!  That just wasn't going to happen for a car with over 200,000 miles!  Even if he towed it back home (which would run us 500 dollars) and get another quote, we wouldn't have gotten anything better than $5000. 

So, in the end, Ryan decided to say his goodbyes and hand it off to the wrecking yard there in Cedar (who ended up giving us more than we expected for it, so that's nice!)  Although, I have no doubt that they will fix it and our beloved wagon will end up being sold and driven again...it's too nice of a car!

A couple shop kids from a bike shop here in town took a little road trip and picked Ryan up for me, (how nice is that?)   Operation Saving Private Ryan!   The logistics with my kids made it difficult for me to go, so I'm very grateful for them!  

Ryan snapped a couple of photos before saying goodbye.  Oh how we loved that car!!  So many memories!

 This one kills me...just heartbreaking seeing it get towed away.  It so crazy how we can get so attached to cars!

So that all happened on Friday and by Tuesday Ryan made the purchase for his new rep mobile.  He can't really waste any time since our livelihood pretty much relies on Ryan driving...the life of a rep!

Volkswagen seem to be our thing...

It's a 2012 Jetta Wagon...we pick it up today!