Sunday, January 25, 2009

Our Wymount neighbourhood



Isaac in last few weeks is doing INCREDIBLE!! We are very excited with the positive progress. He has taken 10 steps, is climbing onto the dining table and thinking he is hilarious and cheeky. He is starting to make more sounds and immitate more. We are starting to learn American sign, to assist us in communicating with him more. He has many forms of therapy and I am starting to see it pay off. Yay!
Beth was driving me crazy and I sent her outside and this is Beth, with her little 'gang'. (All boys!!) I was looking out the window to check up on her and this is what I saw....priceless.


This is an average afternoon school play day. The neighborhood children gather for some great exploring and fun. Each day they come up with something new to do and it makes me so grateful that we are here and the children are so happy.

Unfortunately, Isaac doesn't last long outside. He loves eating the snow and will literally put his little mouth straight into the snow and eat it! He comes up with his little nose, extremely red.



Hobble Creek Canyon.


We went on a family drive to Hobble Creek Canyon and enjoyed looking out the window to this beautiful, white winter wonderland in all its splendor. (Minus the sibling quarrels in the backseat.) We took our treasured Tim Tams (our stash is quickly running out!) and some hot chocolate to slam them in. Bethany of course, needed to go "potty" and it was very funny trying to take off all her clothes (because she was wearing a snow bib/overalls). Exposing any part of your body in that weather is horrible, let alone a cute little red bottom! (Makes me laugh just thinking about it.)




As you can see in their eyes and smiles, they were full of energy and mischief and enjoyed throwing snowballs at each other......just not recieving them. Which naturally caused a few dramas!
On the way home we saw this ice scuplture of Madagascar. All of us were very impressed, so we stopped the car for further investigating. (Which we went and saw at the dollar theatre last week on the Martin Luther King holiday with some other families. As it is half-price on Mondays, we spent a whole $2.50 for our family!!! Isn't that fantastic.)








Another thing we thought was funny on the way home was a picture of three chapels in a row. You can't see it clearly in this photo, but there is three steeples in it.

We must have been still trying to get childrens energy out and stopped off at the duck pond on campus for the last attempt of cheeky monkey energy burnout and they continued to go wild. I I have no idea how many laps around the pond Hyrum did?



Never would I have contemplated having to tell my chilren not to throw snowballs at ducks!!!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Oh the weather outside was frightful...

David decided the title should be dedicated to Paul and his favorite Chrismas song this year. "Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful...let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

Oh the good times. On Chrismtas eve a fun thing happened. We were driving to dinner at the Olive Garden with the family and on the way we saw deer near the "cupcake temple." (Our children love calling it that!) We have never even seen deer together like this, so to see them, escpecially on Chrismas Eve, caused our car to quickly turn crazy with excitement from our children. Love the magic that Chrismas brings!!!

Chrismtas eve was very relaxed and enjoyable....because we didn't have to cook!!


Christmas day was very white!!! We did a very American thing and got all our family BYU clothes. (Actually, somehow we forgot to get our cute Savannah one, but she took it very well, if it had been another child who will go unnamed, it would have been a different matter!)

We then headed to the Marriott, where some of Dave's family were staying and all gathered for a yummy lunch. We also enjoyed swimming, fun in the snow and a trip to the movies at the dollar theatre!




My favourite Christmas experience for the season was probably going to Salt Lake and going to music and the spoken word, where we were able to sit in the Conference Center for the weekly broadcast by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. Afterwards we went to the Joseph Smith building where we attended sacrament meeting. Last year President Hinckley was at this ward when we were there and we hoped to see Pres Monson this year, but unfortunately he was not there. We were able to see him at Music and the Spoken Word. The photo below is right near the room where sacrament is held.






This is David's sisters family, the Gharrings. Very cute guys!

The Lekias family, who were well known for their great shopping skills!
(Another gorgeous "oldest" sister of David's)


Hyrum just loves his "boy" cousins! (Now it is the Gibsons turn to come over for a white Christmas!)

Friday, January 2, 2009

Park City

















Park City was a lot of fun. In the below picture Beth is extremely worried because she needed the bathroom and unfortunately was a little miserable after because we just weren't quick enough!! We went tubing and had a great time. Our children were in heaven. While Dave and the 3 oldest went tubing, Esther, Isaac and her cousin went to Park City outlets. We kept Isaac nice and warm and Esther's cousin very HAPPY!






It was fantasitc to spend time with the family and enjoy another white Christmas with them.









Park City was FREEZING cold. Our little tour of the shops in the heart of town did not last long at all!!














We were in the process of waiting for a shuttle bus tour however someone suggested lunch and that was that!










The tubing runs were very quick, having opened earlier in the day. Beth and Luke were happy to go down the smaller hill and had a great time together, but the ride of the day was the last where we had a chain of at least 9, flew through the air at one stage and then crashed into a fence at the end.