BYU Football!

Another of the highlights of our Thanksgiving trip to Utah (for Brian & McKay, at least) was getting to go to the BYU-Utah football game on Saturday afternoon. McKay was so excited to go to his first football game, and Brian hasn't been to a BYU game since we left Utah.

This was the outing for the boys in the family, with the exception of my niece Kelsey who took her brother's place (it was too cold for him). Here's the gang before they took off.

I kept our camera with me, but our brother-in-law Greg took some pictures at the game.

Here's McKay wearing Greg's sunglasses (I'm guesing he was complaining about looking up into the sun for a picture).

Here is McKay with Greg...

And here are my boys enjoying the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the girls back home were trying to watch the game on TV (and I was trying to pack as we left for home as soon as they got back from the game). We did take a picture of all the cute little girls in their pink reunion T-shirts:

It was an exciting finish to the game - BYU came out on top at the end! Go Cougars!

We left for home right after the game, driving all night (yuck -- but it was the only way to make it home for school/work Monday morning). We did stop in Amarillo again briefly to see one more house. And we finally saw a little bit of snow!

It was funny that there was no snow in Spanish Fork, but as soon as we started driving through southern Utah, New Mexico and northern Texas, we saw snow on the side of the road.

Family Ties

Great-Grandma (my grandmother) was able to come and visit us for a day while we were in Utah. She actually rode up from CA with my brother, but had gone to stay with my aunt and uncle for Thanksgiving dinner. She came down on Friday for our family pictures. The girls loved seeing her!

Courtney and Hayley performed all kinds of "tricks" for her (Courtney did cartwheels, her frog hop, etc. while Hayley did somersaults). Then they brought her all the stuffed animals from their cousin's room and loaded up her lap!

I am so grateful that she is still here to share her wisdom and love with all of us. I know my kids don't get to see her very often, but I hope they remember the visits they have had with her.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner was yummy, as usual! But the best part was being together with everyone -- I think the count was 26!





The girls had a spot at the end of one table...



... and McKay sat at the other end with some of the boys.

So much to be thankful for!

Back to BYU

Since we were so close to Provo, we decided to take the kids up to BYU campus and bookstore one afternoon. It has been years since Brian and I were there. McKay was very excited to go see it.

We went to the bookstore and spent a fortune on BYU T-shirts (and a sweatshirt for Hannah, who begged for it). I could not believe how much money I spent on shirts! Normally I would never pay that much (especially for kid's clothes), but my kids begging at the BYU Bookstore...

Brian wanted to walk down and see the Clyde Engineering building (where he spent many hours of his time at BYU).

Here are the girls sitting on the stairs inside:

Because it was the weekend of the BYU-Utah football game, they had all the statues wrapped up (to prevent any "friendly" vandalism) so we couldn't take a picture by the statue. We opted for a bench inbetween the library and administration building.

McKay also took a picture of Brian and I (with the Harris Fine Arts Center behind us). This is the place where our story began!

Courtney's Birthday Celebration

Courtney got to celebrate her 5th birthday over the course of several days this year. We were traveling on her actual birthday, which was on a Sunday (we spent most of the day in Canyon, TX). She got to open a present early, but got the big celebration on Tuesday evening in Utah with lots of family members to sing "Happy Birthday" to her.

This was the first year that I didn't make her birthday cake. My sister picked up a Care Bears cake for us from Sam's Club.

After cake and ice cream upstairs...

...we all went downstairs where Uncle Tyler was so he could see Courtney open the rest of her presents.

Here is one of her presents, a Barbie and her "jumping" horse.

There were lots of family members on hand earlier in the evening. Many of my mom's brothers and sisters came by for a last-minute family reunion. It turned out that in addition to my mom being in town, two of her brothers were also visiting some of their kids for Thanksgiving (one came from CA and one from CO). So, with the exception of one brother who couldn't make it, they all came to visit. It was fun for me to see some of my aunts and uncles that I don't get to see very often anymore. A couple of my cousins also came with their kids. They are such a fun bunch to be around!

Here are 5 of the 6 siblings (my mom, on the far left, is #5 of 6).

And here they are with the spouses (my mom's sister had already left at this point).

I hope it was a memorable birthday for her! I can't believe she's 5!

Hangin' Out in Utah

We had a great time Thanksgiving week at my sister Sandra's house in Spanish Fork. They've got lots of room and lots of fun things for everyone to enjoy. And it was fun to just be together with my whole family. We haven't all been together since my sister got married over two years ago.

My kids, of course, were esctatic when they saw all the video game options. (They think they are so deprived because we don't have any video game systems in our house.) My sister has some games, plus my brothers both brought some of their "collections." So my kids were in heaven.

We laughed, however, looking at the pictures of all the "mindless stares." :-) I pretty much let them play as long as they wanted (except for a brief homework session) because we were on vacation and they enjoyed playing with their cousins.

This was the system on the upstairs TV (where McKay and some of his cousins slept).

Here they are in the chilly basement doing Dance Dance Revolution on Nintendo.

McKay and Hannah trying out baseball on the Wii.

And McKay enjoyed Guitar Hero on the Wii as well.

See what I mean about the mindless stares... :-)

Other fun activities included pool...

Christmas carols on the piano (Hayley was a great singer!)...

Board games...

Tickle torture from Daddy...

A round of golf for the boys on the course behind my sister's house (I took this picture from their balcony when they were on the hole nearest their house).

And watching over cute baby cousin Emma!

The kitchen table was laptop central...

And, the last picture for this batch is Hayley taking a nap with her cousin's cool shades on!

Four Corners

We decided to take a little detour Monday on our drive from NM up to UT and stop at Four Corners. It was probably only 30 miles or so out of the way and since it wasn't the middle of the night, we figured we might as well stop. I had been there once as a teenager but Brian had never been there (nor the kids obviously).

McKay had heard about Four Corners and always thought the concept of standing in four states at once was very intriguing, so he was especially excited when we told him we were going to stop.

We had to pay an entrance fee (it is managed as part of one of the Indian Reservations) and there were only a handful of people there.

We took a few pictures and were on the road again!

(I don't think Brian was very impressed, but I'm glad we stopped -- hopefully it made at least a small memory for the older kids.)

Birthday Sunday in Canyon, TX

Okay, back to the Thanksgiving trip. (At this rate, it will be Christmas before I get this all updated!)

The Sunday we were in Canyon (south of Amarillo) happened to be Courtney's 5th Birthday. She had opened one present before we left (her scooter) and we had brought the rest of the presents with us. I let her open one present on Sunday morning in the hotel room.

It was a game for our Leapster cartridge, which Ifigured would be great for the upcoming long ride(s) in the car. (It is called "Learn to Draw & Write" or something like that.)

Of course, all the kids wanted to try it out, so we had to take turns with a timer. :-)

We attended church in the Canyon Ward on Sunday. It is a pretty small ward in a pretty small building. The kids were all excited to be visitors in Primary (especially Hannah & Courtney -- I think they love getting extra attention when they get a visitor song sung to them).

Later that day, we stopped again at one of the houses we saw on Saturday to check a couple of things. Courtney and Hannah discovered there were lots of grasshoppers in the grass, and they proceeded to chase -- and catch -- several of them!

We ended the day by driving a couple hours west and spending the night at another hotel in Santa Rosa, NM. Here is a picture of the girls in the hotel room with their latest Kid's Meal toy -- "bendable" animals. (We got several kid's meals toys over the course of our trip and I think these were the favorite.) Hannah's is a bat (which she named "Morgan" because she has been reading several "Magic Tree House" books) and Courtney and Hayley both got a giraffe (Hayley's is wrapped in a kleenex because it was "sick" during the story they were playing).

Just a final P.S. about the hotel in NM. Hannah gave us all a huge scare when she ran out in front of a truck in the parking lot when we were leaving to get some dinner. She and McKay decided to race out to the van and McKay saw the truck and told her to stop, but she didn't and kept going. I got there a minute later to find the poor truck driver sitting there pretty shaken. We are very grateful that nothing more happened.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

I interrupt my posting of Thanksgiving pictures for a "Merry Christmas" post this first day of December.

This morning was our ward Christmas party (with three wards sharing the building now, I guess you take what you can get on the calendar!). They did a breakfast this year with some other fun activities going on (a craft, movie room, nativity display, etc.).

The highlight for the kids, of course, was getting to see Santa!

It was fun to watch Hayley smile and talk with Santa -- last year she was still at the age where she just screamed and cried on Santa's lap.

The other part of the party this morning was finding out who our "pixie" family was. We participated in the pixie event this year (even though we lost a week because of our trip) where we were randomly assigned another family to be a secret pixie to. We were supposed to "doorbell ditch" three different treats and try not to get caught. I have to share a couple of funny stories from our pixie experience. (And I apologize if these get a little long-winded!)

First, McKay was abolustely obsessed with catching our pixies. They left their first gift for us on Monday night after our trip. The kids were up in bed but not asleep yet so they came running down when they heard the doorbell ring, but the pixies were long gone. The second time they came was Wednesday night. This time, the kids weren't quite in bed yet and McKay went running for the door the minute he heard the doorbell. He bolted outside and chased our poor pixie, shouting "Who are you?!". He said he thought it looked like a teenager and it was a red car.

Then McKay started concocting plans to set a "pixie trap" and thinking about how he was going to find out who the pixie was the third time. He had his flashlight and come Friday night, he opted to not even come with us to deliver our third pixie gift so he could stay home and watch by the door (Brian stayed home with him). He was so disappointed when there was no doorbell ring that night. We found a little gift by the door Saturday morning before the party.

When we found out who our pixie family was and talked with them, we found out that it was the dad McKay chased (and thought was a teenager) and that he was so scared he would get caught the third time, he didn't even ring the doorbell (and it was Friday night when he left it)! I think McKay felt pretty proud of himself for scaring an adult!

The other pixie story has to do with the family that we were assigned to leave treats for. It was an older couple with no kids at home. McKay took our first package up by himself without any trouble. The second time, Brian took the kids because I was at YW. Brian had never been to their house and of course it was dark and hard to see house numbers, but McKay said he remembered the house. Brian said McKay, Hannah & Courtney took the gift up to the porch and as they were leaving, McKay expressed a little doubt about the house, but then said he was pretty sure it was the right house. Well, we got a call later that night that they had indeed left it at the neighbor's house! Fortunately, the neighbors (who had just moved in) had met our family and delivered it to them.

For the third visit, McKay stayed home and I took the girls over to deliver it. Hannah & Courtney both wanted to take the gift up. I just stopped in front of the driveway (with my lights off) and was giving them a little instruction when I saw a car coming up the street. Then the car wanted to turn into the driveway! So I had to hurry away, but we had to go right back because we hadn't left the gift yet. The girls took it up to the porch and I saw them ring the doorbell and then just stand there, looking in the window! Maybe they wanted to make sure someone was coming. I wanted to just yell "Run!' at them, but couldn't of course. They finally bolted for the van when they saw someone coming.

I didn't get a chance to talk with the family this morning (they left early), so I don't know if they figured out who we were or not!