When hair met sissors

Lorin's hair has gotten so long. The longest it's ever been and well It's been getting in the way. She doesn't like it when I do it, she hates how long it takes to wash it, let alone dry it. And it's always in her face. So we decided to CHOP it off. I talked to her about donating it to Locks for Love because she had plenty of it and she kept thinking it was her hair that was going to fall out and she would need a wig. So after reassuring her that her hair grows like weeds and it's not in danger of falling out she agreed to getting it cut. YEAHHHH.

This was the big moment. She has never had a hair cut this big in her long, almost 6 year, life.

It was a sad yet exciting moment. They dried and curled it nice and pretty just in time for us to rush to school. I love the outcome. She looks like a total different person. I think you can see her features in her face so much better now. And she likes that it's lighter and out of her face.

So we took the ponytail home and put it in a zip lock bag and mailed it off. She was really excited and I'm so glad it's being put to good use, it's really good hair!! JK

And her cute little A-line cut is perfect. She looks so cute. Now we just have to wait for the holes in her mouth to go away and then we can take family pictures again. I swear that girl is going to loose all her teeth in the next couple of months. She's lost 7 so far, 4 on bottom and 3 on top. She lost her last one on top just the other day. But now she has another loose one on top. She is definitely going to need braces.

AZ at it's best

When Mike told me he really wanted to take a trip down to Phoenix to visit his family I was more then happy to cooperate fully and leave asap for some warmer weather. It ended up being a great trip. The kids are the only ones in their generation on that side of the family and they really enjoy that. That means they get all the attention and love.
The trip down there was an experience. We knew there was an accident in southern Utah and that the freeway was closed but we were hoping by the time we got down there it would be cleared up. Unfortunately no it wasn't, so we got to take a detour when we got to Beaver. It wasn't bad at all though, it only added an extra 15-30 mins to our trip. Then when we had just passed the Utah AZ boarder we were on the 89 and it was a split highway with two lanes each way. Mike was driving and he moved to the fast lane to pass a car then swerved back in to the slow lane just in time to miss a car coming the wrong way in the fast lane. Freaked us out and we had a bad feeling for who ever didn't see her coming.
Mike's grandparents planned some great activities for the kids. In the community Mike's grandparents live in they have a miniature trains display. It was huge. The size of a really really big room and the trains just went around and around on the tracks. They have 3 big tracks that loop and 3 trains that ride on each track. It was all put together and managed by retired men who would walk around the room with engineer hats and answer your questions. Christian loved it. Lorin and Mike's uncle would walk around and play the I Spy game using all the details that were in the cities.

There were different buttons the kids could press to make the trains horn blow, or to make the ice cream truck sing, or make the railroad crossing arms go up and down.
And of course they had Thomas and Annie and Claribel. Which made Christian's day.

Then back to the Grandparents house. They're backyard is a golf course and the kids loved to run around back and forth. The weather was great for it. The neighbors came out to play with the kids, you could tell this was a retirement community and not many kids. Grandpa took them on a ride on the golf car.

Then Christian tried to be sneaky and take off with the golf cart. Good think Grandpa took the keys out.

We picked the tangelo's off their tree for them. I think Mike had a little to much fun, he was dropping them down on the kids.

Then we went over to Mike's Aunt Sandy's house. She is so great with the kids. Mike has a cousin that is a junior in high school and Lorin loves to hang out with her. They also have a dog names Charlie. Last time we visited Christian was petrified of her, this time he loved running around the backyard with her.

And of course we had to stop at my friends house on the way home. She has a daughter that's older than Lorin but Lorin towers over her. Same goes with me and Barb though, so I'm not surprised. We told them all to smile and Kaki turned around.

The trip home was less exciting. Nothing happened and we made great timing. But it was so much fun to get away. I really can't wait till it gets warmer. It will save our bank account from taking these these trips.

My un-ode to winter...

This year winter has decided to be my Nemesis. Actually more then just my Nemesis, he's the king Nemesis. He rules the court over all the other unpleasantries that come with him. I've been patient and at ease for the 9 years we've lived here, it wasn't until this winter that he made it to my black list. When you get all the bystandards that come with winter it has become a list of "yuck" to me.

-The cold, this is the big one. I can deal with snow, I love snow, when it's 50 degrees outside. But when it's cold it makes you not want to go out in it.
-The snow, it does make the list though, the slush it turns into, the difficulty it makes to drive to the grocery store. The color of black it gets after a little while, so it doesn't even stay white. The accidents it causes when you're trying to drive down the freeway but you have to take a detour because the freeway is closed in both directions.
-The layers you have to dress in and dress the kids in. With the top layer being a big poofy coat that makes it hard to move or turn. And when your out and your two year old has to go pee, you have to slowely un-robe him so he can contort himself to go pee on a public toilet.
-The pounds of salt and dirt that collect on your car. Slowely ruining it and causing you to wash your car often in the freezing cold just for it to collect more salt and dirt.
- The slush you have to carry your 3 kids across or else they would get dirt and water all over their shoes and pants and then carry the dirt in the car and in the house.
- The stress you get because your kids can't go outside so they are stuck in the house all day driving you mad.
- The illnesses that come with the winter time: RSV, Influensa, even just the common cold.
- The shoveling that has to be done or the snow melts a little then freezes into ice that night and takes so much longer to go away now.
- The shoes and sock's I have to wear, my piggies like to be free, they would much prefer flipflops then big thick socks shoved into some kind of bulky heavy shoe that is suppose to have great traction but is really as effective as ballet shoes.

I'm sure there's much more, but all these together make up winter, and that what makes winter my ultimate nemesis this year. We have methodically planned our trips to warmer climates every 4-6 weeks to try and break up this winter that I'm struggling with. The last one being a trip to AZ to visit Mikes family and a couple friends that live down there. And we basked in the wonderfulness of the sun.

Draper Temple

Yesterday we went to the Draper Temple's open house. Mike was off work and Lorin is off track right now so we decided it would be a great time to take the kids on their first trip inside of a temple. Hopefully the first of many for them. We got to take a bus ride from a chapel close by to the temple and the kids loved that. Christian sang The Wheels on The Bus song all the way there and all the way back. It was a great experience to talk to Lorin about different rooms in the temple. In the sealing room we got to sit down and have Bruce Lindsay from the KSL news tell us about couples and families that get sealed there. Even though the temple hasn't been dedicated yet you could feel the calm feeling you usually get when you go to the temple. I'm glad that our kids were able to experience that and feel the spirit you get when you go to the temple. And a definite plus were the cookies they served afterwards. Luckily there's going to be another Temple open house in the next couple of months and they will be able to attend another one. I think the last one I went to was the San Diego temple and that was a long time ago.

No kids aloud

I love my kids, we love our kids but sometimes you have to get out and have some great adult accompanied fun and leave the kids with a very dependable very known babysitter. And when you get that time when you're not using your baby talk in between your settling the fighting what do you do? Oh the choices; Dinner, Movies, Theatre, Comedy Clubs, Temple, Shopping, Tubing. What Tubing, yeah tubing. And many more things but tubing with some adults is a great time to act like a kid.

So we went out with some friends to Parleys Canyon and payed a ton of money to be pulled up the mountain so we could fly down as fast as we could on our little tubes. to get back up and be pulled up the mountain again. Very juvenile but oh so fun.

This is how us girls would ride up the mountain. Enjoying the ride...

And that is how the guys would ride up the mountain, throwing snow at each other and anyone else they could hit.

We went down all four of us together, then in couples, then the guys and the girls then we raced each other, then Mike and Dustin raced each other while Stephanie and I went spinning down together.

Dustin and Stephanie. (Dustin sporting his Steelers cap)

Mike and I

It was a perfect day to go because it was not freezing and the sun was out. By the last 30 minutes most of the people had left so there were no lines. So if you want to go the best time to go is about 4 or 5 pm. After we headed to Park City for dinner and then to Rocky Mountain Chocolate for some yummy chocolate. Mike and Dustin are very competitive when it comes to some things, the Air Force and The Navy, The U And The Y. So Dustin wore his U hoodie and Mike wore his BYU hat to dinner. It was a great day to go out as adults and play like kids. The company was great, Thanks for going with us Stephanie and Dustin.