Utah Trip Day Six and Seven

Day Six was New Years Day. We woke up at James' and just relaxed and hung out with them all morning. Jamie made us crepe's for breakfast, and we had leftovers from the night before for lunch. One thing I really liked about our trip was the good mix of doing activities and having breaks like we did this morning. It was nice to not be rushed, to let kids nap, and to have some good visits with family.

After lunch we said good-bye to the James Cutts family and drove over to Uncle John, Aunt Alicia, and cousins Maggie and Jackson's. I don't have any pictures from this day, but we had a great time with John and family. In the afternoon we went shopping at Station Park in Farmington. Alicia and I split up from the group and got some good shopping done. We came in separate vehicles so we stayed a little longer than the rest. Chris and John and the kids walked around, checked out the cool candy store and fountain, and got donuts thanks to Uncle John. After shopping we hung out at their place. Dinner was a repeat of the night before but with more pizza and this delicious salad Alicia's friend brought. We watched the Alabama football game and John and Alicia's friends from Alabama, Mary and Aaron with their two kids, came over to watch and eat with us. It was really a fun night. Macy loved running around and playing with her cousins. We barely saw her all night! We stayed as late as Rachel would permit, and then left to go back to the Coulam's for the night.

Day Seven was Friday and our last day. We slept in and then went out to City Creek Mall in downtown Salt Lake with Aunt Pam, Paisley, and Scarlet. Chris got some shoes here and we visited the Disney store which the kids all loved. We played at the indoor dinosaur park for a bit and then left for lunch.

 Macy in front of her store. 

 We parked a couple blocks away and walked down to the mall. On the way back we stopped to take a quick picture and look at the Salt Lake Temple. There was really more we could have done around Salt Lake, but with little kids we just did the minimum. Perhaps next trip!

 Aunt Pam, Paisley, Macy, and Chris. 

We went to lunch at Apollo Burger, which we all really enjoyed. After lunch I stayed back at Pam's with sleeping babes, and Macy and Paisley, while Chris and Pam went to Best Buy and did some shopping. After they got back Pam stayed with the kids and Chris and I ran to Target to pick up a few things.

It was Pam and Spencer's 5 year anniversary so we all went to dinner that night at Settebello Pizzeria. My favorite was their lemon gelato! Back at the Coulam's the girls went to bed and we played some games before getting ready to leave the next morning.

Utah Trip Day Five

Day Five was New Years Eve, and boy did we party! We woke up at Pam and Spencer's and relaxed and recovered from skiing in the morning. In the afternoon we left and met up with both the James and John Cutts families to go swimming at the Davis Rec Center near John and Alicia's. I didn't get any pictures, but everyone had fun on the water slide, lazy river, and inflatable obstacle course. Sadly the hot tub was closed, which was really all I was looking forward too since my body was quite sore from the day before!

After swimming we headed over to Uncle James, Aunt Jamie, and cousins Tyler and Ryan's. We had a little bit of time to get ready for the night before the Lemon's and the John Cutts family joined us for a New Years Eve party. We had a great time! So much delicious food. We had pizza, cocktail wieners, fried chicken wings, hot bean dip, pot stickers, egg rolls, veggies and dip, cracker and cheese, Shirley Temple drinks, popcorn, cinnamon buns, and cupcakes. Everything was so good, and we pretty much ate for the first hour and half. The kids had fun playing together in James' unfinished basement. We celebrated cousin Elizabeth's 9th birthday with singing and cupcakes.

 Macy

 Elizabeth

 Jackson

 Maggie

 The birthday girl and her cupcakes made by Aunt Jill.

 Aunt Alicia made snow cones. All the kids loved this as they were so hot and sweaty from playing.

 Ra-Ra-Rachel!

 After the eating we had a little talent show. It was great! Grandma and Grandpa Cutts, who were visiting the Tom Cutts family in Minnesota, skyped in with Tom and family for the talent show portion. I took some pictures, but none of them really turned out. If I can remember, these were the performers: Aunt Alicia singing all the 50 states (possibly my favorite!), Elizabeth sharing a book she wrote, Caleb playing the violin, as well as singing 'In the Jungle', Matthew singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Up on the Rooftop, Jackson and Maggie's Magic Show (made us all reminiscent of Crappy Magic), Jackson and Maggie's 'Shake it off" dance (which all the cousins joined in for), Macy dancing to 'Dancing Barbie' (also had cousins join for), Uncle Tom playing the recorder with his nose - Manitoba Hot Dog, Alice singing, and Grandpa reciting 'The Gate of the Year.' I wasn't sure what the talent show would be like, but it was fabulous. I loved watching everyone preform and was very entertained!

After the talent show we played some games. We did the Candy Bar game with Canadian chocolate, Reverse Charades: Boys vs. Girls, and some bidding game (I can't remember the name). Almost everyone participated in all the games. Rachel and Ryan went to bed after the candy bar game, and Macy and Tyler hung out on the bed in James and Jamie's room watching 'Wall-e'.

 The whole gang!

The Lemon's and John Cutts family left somewhere around 9:30 or 10 pm. After Macy and Tyler were in bed, Chris, me, James, and Jamie played some Risk. We paused in the middle for a little happy new year, and then after finishing the game went to bed. Definitely another fun day!

Utah Trip Day Four

Tuesday was our skiing day. We were excited and had bought our lift tickets in advance for Snowbasin Ski resort. We woke up at the Lemon's who graciously offered to watch Macy and Rachel while we skied. We left Macy asleep and headed to James'. James drove us up and we were at the mountain shortly before 9 am when the lifts first open.

Snowbasin was a great resort. It was a little further away (only like 20 mins more), but totally worth it. The chalet's were beautiful, especially the bathrooms! We picked up our tickets, used the posh bathrooms, and headed out to the mountain.

 It was a pretty cold day, but the main lift was an enclosed gondola, which made the ride up so much nicer as we got relief from the cold wind.

 So on advice from the staff at the ticket pick up, we did our first run down to the Strawberry lift to ski that side of the mountain. We were told it was best to start there, what with the sun coming up, etc. However, the front staff apparently were not aware that the Strawberry lift was closed! So after only our first run down, we were stuck. It was a point in the mountain where you had to take the lift back up, there was no where else to go. We waited inside chalet they had beside the lift for someone to come and snowmobile us out. We thought we'd only be waiting 5-10 minutes, but ending up waiting at least an hour! It was pretty disappointing, since we had only just started our day and were not ready for a break yet. But there was nothing we could do. We finally got a ride out, which took like 5 minutes. James and I were on the snowmobile and Chris rode in the medic sleigh behind.

(It was both James and mine's first time on a snowmobile, so we got our picture taken!)

 So after wasting a good part of the morning, we were finally up and running. Luckily, the rest of the day was great and went smoothly. We got in lots of runs and had a great time.

 We packed a lunch from home in our backpacks and ate lunch at the Chalet at the top of the mountain. So nice! It was a beautiful lodge, with a great view, a roaring fire, and lots of seats. The bonus of going on a cold day is that it wasn't very busy.

 Just to show the view. This is where are table was. So great!

 Chris and I still in the chalet.

 In the enclosed gondola. This is the only time you'd see my face. Otherwise I was covered head to toe, as you can see in the picture below. But I did stay warm the whole day!

 I like this picture because of the black diamond trails. We only did a few black diamonds, at the end of the day, which really wasn't a great choice, because I was pretty tired by then!

 I'm pretty sure below is a picture of one of the chalet's at the top of the mountain. Different from the one we ate lunch at. Snowbasin was a venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics. This is the lodge where a lot of the press would stay. Pictured below is James.

 They had a lift that went up to the little lodge you can just barely see. It is where the start of one of the Women's runs was. The lift was closed when we were there, so we didn't see it, but it was still pretty cool.

We skied (well, James and Chris skied, I snowboarded) until about 3:45 pm. The lifts closed at 4:00 pm, so it was a pretty full day. Both Chris and I had so much fun and would definitely go there again! Thanks again to Jill and Taylor again for watching the girls!

We drove back to James' where we left our car and then Chris and I drove back to the Lemon's. Jill had a hot dinner waiting for us which was so appreciated. They had a fun day with Macy and Rachel. They went to Thanksgiving Point, a discovery center, in the morning, and played together in the afternoon. Chris returned his rental skies, and then our family drove to the Coulam's house in Woods Cross to spend the night with Aunt Pam, Uncle Spencer, and cousins Paisley and Scarlett. Macy was was asleep when we got there (around 8:30 pm), and went straight to bed. After a full day of skiing and boarding the rest of us followed shortly after.

Utah Trip: Day Three

Monday morning we woke up at the Lemon's and spent the morning with them. While Rachel napped, Jill and I went out to a few stores. First we stopped at Dunford Baker's to get donuts for later in the day. I'll tell you now, they were pretty good. They had a great selection, and some of them were huge. I think my favorites were the chocolate Skor, chocolate Peanut butter cup, and red velvet, but they all tasted good (we cut them up so we could try more, I liked getting a sample of each). Anyways, we went to Sam's Club, and Macey's the grocery store and then went back to Jill's for lunch. 

In the afternoon we went tubing at Soldier's Hollow with the Lemon's, the James Cutts family, and the John Cutts family. We had a great time! Rachel and cousin Ryan were too little to go, so we took turns watching them. We were booked from 2 to 4 pm and used all the time we could. Macy did call it a day around 3:30 pm, but I think the rest of us could have gone longer.

 Below is Macy and then me in front of her. It was so nice being towed, but it did take a while.

Aunt Jill

Action shot!

 The Cutts siblings: Jill, Valerie, John, James

Cousin Matthew

 Rachel and  cousin Ryan back at the lodge.

After we were all done we had those yummy donuts that Jill brought with hot chocolate and chocolate milk. It was great to visit and eat for a bit before heading back.

We said good-bye to both Cutts families, and drove back to the Lemon's. Jill had a delicious white chicken chili in the crock pot waiting for us. We were all pretty tired, so aside from Chris going out to get his ski rentals for the next day, we just hung around and went to bed.

Utah Trip Day One and Two

A couple of days after Christmas we set out on a family road trip to Utah to visit cousins and have some fun. I'll tell you now, we had a GREAT trip! I think it was one of our best. So, I am going to blog in detail (as much as I can remember), so that we'll be able to replicate all the fun we had in the future!

We left home around 6:45 am on Saturday, December 27th. We were not even 2 minutes in when Rachel started crying and whining. She was not happy to be travelling! She cried on and off and finally fell asleep for about 30 minutes around Red Deer. We ended up stopping at the Calgary Ikea after driving for only 2.5 hours. It was worth it though. We walked around for 20 mins or so and then got back in the car. Rachel slept a little more and we made it to Lethbridge where we stopped again to go to the bathroom and eat some lunch in the car. We had to finish all the fruit we brought before we hit the border. Once at the border, both girls asleep, we got randomly selected for a search. We had to pull over and take everyone out while they went through the car and asked us additional questions. The border agent was actually very nice, and I don't think she moved much around in the car. After that we didn't stop again until our destination for the night in Helena, Montana. We stopped first for dinner at a Dairy Queen, and then went to our hotel, La Quinta Inn & Suites. We got the hotel on priceline and we were guaranteed an indoor or outdoor pool. I assumed since it was Helena it would be indoor, but it was outdoor! We were pretty bummed, but when we pulled in to check in I noticed a lot of steam coming from the pool. I asked the front desk if it was open, and it was! She told us that it had jets and the temperature was 103 degrees, so it could be called a hot tub. Since Rachel had been sick, her and I opted out, but Chris and Macy went for a swim. It was fun to swim outside in the cold and at night.

 The above picture I took from inside through the window.

 After swimming, the girls had baths and went to bed. Macy started out in a bed to herself and Rachel in the crib. Sometime in the middle of the night I ended up in Macy's bed and Rachel was in the bed with Chris. It was not exactly the best night, but what are you gonna do?!

We woke up and were down for the free hot breakfast which opened at 7 am. Breakfast was great. We all enjoyed waffles. Rachel much preferred waking up and having breakfast first before getting in the car seat. She did a little better in the car this day. We made it about 2 hours to Dillon, Mt before Macy needed to use the bathroom. After a quick bathroom break our next stop was Idaho Falls, Idaho for lunch at Wendy's. The roads were a little dicey at times, but Chris did a great job getting us through safely. After Idaho Falls, both girls had great naps and slept all the way to West Jordon, Utah where we made it to the Lemon's by 3:30 pm. Jill and Matthew were home to greet us and the rest followed shortly. Unfortunately, Macy having just woken up from a nap wasn't the happiest, but after she warmed up she loved being around cousins. We had dinner and a nice night visiting with the Lemon's. Macy slept out in their living room with Matthew and Elizabeth. Chris, Taylor, Jill, and I played some games that night before heading to bed. 

Christmas Day 2014

We had a wonderful Christmas day. It was a Christmas miracle and both the girls slept in, we're talking after 8:30 am, and Rachel not even till 9:00. I consider it their Christmas gift to me, and it was just what I always wanted!

 We did stockings first, and then after we were all dressed we did our reading of Luke 2. After was present opening. We all did pretty good. Highlight gifts: Chris: Nurf gun, games/puzzles, money for new shoes and lift ticket at Snowbasin. Val: Sleeping in, messenger bag, money for clothes, Lindor chocolate balls. Macy: Unicorn head on a stick, Rapunzle dress-up, unicorn toy, books, and games. Rachel: Duplo, Little People Princess music castle, and princess toys.

 Every time she talks about this 'unicorn head on a stick' I get flashbacks of reading Lord of the Flies.

Once we were done gifts we had the traditional Christmas breakfast. We wrapped everything up around 11:30 am, in time for Rachel to nap before going over to Grandma and Grandpa Lamont's.

Rachel was not at her best, so we didn't stay long, but Macy had a sleepover with her grandparents and lots of fun with them. We enjoyed the Christmas day, and visiting on the phone and skype with family. We are grateful for all the blessings that we receive, and of course the blessing of our Savior, Jesus Christ.