President Hinckley

I was sorry to hear about President Hinckley's passing last night.  It was breaking news here in Utah soon after it happened.  I have so many great memories of him.  Some things that stand out are his Six B's talk.  When he gave that I was in college at BYU, and it was easy to relate to many of them.  I have always loved "The Family Proclamation" too and how it shows to the world what we stand for with families and how truly important they are to our church in this day and age.  I have always loved his smile and his sense of humor too.  I can remember more than once the cute ways he would tap his wife with his cane, and the smile he brought to her face.  Although I am sad to see him go, I am happy he is with his wife, and happy for our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation that we can all be reunited with our loved ones.  What a great church we belong to that brings us that kind of peace.

Sledding near Solitude/Brighton Ski areas

This weekend we wanted to get out of the house, and not just to run the typical errands.  So, we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon near Solitude Ski Resort and found a great place to go sledding.  We got wet, cold, a ton of snow in our face, and had a blast doing it.  Annika even got to the point she would do the hills by herself.  Here is a movie of her going down.  This is something we will definitely do again.  It was a long day of shopping, oil changes, car washes and more.  The kids were great, that makes it so helpful.  I am so grateful for a wonderful husband and kids.  We have a lot of fun together.  We really like to go and do things.  I hope that we get those kind of opportunities up here in Utah, it really is a beautiful place.

New Year's Eve!

After Christmas and fun times with cousins and all the other family, including lots of photos, trips to Lake Mead to feed the fish, and a night out without kids, we headed back to Utah.  We stayed two weeks with Grandma Great Moulton in Centerville (the one with all the cows as Annika calls her).  We really appreciate her letting us stay there with her.  Ashton finally learned how to walk while we were living there too.  Ryan started his new job on Dec. 29th.  We spent New Year's Eve down on Temple Square.  It was freezing, and most of our warm stuff was packed away.  However, we enjoyed seeing all the Christmas lights and there were tons of concerts going on.  We got home, put the kids in bed, and had Ryan and I stayed up to see midnight on the news.  Now we are in an apartment in Riverton, UT.  I am trying to enjoy apartment living (not something I enjoy).  Let's keep on praying that the house sells soon.  We only have one car right now too, so I am home a lot.  The single digit temperatures, and Ryan working 10-12 hour days, means me going crazy a lot.  I have to have quiet time in the afternoon when the kids rest, or else I lose it.  I am working on that-my temper with the kids that is.  Annika loves the apartment, because she finally has her own room, but I am constantly telling the kids not to run and scream, because you can hear EVEYTHING through these walls.  We will be so happy to be in a house again.  Well, keep in touch, we would love visitors.  We are grateful to have a job and to be in Utah, we are going to see if we enjoy it now.  Only time will tell.  I now have Internet for the first time in about a month, so I will hopefully be blogging more, I have been slacking.  There was one night when we were living with my Grandma that we had to pay bills.  Ryan finally got home, we went and say outside Starbucks for the Internet just to pay the bills on time online.  I have become so dependant on it.  I almost do not even remember how to write out a check JJ!  I am grateful to have the conveinances of modern day, there is no way I could have lived in pioneer times.  :)

Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve with Ryan's family.  We did the usual Mexican Restaurant-I love Mexican food.  It was a new place and really good, thanks to the recommendation from Eric and Joella.  Ashton was his typical crazy self.  I think we are done going out to eat with him.  We had a great time.

We stopped at Ethel M's on the way home to see the lights.  Here are some pics of my kids having fun and staying warm.

We ended the night by opening present's at Urry's.   If anyone knows me at all, they know that I have two addictions in life-chapstick (I always have at least one stick of it on me at all times) and Mountain Dew Code Red (I have switched over to diet though).  I thought this pic was priceless, I think Ash has picked up one of my addictions.

We opened presents at my parent's house.  I enjoyed seeing the kids open up their gifts, Annika really got into this year.  She got a Barbie house, new scooter, tons of Play-doh stuff, a jewelry box, a Giselle dress, Princess book with music player, coloring books, and more.  She scored.  Ashton got all the boy toys, racing cars, bat and ball toys, blocks, boxes, everything you can imagined.  We are really blessed.  Here is a cute pic of Ashton in a darling little bathrobe he got.

We had a great Christmas breakfast at the Farnsworth's and enjoyed the rest of the day playing with all the new toys.  I bet you didn't know that Hannah Montana was there.  This is Jessica, Abigail and Annika with their new scooters.

K-Graduation Weekend!

Here is a picture of the whole clan "enjoying" the cold snow.

Ryan graduated from BYU-Idaho.  I am so proud of him for completing his lifetime goal.  We did the hard way with kids, but it was worth it.  We have loved living in Rexburg.  I love driving 5 minutes "across town".  I love the small town feel, the Christmas lights lit up on Main Street, the local grocer and more.  It is hard to leave.  We keep on saying, we will be back.  I could really see us ending up there someday, or at least I hope so.  I am sad that we are going to miss the temple Open House and Dedication.  We have seen it being built for the last 2 year, and that is such a neat opportunity.  We may try to take a trip up there to see it.  I would really love Annika to walk through it especially since she always looked for Angel Moroni as we drive by.  The graduation went by, and we loved having all of his family come for it.  That really meant a lot to us.

Ryan went snowmobiling at Island Park with his brothers Eric and Chris and brother-in-law Eddy.  It was his first time, and he really enjoyed it.  Needless to say the girls stayed back at shopped at Maurice's (my sister-in-laws' favorite store in Idaho), the small town craft store that my mother-in-law loves, and the local chocolate factory where Florence herself was working the counter.  We got the better part, even with the kids in tow.