Christmas 2012

I jsut realized I never blogged Christmas. It seems like a really long time ago even though it was just last month.

 Tanner bought presents for people for the first time in his life, now that he has a job and some spending money. He was very excited to give Elliott and Tilly a bib that said, "These fools put my cape on backwards."

 Opening presents. Maddie got a new ipod that she kind of knew about but was still very excited to get.

 Max wanted a lego set that took him longer than an hour to put together. He's fast so we got him a huge one that took him 3 weeks!

 Seth loves the computer game Mine Craft. Jon found this Creeper jacket and knew he would love it.

 Starting the project. The coffee table looked like this for a little too long.

 Tanner got each of his friends a flip shirt. If you lift it up over your face it has a mask on it. They're good sports to all wear it on the same day.

Best Christmas present. Devon and Mary had their baby girl on December 28th. Tilly Joy Dewey.

Tubing (lazy style) and City Creek

Jon realized he got almost the whole month of December off at BYU. We thought maybe we should take advantage and go on a family vacation. But then we realized Tanner started working at the UPS store and that's their busiest time of the year. So then we thought we can still take a week and go somewhere fun. Jon came up with the idea to go to the cabin and do lots of fun things in the area. It ended up being 4 days but that was still great too.

 Sitting in the front yard of the cabin waiting to go. It was in the teens which was way better than it had been.

 First, you get on an escalator that takes you up the first hill.

 Then you sit in your tube and your rope is hooked to a cable that takes you the rest of the way up the hill.

 This is Tanner at the top. There's 4 big tracks and you can go head first or as a train or safely sitting. It's pretty fast and there's nothing in the way, it felt like a water slide.

The next day we took Trax to the new mall City Creek in downtown Salt Lake. We had also planned to go to a Museum but got too tired.

 We had to wait about 15 minutes for the train.

 We arrived at the mall and decided to take a family picture. Jon's mom met us at the cabin and went shopping with us.

 It looks like in the summer they can open up the ceiling. It's a beautiful mall.

 They had an amazing toy store that we spent most our time in. Maddie found a great stache.

 It's right by the SL Temple

It was a pretty fun Staycation.

I Heart New York

November 9th-12th

Lyssa and I tried to get together every 6 months to scrapbook. Lately we've been scrapping the scrapbook idea. We just needed a get away when our kids were young but now that they're older we want to be with them. Lyssa came up with the plan that we could go somewhere fun with one or two of our children. I've never been to NY but have wanted to for a while. I decided to take Maddie with me (since Jon had taken Tanner in the summer) and Lyssa took Katie and Peter with her and of course mom came.  It was so fun. NY is such a great city with LOTS to do.

 In the airport we saw this Statue of Liberty M&M and got so excited we had arrived. We decided to make a collage of all the Statues of Liberty we saw.

In the Lego store we saw a little tiny one. Then in Toys R us there was a huge one made out of Legos. In M&M World there was another M&M statue but this one was huge.

Our first night we walked up and down Times Square. There were so much to look at and eat. It was so bright, no wonder New Yorkers don't sleep!

One day we took the Subway down and rode the free ferry to Staten Island to see the REAl Statue of Liberty.

Lyssa, Katie, Maddie, Mom, and Peter

Rockerfeller Plaza

I asked the guy in the lego store where the real statue was because I knew it had to be close. It was just around the corner.

We went to two beautiful Cathedrals. I think this was St. Patricks Cathedral.

 The very last day we went to Central Park. It is so beautiful. This is a small castle that they use as a weather station in the park now.

 The Freedom Tower is almost done being built. Because of Hurricane Sandy, everything was blocked off so this is as close as we could get.

 At the end of the day our feet hurt...so much walking! This is the view from our hotel window.

 We kind of went crazy and went to three shows while we were there. All of us love them so much so why not, besides the price. :)

 Peter and the Star Catcher

 Newsies-Katie and Maddie's favorite because of all the talented boys in it.

Mary Poppins. Amazing dancing on the ceiling!

We also got to go to church while we were there. We went to Manhattan 1st ward which was connected to the Manhattan Temple. Maddie and I loved every minute of it, even the walking!