Utah Trip, Part II: Tubing at Brian Head and Family Visit (January 16)

Saturday January 16. Erik made a reservation for us + Grandpa to go tubing at Brian head. I've been tubing only once in my life and obviously the kids never have. We were allotted a hour-and-a-half time slot. I think we were able to get in about 6 slides in. The most time consuming part was getting up the hill via an escalator (a flat one, not one with stairs). At least we could just stand there instead of tromping up the hill using our leg muscles. There were enough grooves/tracks in the snow that 10 people could go at once. The employees at the top would blow their whistles at everyone at the top would start the slide in their tubes. Then we would have to drag our tubes sideways across the tracks/grooves to go get in line again to go up the hill. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Ian especially. I guess those masks were good for something: they kept our faces warm. Elisa and I wore scarves and had to make sure it was pulled up over the nose so Mr. Mask Nazi at the bottom of the hill couldn't chastise us, heaven forbid our masks/scarves fell below our nose, we all know that's an invitation for covid to come get us (insert eyeroll).

At the bottom of the hill

At the top of the hill

Elisa, pretty in pink!

Silly Ian! It was so sunny. 

Going up the escalator.

Ian enjoyed being pulled around while we waited to go up the hill on the escalator. It was tiring for me!

A video of tubing down the hill

After our time was up tubing, we were hungry so we ate lunch at The Pizza Cart (as usual). Yummy yum!

Erik ordered 3 pizzas plus a dessert pizza. We ate ALL the pizza. The kids built up an appetite going tubing!

Grandpa went back home and we went to my parent's house in Cedar. My mom worked on a large ham dinner for all of us. All of us including Lisa and her kids (Eric wasn't there) and Tootsie/Cindy (Mark wasn't there. Poor Erik. Good thing he brought his book with him. I don't know about Erik, but I had fun and the kids had fun too. The most entertaining part of the evening, aside from eating a delicious ham dinner, was playing around on Tootsie's snapchat app filter.  

My mom and the yummy ham. We also had rolls, sweet potatoes...and potato salad up we forgot about it, luckily we were able to eat it the next day.

The kids ate like picky birds and then immediately ran off to play

My mom took this pan-o-ramic picture. I couldn't load it here, so that's why its in 3 parts. From left to right goes oldest to youngest. We didn't even plan it that way.

Some of the pictures we took on the filter. We were screaming laughing because some of these were just too funny! Especially the fact that Lisa's age-progression filter made her bald...every single time!

Look how cute I am! Hah. I wish.

Lisa and her old bald-woman self. I couldn't stop laughing at this one!

Tootsie makes a cute grandma

Elisa and Aaliyah lookin' cute and silly 

Elisa makes one creepy dude! lol.

A pretty spot-on picture of what I look like in the mornings, sans gray.

A "prettified" version of us.

 There wasn't room for us to spend the night, so we went back to St. George where I enjoyed a few See's chocolates.

We tried almost all the chocolates.

 

Utah Trip, Part 1 (Friday)

Here are the pictures from our trip up to southern Utah from January 14th-18. These are from Friday the 15th.  We left around 5 pm Thursday evening, the day before. That was the first time leaving so late in the day--but we actually liked leaving that late; there was less traffic even though we got to St. George really late. I also like leaving in the evening instead of early the next morning because we were able to have the entire next day open for us to do whatever we'd like. Most evenings we sit around anyway so we may as well be sitting in the car going someplace. 

My mom wanted to go out to eat with me and Erik, and was especially excited to go to Red Lobster for lunch. Michael came with. I ordered the Nashville shrimp, it was good. Erik ordered some brussel sprouts and they were interesting. I thought they were good. 

Judging by the kid's outfits, these pictures must have been from that Friday, though I'm not sure if they were in the morning or evening, but I'm guessing they were taken while me and Erik went out to eat with my mom and brother. I stole these pictures from Grandma. Coda the dog is a big hit with the kids! 

We all took the kids to downtown St. George where we let the kids pick out some candy in this little shop called Judd's General Store. Erik also ordered a breadstick with cheese and a few sodas. Then we took the treats and let the kids ride the merry-go-round while I stood around eating a chocolate-maple candy and everyone else chatted to some friends they met there.  

We took the kids to the all-abilities park for a bit. We didn't ride the train this time. 

That's all the pictures I have of Friday! After the park we went to Walmart, where I bought a couple shirts for only $1! I bought a shirt for myself, my mom, Tootsie, and even Makayla. When we got back to the house, Bryce and Makayla had some BBQ from this place in Las Vegas ready for all of us. Bryce picked it up on the way back from an interview or something, I don't know if it was before or after his $300 speeding ticket he received. Yikes. Anyway, I thought the burnt ends were really good. Can't go wrong with BBQ anyway. 

 

Random Fun Stuff in January, Part I

A new year! We are all hoping it will be better than 2020! Of course, there's a possibility it may be worse, but we won't think too much on that. As of yet, 2021 is looking pretty good, as you can probably tell from these pictures! Grandma and Grandpa came down again to attend Gabe's priesthood ordination, since Gabe will be turning 12 this year. I can't believe Gabe is as old as he is already!

Jan 1

Down comes the Christmas tree! Here is a pic of Elisa being silly with the lights.

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Jan. 1

I made a cookie called "melting moments", we still had a few cards and cookie plates I wanted to give out to a couple more neighbors. I've made these cookies a long time ago--and I made the mistake again of making them too big! They're supposed to be little tiny things that you pop in your mouth and they melt away (really, they do!) on account of all the corn starch that's in them. Next time I'll make them smaller!

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Jan 1

We all (including Grandma and Grandpa, who came down again after leaving so soon after Christmas) went out to Rusconis in Scottsdale. I really enjoyed the appetizer platter. I ordered the goat cheese hamburger...it was interesting, but I don't think I'd order it again. We also ordered dessert (chocolate pudding) to share. Yum!

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Jan. 2

I'm not sure why this picture was taken--Grandpa and Ian just hanging around 

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Jan. 3

Great-Grandma Brenda gave the kids a game called Buildzi for Christmas. The kids sure have a good time with it, as you can see in these videos!

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Jan 3

I made some babka bread with strawberry jam. It was a little overcooked, but otherwise turned out yummy. I might try again someday, and make sure to not cook it for so long.

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Jan. 5

Ian is so silly. When he learns a new song that he really likes, he will go onto Finale Notepad on the computer and compose the same song there and print it out. Ian loved this Jack & the Beanstalk song! Here is a video of him playing from his Finale Notepad copy.

So the school district decided to have two weeks of school be online after vacation, in order to "quarantine" just in case (I understand their reasoning, but insert eyeroll anyway). The education pod that Elisa went to when school was online at the beginning of the school year was full, so I thought it would be fun for Elisa to visit Grandma and Grandpa during online school and they could help her with her work. We were planning on going up to St. George a few days anyway, before "real" school started up (the 19th). We had planned this trip way before I thought about sending Elisa up with Grandparents to St. George so my plan worked out perfectly muahaha. It was so quiet with just the boys home! So, so very quiet. But I guess she had a good time! Judging by the pictures I was sent (or stole), anyway:

Grandma and Grandpa took Elisa to the cabin for some fun in the snow!

She made cupcakes with aunt Makayla! How many cupcakes did she eat? Probably too many!

Aunt Makayla gave Elisa a makeover!

Doing her schoolwork.

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Jan. 10

I bought myself a cast iron skillet just before Christmas. I made homemade-from-scratch cornbread the first time I used it. Its a really large pan; so I doubled the recipe. The cornbread turned out pretty good (I'm not going to add corn kernels next time because they turn out so super chewy) but the doubled recipe made so, SO much cornbread that we were all sick of corn bread after 3 days and we didn't even finish it because by the time we got to the last slice it was all dried out. Next time I won't double the recipe unless we have guests! Or maybe freeze half?

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Jan 11

Ian was super excited to have fish sticks and mac-n-cheese. Silly boy.

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Jan 13

I bought the Piano Guys piano/cello song arrangements. It wasn't cheap (at least relative to other music books I buy) but I sent the cello part to my Cousin Rachel who lives in Utah, and I'm looking forward to playing through some songs together when I go up there this summer.

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