Spring Break Skiing

The first day of spring break Kate got her Christmas Present, lunch out and a DevaCurl haircut.  Her hair was oohed and awed at by all the ladies at the saloon and it looked so great when they were done.  Time to embrace those beautiful curls girl. 

Then the kids an I headed up to McCall where we enjoyed 2 amazing days of skiing.  We had fresh powder and cool temperatures.  I would have guessed it was January if I didn’t know it was spring break.  The days were especially fun because we spent so much time all skiing together.  The boys were content spending sometime skiing with Bob which totally made her day and made her ski faster, so it was a win for me.  We enjoyed our lunch in the van both days, but the second day was pretty cold, thus requiring a cup of hot chocolate and some french fries.  It was an awesome way to end our season.

 

This entire season the condo has been under remodel.  They were replacing carpet which required some furniture dancing.  We’d spent a previous weekend up there moving all the furniture back up the stairs, which included some amazing skills at lifting 6 beds up and over the upstairs railing, without damaging anything.  It was quite an adventure, but a pretty fun one.  So before we left for our last ski day we moved all the furniture out of the main room thinking they would replace the carpet while we were skiing.  But when we returned, they were still at work with no quick finish.  The kids and I felt a bit weird trying to maneuver in and out with the workers in there as well.  They thought they had all weekend to do the job not just 8 hours.  Fortunately, they found a place to stop for the night and headed out planning to return early the next morning, much to our disappointment.  The kids were frustrated and wanted to head home first thing in the morning, but McCall has a way of working its magic.  

 

The kids started playing soccer in the big open room nut when that game got rough the new carpet square was turned into a huge dance floor and eventually a drawing board for the plan of salvation at scriptures that night.  They went to bed exhausted and happy.  The next morning while the men worked, we huddled in my room and played games and slowly got cleaning.  The kids played in the snow while Mack and I finished the cleaning and we headed into town to do the bumper ice cars.  The kids had a blast.  So our little hitch turned out to be no problem at all and the trip ended on the bumper car high.  Gotta love McCall.

Ski Day with Emmy

 For Christmas Emmy got her own ski day with Mom.  We headed up to Bogus bright and early.  It was a bit cold for a spring ski day so we enjoyed one warm up break complete with yummy onion rings.  She is such a pleasure to spend the day with.  Love that girl.

Sadies Dance

Mack came home from school one day with a funny story.  A chicken was released in Mads. It had a note on it and Mr. Child told Mack it was for him.  It took a bit of effort but eventually he got the note.  It said something to the effect of "Don't be a chicken go with Olivia to Sadie Hawkins."  So a few day's later, following Greg's brilliant idea,  Andrew and I brought Ditten to class with this note attached "I'm not a scaredy-cat, going with you will be a blast! She is adorable isn't she.  Unfortunately, she didn't run around the class or anything but huddled in the corner and Andrew had to give her to Olivia, but it was still pretty cleaver I thought.

Ditten

Halloween night, while trick-or-treating, the kids fell in love with a kitten.  Neightbors had found some lost kittens and were trying to find them homes.  Our kids came home begging.  Apparently I had eatten too much candy and my brain wasn't working and I said yes.  We went the next day to get the kitten only to learn that they weren't actually "lost" just someone's outdoor pets that had wandered across the street and into our neighborhood.  By the light of morning I was pretty sure I had dodged a bullet.  But within the week the kids had found a friend who needed to get rid of a few kitties and this adorable, distracting creature became ours on provision that she got along with Perdita.

The sheer cutness saved her from being booted from the house as her claws scratched and poked bodies and furniture, as she hissed and bothered Dita, as she climbed on the table and ate tons of human food, and as she threw up worms (luckily Andrew filmed them sqirming in her pile of barf so that none of us can forget the horror). 

However, even I love to watch her chase the toy mouse, wrestle with the stuffed red panda, and jump and run with her kitten energy.  We tried on name after name without luck- Nutmeg, Groot, Gremlin, Cronk but the name that stuck was never intended to be her name.  Cousin Dane can't say his 'K' sound thus ditten instead of kitten.  So just being silly we started refering to the kitten as Ditten.  We have had her for 4 months now and everyone calls her Ditten (even though her collar says Groot).

She spends a lot of time with Andrew and he can't get enough of her.  So after she was three months old, and worm free, we committed to getting her declawed and spayed.

Of course after that commitment she healed and promptly started pooping in the front room.  I could have cried (maybe I did).  We have a theory, no real proof, but since the neighbor cat can't defend itself we will blame it all on her.  Some cat _____(insert Mittens - the Bishop's cat that enters our house through the cat door far to often) peed on the couch.  The pee trickled down to the floor where thankfully most of it landed on a music book.  The room started to stick but since we don't go in there very often it took a while to figure it out.  In the mean time Ditten started pooping in there to mark her territory (the kids are sure this is true).  We moved out the couch.  Got the carpets cleaned.  Got Ditten a new, larger litter box, and covered the entire room with aluminum foil (I read that cat's don't like to walk on it).  I was that committed to giving this kitten another chance.  The next morning we caught her peeing on the foil! At this point I was ready to get rid of her but I guess I love our kids so we took the next step.

We blocked off the room entirely to prevent the cat from entering.  That worked, at least until she started peeing in the dinning room.  I only wish I was joking.  Around this time we headed to Hawaii with the dinning room closed up and the library baracaded.  Luckily we came home to poop and pee free carpet.  We even opened the dinning room doors the other day.  Where she promptly peed.  The mattress barricade has to go to McCall soon...if she starts up again with the regular pooping and peeing I'm not sure what will happen...who will win this battle.  Luckily she is a lot bigger now, not as irresistibly cute.

Our Baby is Baptised

It is hard to believe, but Lily is old enough to be baptized.  Our stake was starting up baptisms again, but we were worried about Nani making the long drive from Nevada and my parents were going to have to fly no matter where we had it, so we broke with tradition and had our own private baptism for Lily in Park City complete with tons of cousins and both sets of grandparents.

 

 

I made 120ish swig cookies and four pots of soup to take with us to feed everyone after the baptism.  Nani talked about Baptism, Natali spoke on the Holy Ghost being like Mimi, there to comfort her.  Grandma Dame played the piano and Lily played “Baptism” on the piano as a musical number.  Mack baptized her and Greg confirmed her.  It warmed my mama heart to see Mack baptize her.  They have such a special little bond.  I love watching them together.

 When he put her under, she nearly wacked her head on the back wall of the font but he pulled it off without injury and only having to do it once.

 

Laurie’s primary president gave Lily this cute towel folded like a bear.  It was a shame to unfold it to dry her off.

 

The kids were in heaven all weekend playing with cousin in the snow, in the basement, and creating treasures in Laurie’s sewing room (sorry Laurie).  Saturday night was a huge sleepover with kids everywhere.  They didn't get much sleep but they had a lot of fun.

 

Lily was baptized on the day Grandpa Easton died so Greg was able to go to breakfast with his mom and all his siblings that morning.  It was really special for him and awesome that they could all be together.  

 

Sunday afternoon it was difficult to get everyone out the door – no one wanted to go home and face real life again.

Day 5: Malasadas, Blowholes and Koko Crater at Sunset

 Lily and Emily had slept with Beth’s kids and every morning when they woke Beth would turn on the TV for the kids and she’d go running, or walking with Greg and I.  The kids found this dog training show that they loved and every morning we had to drag them away from it.  So on our last morning we forced them to skip the dog show and explore with us along the beach.  We had an awesome adventure learning about the radar towers and pill boxes used during WWII. We also saw horses, gathered shells, and heard Beth tell the Jewel Barbie story.

 

We dragged ourselves back to our place to pack up and leave our place for good.  We grabbed the big kids, said goodbye, and headed out on our own.  (The girls made this amazing rainbow while waiting to say goodbye to the cousins.)

We saw the Laie temple, ate at Seven Brothers where the kids got to feed their scraps to a couple of baby chicks, and tried mango otai (as pictured by Lily with the big blue straw- in her makeshift 8th seat).  

Since snorkeling had never panned out I was hoping to take the kids on a glass bottom boat ride to see some fish but yet again we struck out- not enough seats on the boat.  We drove toward Honolulu without a plan, passing the Jurassic Park filiming sight, when we spied a Lenard’s food truck with a sign “Happy Malasada Day”.  And a few delicious malasadas later we were all having a great day.

We stopped at a blowhole viewpoint on the side of the road and the good luck kept flowing.  The blowhole itself was pretty cool but we were also able to see whales, dolphins (there is still much debate about wither these were whales or dolphins but I’m sticking to dolphins), and several sea turtles (one special one named Fred).  We stayed out a long time just enjoying all there was to see and moods lightened.  By the time we returned to the car everyone was smiling and excited about more adventures.

(Can you see Fred?)

Next, we stopped at China wall to watch people cliff jumping then we committed to go hike the Koko crater.

We got separated with Mack, Natali, and Emmy on a side trail that they assumed would reconnect to the main trail but ultimately required some bushwhacking to get to it.  I could hear them in the shrubbery beside the trail and they would respond to my whistle, but I couldn’t see them until they emerged from the shrubs way above me on the trail.  I say above me because the trail was up an incredibly steep abandoned railroad track. I could see their shirts up above me as I worked my way up the trail.  I was with Kate and Lily, but they didn’t last long.  They turned back with Greg and headed to the van while Andrew passed me and pressed on.  

At a point near the top the incline became so steep that it was almost like climbing a later.  I chose to stop at that point and wait for the kids.  I was worried my knees wouldn’t make it down the mountain if I pushed them too much farther up the climb.  I sat and watched the sunset over the shore- beautiful and peaceful.  But then it started getting darker.  I was waiting for the kids and could see them coming but I was worried we wouldn’t make it down before the dark hit.  And I did not want to be going down those railroad ties in the dark, so I started down.  I figured they would be faster than me any way.  We all met up and pushed it down the hill just in time.  Natali and Emily didn’t make it quite to the top, but the boys did.  Even without making it to the top it was such a cool hike with amazing views.

We hopped in the car were Greg drove us to see mongoose/kitty cat road.  Apparently, while we were hiking, they found this road where mongoose and cats were running around like crazy.  We didn’t have enough light to take any pics, but the kids were loving it.  It was a great way to end the trip as we rushed to the airport.  Greg gassed up the car while I grabbed 40 chicken nuggets and Wendy’s.  We climbed on the car rental shuttle just in time and the 40 nuggets disappeared by the time we got to the airport.  I hoped kids would sleep on the way home but no luck.  We got to our house around 11:00 am – everyone crawled into bed.  They said they would just take a short nap then go to school, but no one woke up till 4:00.  It was a great trip, maybe not exactly as planned, but a fun time with cousins in a beautiful place.