Precious Holiday!

It's hard to sum up all the happenings of Christmas time.  It was just one get-together after another.  Sadly I didn't take as many pictures as I should have.

December 22: Party at Nora's!  I love this annual tradition!  Anna and I hitched a ride with Paul and Stefanie to the ice skating, then a yummy dinner, REALLY!  Nora puts on quite a party.  We all eat a little too much and stay a little too late.

December 24: Christmas Eve!  Not much happened to start the day.  I was itchin' to ski and Grandma Christy was willing to babysit.  I took my teles and it was grand, and exhausting.  It's hard when you're out of shape.  Later, we met up with Heber Valley family members for a very cold trek up Memorial Hill.  It was cold.  That's it.

December 25: Christmas Day!  Bevan got the day off!!!  His boss graciously stepped in and covered for him.  He was there for Anna to open her presents, which she was bored of by 11AM.  We decided to go skiing for a couple hours in the afternoon.  It was interesting to try out her setup for the season, especially since her feet are the hardest things to keep warm.  She's only 6 pounds heavier this season than last, so that's OK with me.

December 26: Sledding Party!  It was snowing hard everywhere BUT the cabin!  We kept waiting and waiting for the blizzard, but nothing.  All the kids had fun sledding anyway.  I just sat by the wood-burning stove.

December 31: New Year's Eve!  Oh, boy!!! Literally!!!  We're having a baby boy in May/ June!  I know it deserves its own blog post, but consider this a reward for reading thus far.  We had our ultrasound on New Year's Eve and Bevan was beside himself with joy.  I was happy of course, but  find myself without any boy gear or boy name ideas.  Good thing I have a couple months to get prepped.  What a great way to end 2012!

Parties and Anniversaries

When we moved to Midway, I was pretty desperate for friends (I still am) so I thought I would bribe some fun/ young/ movin'/ shakin' couples with their one kid or less to our house for a Christmas party.  It worked and it's been a tradition ever since!  Well... many of those movin' couples moved out of Midway since then, but we've stayed friends.  It's been tough coming up with new ideas and I don't know how people used to throw Christmas parties without the internet!  We made reindeer antlers out of pantyhose and balloons and Santa suits out of tissue paper, cotton balls and tape.  Yeah, it got pretty rowdy.

A few days later was our 6th anniversary!  Can you believe it's been 6 years since this?!

Last year's 5-year was supposed to be a big deal, but ended with a loud dinner, cold food, and Santa making Anna cry.  This year Bevan put his foot down and reserved a night at Zermatt.

How romantic!  So what if it's only 5 minutes from our house.  Thanks Grandma Christy for  helping with Anna.  We planned the next morning for skiing, but with the weather as it was, a movie sounded better. It was definitely a step up from past anniversaries, but some day we WILL make it back to Kauai.

Thanksgiving at Cove Fort and Anna's Birthday!

I can't believe my baby is 2!  She is growing up so fast!  Her vocab is improving, although we couldn't confirm that it is between 40-50 words at her 2-year checkup.  I'm not worried.  She's just so active and busy, always finding something to play with, and they're usually never "toys".

We traveled to Cove Fort for Thanksgiving this year and had a blast!  Anna was in HEAVEN with all those grandmas and grandpas AKA senior missionary couples.  Her particular favorite was a senior Elder who kept giving her M&Ms.  She was completely adored by everybody, including her own grandparents.  Beverly and Lloyd seem like they're having a good time down there.  We sure do miss them, but it's not a far drive.  They're given a lot more freedom than I ever got on my mission, but that's a perk of being a senior couple.  We took a tour of the fort and learned a lot of pioneer history.  The tours close at sunset (no electricity in the fort) so we couldn't eat the Thanksgiving feast with everyone until 6 PM.  We were so lucky to be invited to eat with them, even though we didn't contribute any food.  I forgot what it's like to hang out with other missionaries.  The spirit is strong and everybody is just so... happy!

We left early the next morning, since we knew the missionaries would be super busy with tours.  We made it to the cabin for a quick party for Anna with her little cousins.  The afternoon was spent at the Kamas pool.  Ah, how I miss that place!  Anna is getting more brave in the water. She kept wanting to go down the BIG slide by herself and kept wandering over to the deep end of the lap pool!  Luckily her life jacket had a handle, so I could keep hold of her.  I wish we had a quality pool that close to us in Midway.  And I wish our little baby wouldn't grow up so fast!

That one time, when it snowed...

It's hard to believe it's almost December and 50 degrees outside.  Oh, we need some snow!  Luckily Deer Valley doesn't open for another week, which gives them time to make snow.  Several weeks ago, when we got that one huge storm, we decided to head up to the cabin for some sledding.  Anna wanted to try out her boots and snow bibs.  Her hat and mittens still fit from last year, as well as a her 12-month coat.  We had a blast and went down the run 3 times!  Never mind it took about 2 hours to prep the track, stomp it down, and have it firm up a little, before the sledding could begin.  We had fun anyway, until Anna decided she didn't like wearing mittens.  She loves grabbing snow with her bare hands!  What are we going to do with her?!

It's time to stop pretending we're 24

It was Bevan's birthday on Saturday!  We had our good friends, Debbie and Christian, over the night before for dinner and cake.  We like hanging out with them, partially because it makes us feel younger.  The few friends that we do have here in Midway are all about 8-10 years younger than us, which is really nice.  We just have to keep up on buzzing away Bevan's grey hairs.

Saturday started out rainy and dark (which melted all the snow), not good for a birthday, so we decided to go down to Salt Lake, where it was sunny and warm.  The only thing Bevan wanted in the whole world was a Crown Burger.  Sounds great!  I felt like a gyro myself.  We decided to spend the day downtown and walk around the new City Creek Center.  For anyone who hasn't been there, the atmosphere is amazing, the whole indoor/ outdoor mall thing.  The stores are a little pricey, but we weren't planning on buying anything.  For kicks, I had Bevan try on a pair of $360 jeans!  No joke!  He claims they were really comfy.  Anna had a ball climbing on the water features and dappling her hand in the water.  That's about as brave as she gets.  She does have endless energy, so I always let her take the stairs.  It was a fun day.  Sometimes, all you need is a good destination birthday.

Tribute to a vacant lot

We have this lot behind our house.  When we bought our house, I was thinking how nice it would be to buy this lot and have a HUGE backyard.  Ya know, trampoline, massive garden, hardy fruit trees, endless lush green grass (compliments of our un-metered irrigation water), and plenty of play things and structures for Anna.  Sigh.  I love dreaming.  In reality, the owner wanted WAY too much for that lot.  Instead he rents it out to our neighbors to the north of us to park their big trucks/ trailers/ campers/ random stuff on.  They can.  It's zoned commercial.  This summer I dedicated myself to controlling the noxious weeds and thistles.  Me and my 2-gallon tank of round-up were always on patrol.  I got a pretty good handle on it.  I'm still planning on overseeding with some softer, natural grasses. 

We just found out yesterday that the lot has been sold!  Gasp!  We saw our neighbors out there with battery chargers hooked up to the broken-down trucks, moving them onto their own property.  This is quite a surprise.  What will become of the lot now?  Who knows.  Will they build a house?  Perhaps.  Will they start to dig this year?  Probably not.  Permitting takes months.  Those big trucks kind of bugged me... but what about a backyard neighbor?  Will they put up a fence?  Maybe.  I never really appreciate something, until it's gone. 

Lets try some curls!

I tried putting product into Anna's hair the other day.  It looked good!... for about an hour.  She has hair like mine.  It looks awesome, until it dries out, then it just flattens out or goes every which way.  It made for a cute photo shoot with our new camera.

In other news, we got our family ski passes last week.  Anna really doesn't need one, but it's fun to have.  We'll still be packing her around, unless we get her on skis in March, but there's no hurry.  They took a new picture, but failed to double check her height.  Ah, the ticket checkers are going to bust her for sure!
  

D.C. Land!

We took a trip to Maryland for Bevan's "off-season".  It was fantastic!  I was a little nervous about the flight, since we were chinsy and didn't buy Anna her own seat, counting on their being an extra seat we could strap her car seat on to.  We were successful 3 legs out of 4!  She was a VERY good traveller! 

The first couple days were a little... relaxed, since we couldn't go anywhere, because of superstorm Sandy.  We were so lucky that it didn't hit us straight on, although I feel so bad for those folks it did affect directly.  It just rained and rained and rained.  Luckily the schools were out and many businesses were closed so we saw lots of Seth and the boys.  The weather cleared up for Halloween.  We tagged along to their trunk-or-treat and Anna was completely adorable in her spider costume (thanks auntie Trisha!).  Anna freaked out over all the candy, but she couldn't eat it as fast as her cousins (she doesn't eat anything fast).  She would spit out a dum-dum after 5 minutes and start on another one. 

Sharon and Seth were gracious hosts and watched Anna for the next several days while we explored our nation's capitol.  We got the FULL Washington D.C. experience!  We rode bikes around the monuments, which is the only way to go when they're so spread out.  We saw most of the museums, although I would've liked to spend a full day in each.  Bevan had to literally DRAG me out of the national botanical gardens.  We  toured the capitol building, ate from a hot dog cart, visited grandma and grandpa's graves in Arlington, saw the changing of the gaurd, ate a cupcake from "DC Cupcakes", got a parking ticket from a segway cop, and got stuck for an hour on the metro.  We had a blast!  Thanks Sharon and Seth for your amazing hospitality!  I've never been to the east coast until now and I can't wait to go back. 











August and September in a FLASH!

I have no excuse for not keeping up on the blog.  I feel terrible... and lazy.  Now that work has calmed down, it's time to play catch-up!  Here are the 10 best things that happened in the last 2 months:

10. Ackerson Family Reunion, Aug 6-8
What happens when all us get together for 3 days at Bear Lake?  Lots of good food, endless dirt and sand, and several sunburns.  I was so careful too!!!  Thanks Allen and Missy for putting the whole party together.  The family reunion has become the highlight of my summer!

9. Wicked!  Aug 1
I listened to the CD dozens of times, memorized every song, I even read the script online (which Sharon warned would spoil it... which it did), and I finally felt I was ready to be included in all the hype!  It was a blast and worth all the attention that was given to it. 

8. BYU Football,  Aug 30- current
When I first joined the Hawkins family, I thought that this football thing wouldn't last for me.  Well, it has.  It's been a great way to spend time with the family.  I admit, I even get riled up sometimes.  It must be the crowd!

7. Swiss Days,  Aug 31-Sept 1
We decided to get more involved in the community this year, which topped off with Swiss Days.  I love living in the middle of town which provides walking access to the booth our ward sponsors:  Swiss Tacos!  It's really just a Navajo taco, but in a really swissy atmosphere!  60,000 people in Midway?  Believe it!!!  Bevan placed 2nd again in the Swiss Days 10K.  What a stud!

6. Uncle Clyde's Cabin,  Sept 2-3
Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend was spent in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE at Bevan's uncle's cabin.  It definitely is the place to get away from it all.  We played games, went on 4-wheeler rides, made smores, and slept really soundly! 

5. Nora rode in Lotoja!  Sept 8
Well, we didn't see it, but we heard about it while watching her kids for the weekend.  Anna played with all her cousins while we got the latest updates of her progress.  She finished with time to spare!  I love cycling, but it takes a strong person to love 12 hours of it!!!

4. Mission Call!  Sept 13
Not us, but Beverly and Lloyd!  They're spending the next 12 months as part of the St. George mission, with much of that time to be spent in Cove Fort!  We're so happy for them, getting out there and serving.  We'll miss them terribly, especially Anna.  Luckily, they're not too far away.

3. Cascade Springs,  Sept 21
I forgot that this beautiful place was an easy 20 minutes from our house!  We met up with Beverly and Lloyd and let Anna run a muck.  She loves exploring and was thrilled that there was so much exploring to be done!  I took dozens of pictures of her and she even fell in the water once (it was very shallow).

2. Blue Boar 5K, Sept 22
Bevan was so determined to NOT get 2nd place again!  This race was a fun one, right here in Midway!  Part of it was trail-running in Wasatch State Park, which is Bevan's favorite place to run.  We felt safe that most of the participants were local cross-country team members, but the guy who passed Bevan right in the end happened to be his same age.  2nd place again!!!

1.  Anna becomes a toddler!!!
Where has my little cuddly baby gone? Alright, so she was NEVER "cuddly", but still, she has grown and developed so much in the last couple months, it's hard to keep up.  Major accomplishments were getting the rest of her molars (with very little complaining), learning how to climb nearly everything (everything BUT her crib, whew!), learning how to dance ala wiggling her butt, and mastering the slide at the park.  Her vocabulary has extended to: mine, eye, again, uh-oh, hot, and mama, although ALL adults are called mama, even strangers.  She's still obsessed with going outside and finds the most happiness playing in dirt.  Oh how we LOVE this little girl!