Hawkins Christmas Tree-Cutting Expedition!... no place for children.

I stood in line the day after Halloween for a Christmas tree permit.  Me... and about a thousand other people!  Sheesh!  There are some dedicated natural Christmas tree lovers out there!  I just love the idea of a $10 Christmas tree, with a little bit of work.  We were so excited to go out and find our tree again this year.  Bevan and I promised each other that it would be a pleasant experience with little hiking and even less fighting.  Last year, we learned that small children were better off playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house than out in the woods with us.  I felt bad for ditching the kids, but maybe next year we'll start taking them.  It wasn't THAT bad.  If we're going to start a tradition then let's start it!

It only took us about an hour to find the tree.  Nice and full and surprising close to the road.  We were on our way back the car actually.  I think we stumbled across someones secret stash.  It was a random grouping of perfect Christmas trees surrounded by a colony of aspen.  Very hidden and easy to miss... but I think we'll be able to find it easily next year!

Dallin went to work pulling off as many ornaments as he could, but we "trained" him not to with hand slaps (such mean parents!).  It worked... or the novelty just wore off.  Either way, our tree is standing proudly!  After all that work, I forgot to water it for 4 days and it went dry.  Oops!  I started watering it again, and it's drinking... a little, let's hope it lasts 'till Christmas!

Christmas Card Photo Fails!

Never try to take Christmas card pictures when kids are cranky.  None of these made the card, but were close runners-up!

Thanksgiving 2014

I think that Thanksgiving is more fun that Christmas!  That may sound blasphemous, but you get all the family time, without the hassle and stress of finding presents!  It's just people and food!  

Thanksgiving morning, we gave another try of running the annual 5K turkey trot, here in Midway!  I was so sick last year and had to sit out, but this year I was determined to do it.  Bevan wanted to place, so I was left pushing the kids.  It's hard pushing a double jogger in a crowd.  I can't count how many times I said, "sorry!" to people.  It was like Disneyland all over again!  I was able to convince some of the thanksgiving "gang at the cabin" to come run it too!  Allen and Ellie came to cheer on Missy and Carson.  Vanessa and Trent made a date of it, and Bevan left me in the dust... so I ran with Vanessa and Trent.  Such great weather!  Alas, not a single picture, even though I had storage room galore for a camera.

After the race, Bevan and Trent ran off to football at the church.  They definitely got their exercise in for the day!  We finally left for American Fork for dinner with his family.  What a spread!  Turkey AND ham! ... and anything else you can imagine.  I kept busy chasing Dallin around and begging Anna to eat her dinner.  For the sake of family togetherness, I kept them awake from their naps, which was a mistake.  I should've enjoyed dinner... and THEN fed the kids.  Oh well.  They crashed on the way to the cabin that night.

We couldn't miss the after-party!  We played games and ate leftovers and junk 'till midnight.  I passed on the black Friday shopping venture, but we played plenty of games, went sledding in the mud, and even ran the loop in 6" of snow!  What a great Thanksgiving!

Anna is 4!

I love back-to-back birthdays!  Anna has been hyped up about her birthday for weeks... mostly because WE hyped it up for her!  She was not disappointed.  She got waffles for breakfast, nuggets and fries for lunch, and a Strawberry Shortcake ice cream cake for dessert!  I tried to mimic Bevan's oreo ice cream cake, and I think it turned out alright!  I borrowed a strawberry shortcake figurine and it made it look so complete!  Her many presents included dress-ups, play food for her kitchen, crayons, markers, watercolors (already all mixed to grey hues), dinosaur popper, and a beautiful Sunday dress!  She was in heaven.  Thanks to loving grandmas, grandpas, and good friends!

I can't believe my big girl is 4!  I've enjoyed our easy days with few schedules and the freedom to whatever whenever!  I know that preschool will be good for her, but it's just so convenient to go on road trips while everybody else is in school!  I love having Mondays off during the winter to ski and get things done, but I'm sure that will all change soon.  Sigh.  Why do kids need to grow up?  Why do I need to grow up?!

A Birthday for Bevan!

I felt bad that Bevan's birthday was on a Monday this year.  He had to work.  There's too much to do to get the ski resort ready to open to spare anyone!  I had the best intentions to make him breakfast!... but that didn't happen.  I asked, as he was grumpily walking out the door, what kind of cake he wanted.  He said oreo ice cream cake.  Okay! I would NOT let him down.

I started making phone calls to local bakeries to see who had oreo ice cream cakes.  Nada.  Nobody!  I had to drive to Kimball Junction or Provo.  Then I thought, "I wonder how hard it is to MAKE an ice cream cake?!"  A trip to ridley's and a couple of you tube videos later... I think we pulled if off.  Thanks Internet!

Throughout the day, we kept sending him little love texts to boost his spirits.  I think they worked.  Either that or the steak dinner waiting for him made him a happy man!  For his presents, he got a new stadium seat for watching football and a ski rack for the garage, like the rich folks in Park City have.  This was partially a present for me too!  Even though we've downsized our ski accumulation, I still hate to see them all piled up in the corner.  I think it looks a lot nicer.  Thanks again, Internet!

Halloween 2014

We probably could've skipped Halloween this year and spent and extra day or two in Kanab... but for the children's sake... we came home.  Anna is still young and doesn't have older siblings to advertise major holidays.  She pretty much forgot about it.  Oh well!  They're not young forever, right?!

We didn't pull into Midway until 5:30 pm, so everything had to be fast-tracked.  I got both our little pumpkins carved while Bevan fed the kids and got them in their costumes.  We were out the door by 6:15!  For being the warmest Halloween on record, our kids were seriously over-dressed!  A skimpy Elsa dress would've been perfect, instead Anna went as a mouse in a head-to-toe fur suit!  Dallin sported the scary lion outfit, both compliments of Grandma Christy's costume collection.

We went our usual route, the neighbors closest to us and then down Center St.  I guess it was a slow year for trick-or-treaters because many of the houses we went to, we were the first!  Our reward?  Fists full of candy!  We got the same lines all night:

Well, since there aren't many kids out... have another handful!

I don't want all this candy in my house!

Your kids are so adorable!  Have some more candy!

It didn't take long for us to reach our limit.  We came home, lit the jack-o-lanterns, and waited for someone to visit us.  Nobody did.  I wasn't complaining.  I bought a large bag of York Peppermint Patties, and now they were all mine!  I told Anna to pig-out, because her candy would be rationed in the morning.  She would take a few bits or a few sucks and throw it away before opening another piece.  I usually discourage being wasteful, but we can make an exception!

Mud Season Road Trip- October 2014

To make up for lack of vacation this summer, we planned the ULTIMATE southern Utah roadtrip for Bevan's fall off-season!  We only had a week, so we stuffed it full of fun!  We thought it would be a setback that the subaru had a broken strut spring... but then the dealership gave us a deal on a rental.
What a rental!!!  2015 Outback with only 300 miles on it!  We were really riding in luxury!  I had to read the manual to Bevan so he could figure out all the fancy features, which took most of the drive to St. George.

Man, we really need a new car.

Anyway, we made it to St. George right in time to watch the BYU game.  The game was almost worth watching (they lost), but we had fun with Paul and Stefanie.  What great hosts!  I'm so glad we now have family down south.  I'm sure there will be more visits this winter!

Saturday, Bevan and I went to the temple nice and early.  It was so beautiful!... and so nice we could just WALK there.  What a great location.  Later that morning, we drove out to Snow Canyon with Paul and Stefanie and just dinked around on the easy hikes and played in the sand dunes.  It got hot, so we headed back to town for the splash pad.  They also had a craft fair going on with food, but there were no snow cones!  We had to settle for overpriced Italian Ice.  Anna packed her swimsuit, but Dallin had to rough-it in his clothes.  I've never seen that boy so happy!

On Sunday, we took it easy.  We were able to pass off Dallin as 18-months, so we put him in nursery and enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath meetings!  Oh, is this what it will be like?!

We had to say goodbye to Paul and Stefanie on Monday.  Zion was waiting!  It was the first day of the season without the shuttles, which we didn't figure out until we stood at the shuttle stop for 20 minutes.  We didn't feel bad, there were others.  We made it to Weeping Rock and started up for Observation Point, our favorite hike in Zion canyon!  We made pretty good time, but had to pack the kids.  We are big believers that kids should walk themselves... unless there's time constraint.  We're just not THAT patient!  Anna was able to walk most of the way down, as soon as we got away from the cliff.  We were all beat after that, so we left for Kanab for our token night of camping!

Tuesday was the first day to try for a permit to hike the wave!  It's a cool sandstone formation by Paria Canyon, in the Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area.  Because it is "wilderness" they limit the number of permits to 20 people (10 online and 10 walk-in).  Chances of getting a permit online is 1/100, but chances of a walk-in permit is 1/10, so slightly better.  It was worth a shot.  Your walk-in application corresponds to a bingo ball in a rolling cage.  Not in our favor that day, so we went to the North Rim!  Oh, how beautiful!  We took the extra time to drive out to Cape Royal, something I never did in the 2 summers I worked there.  Quite the view!  The North Rim Lodge was pretty deserted, but it was getting late, so we headed back to Kanab.  My good friend has family in Kanab that rents out their house to vacationers.  I agreed to help with their landscaping, in return for 4 nights in their house!  It was so fun!  The kids were in heaven.  It was weird to not "camp" the whole time, but I wasn't complaining!

I got up nice and early Wednesday to try for a permit at the BLM office... again.  Still no luck!  There were fewer people, but the bingo balls were still not in my favor.  Off to Coral Pink Sand Dunes!  I love Kanab because it's so close to everything fun in Southern Utah.  You can just make a bunch of day trips.  After playing in the sand dunes, we took the back way over to our afternoon hike by Colorado City.  VERY interesting town.  It was weird to see women in pioneer dresses driving really nice cars!  We hiked up Water Canyon to a beautiful grotto!

Thursday... BLM office... again...  STILL no luck!  I was mad by this time.  I thought, what the heck!  Let's hike out there anyway!  What can they do?!  We justified it by technically hiking Buckskin Gulch, which shares a trail head... and then "getting lost" and wandering over to the wave.  It's only 3 miles and we were making good time by packing the kids.  I was so optimistic! (while really breaking the law).  We made it half way there and ran smack into a ranger.  The wind was completely taken out of our sails!  No, she couldn't write us a ticket, but she did tell us to turn around.  So we did.  Augh!  So close to my dream!  I sulked all the way back to Kanab.  Don't worry, we'll be back... someday!

On Friday, we really had to go home.  It was Halloween! ...and we told the dealership we'd bring their car back.
Sad to go home.
Sad to leave the desert.
Sad to not see the wave.
Sad to return our nice car, but we did put 800 miles on it in the meantime.
Don't get me wrong, it was a great trip!  We can't wait to go back!

Master of the Tomato!

So, the vegetable garden was alright this year.  The aphids eventually got to the squash plants and the rest of the chard.  Oh well.  Bells and Anaheims were fruitful and even the onions lasted all summer.  So weird that I have to start BUYING onions again.  How inconvienent!

My big goal for this summer was to get a good stock of marinara sauce and salsa.  Beverly and Lloyd, being the sweet in-laws they are, agreed to hold my hand and help me through it.  I definitely needed the help!  They even brought some surplus tomatoes from their own bountiful garden, which was weeks ahead of mine!  Oh, how would it be to live in a zone 5 or 6?!  Anyway, I realized a few things about canning:
Time time time!

That's about it.

Now I have a problem on my hands, with all these jars of red stuff, where am I going to put it all?  I LOVE our little Midway house, but there is ZERO storage.  The garage is roomy, but the temperatures are too extreme.  It looks like I'm going to be utilizing my crawl space.  I don't care for the crawl space.  It's scary... and it hurts my back.  Oh well!

Update... I set up some shelves and the tomato products officially have a new home!  Now I'm wondering what else I can store in there?  Bevan spent an afternoon and shoveled and raked to make the dirt all smooth, so it's a lot more functional and not so bumpy.  Maybe I can start having a real food storage now.  It can keep the spiders company.