Holidays 2012 - Traveling through Oregon

We saw a lot of pretty sights while traveling through Oregon. Cool old stores, a natural hot geyser, fun old signs, CRAZY blue streams, and gorgeous mountainsides.

 It was really cold, which added to the stress of traveling snow packed roads in the night. I kept praying that nothing would happen that would cause us to be stalled on one of the snowpacked highways that were fairly infrequently traveled, especially at night. Eric and I talked about how this would be such a fun adventure that we would seek out if we were single or at least childless. But now that we have kids, and I was pregnant, it is a more stressful "adventure".

 Ivan LOVES having his window rolled down, even when it is frigid. Reese kind of hates it, unless it is really nice out.

 In this picture, the vehicle on the left  is stuck in the snow bank on the side. We came across them late in the evening. A man in his 50's was digging at the snow bank and inside the car was a larger lady on oxygen. They had been there for quite a while and the man had been digging like crazy. We were wishing we had our Subaru with a tow strap, but alas, we only had our Camry, and no tow strap. We recognized that we couldn't leave two older people, one on oxygen, stuck in the freezing cold, so....Eric dug for a long time alongside the man. I tried to drive the car out backwards while both Eric and the man pushed and lifted it but it was just too stuck. We realized it wasn't coming out with digging so the next option was to get a tow. The people said they didn't know anyone who had a truck that could come help, nor did they have a phone so Eric started calling all the nearby tow truck companies. When he would relay the price onto the man, he would become disgusted and say, "I'm not paying that." I felt bad for them, and felt hopeless. We were seconds from offering them the cash to pay for a tow when a vehicle approached. Hallelujah! It was an SUV, with what??? a winch on the front! AWESOME! In seconds the car was unstuck!

Some funnies thrown into this story:
- At one point I asked the man if he would like some trail mix or water. He told me he couldn't eat the trail mix because he had no teeth. I will blame the dark night for my having not noticed. I then proceeded to ask if his mom would like some. He said, "huh?", I realized I didn't necessarily know what she was to him so I cooly said, "Would the lady with you like some?" After the fact, once we were down the road away,  I found out it was his GIRLFRIEND, via Eric who was telling me of a conversation he had had with the man. My face blushed and I felt so bad!

Holidays 2012

Grandma Gwen always makes the family delicious homemade, hand-dipped chocolates. As of this year she is no longer able to make them because it is a LOT of work and her body doesn't like it. Eric and I asked her if she'd teach us how to make them, and she agreed!!! We spent the night up there and she let us copy all of her recipes, taught us how to make the fillings, and told us a bunch of her tricks. I went back up to Ogden a few days later so she could teach me how to dip them in chocolate.

 We sure love Grandma Gwen, she is one strong lady!

 Reese enjoyed hearing the story of Christ's birth over and over again. She decided it would be fun to dress up like Mary while she colored her Nativity coloring book.

 We went with David, Nicole, and Amber to temple square this year. It was raining like crazy, which wasn't all that enjoyable for walking around looking at the lights, so sadly we didn't roam as much as normal. However, we did get to ride Trax, which was the kids favorite part.

 The train was PACKED!

 We met the Warburtons at Cabela's for a little outing before Christmas. The dad's took over the guns at the "shooting range", it was pretty funny.

 We were surprised and excited to hear that Santa was there. The kids were stoked to go sit on his lap. Reese told him she wanted a Hello Kitty toothbrush (this girl always requests a toothbrush for Christmas, no wonder she has such pretty teeth :)), Ivan got a little timid once he was on Santa's lap but still said that he wanted "toys".

 Here's a portion of the chocolates we made this year. I hope to get better over the years. Especially at tempering the chocolate so it doesn't get white streaks through it.

 On Christmas Eve we went to my parents to eat our tradition shepherd's meal, open Christmas PJs, and watch the living scriptures nativity movie. The cousins always LOVE being together!

 As soon as Ivan had his batman jammies on, his character turned into batman as well. Here he is showing his strong muscles.

Christmas morning was wonderful. Reese and Ivan were both really excited this year, which made Eric and I feel like kids all over again.

 The day after Christmas we left on a roadtrip to Oregon, to then follow the coastline South to Anaheim, CA, where we were going to meet my family for a week long trip at Disneyland. Our excursion was pretty exciting, with snow covered highways, snowstorms, and lots of fun site seeing.

 Although cold, it was BEAUTIFUL!

 A giant motorcycle :)

 Wild burros

 L-O-N-G stretches of slippery snow packed roads.

 This was a really pretty abandoned farm that we spotted and had to go check out.

Ivan turns 2

Ivan likes to work with daddy when he builds.

 For Ivan's second birthday we spent the day at Discovery Gateway museum and had a combined birthday party (dinner and cake/ice cream) with Amber.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Ivan reminds a lot of Bam-Bam from the Flintstone's so his costume was a no-brainer. Reese wanted to be a princess, Sleeping Beauty in particular. Not sure why since I don't know that she has ever watched the entire movie - it is kind of scary! Eric had a Halloween work party at the Capitol this year so we decided to go all out and dress up as well. Eric was Fred, I was Wilma, Ivan was Bam-Bam, and we talked Reese into being Pebbles (by telling her we would spray paint her hair a color). At the Capitol we had a fun lunch and then Mrs.Clause took all the kids around to all the offices to go Trick-or-Treating. Reese was very good at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you". Ivan was very particular and would spend quite a bit of time at each bowl picking and re-picking out the perfect treat, usually something in a blue wrapper.

We had our traditional Ellis/Christensen pumpkin carving night, except without pumpkin soup or David and Nicole :( I was too busy with school, and David and Nicole are living in DC right now. Still a good night though! Reese was OBSESSED with digging the pumpkin guts out and then 'massaging' them for the next hour.

We went to Cornbelly's with Jared, Sarah, and Parker Swanson. They had the AWESOMEST slide with some pretty wicked bumps. I didn't go on it but got a kick out of watching everyone else go. Jared landed on his back after the last bump. The kids loved it!

The day of Halloween I took the kids up to Foothill Village, a shopping center. All the stores were participating in a trick-or-treating party. Reese said she really wanted to be Sleeping Beauty, so she got to do a little costume change and wore tons of sparkles in her hair. The kids totally loved it!! That night we went to Chipotle for dinner, because if you showed up in costume you got burritos for $2 each. It was packed with costumed people - SO fun! Ivan went caveman style, with no shirt under his little Bam-Bam outfit; he was the talk of the restaurant, seriously, his little bare chest was to die for cute! We then went to a party at a friend's house. I love that my kids are so comfortable with our adult friends and that our friends treat them so special, it's no wonder that once we get to a party they leave mom and dad to go hang out with the other adults :)