Morning Fog

On my drive to school the other morning (along the scenic route mentioned below), I turned the bend that overlooks the city and I saw a layer of fog blanketing the city. It was gorgeous! I had to stop the car for some pictures.

Deer Crossing

There is a highway we like to drive on from our house if we are going north or east. It cuts around downtown traffic (haha, like there's traffic in St George). We call it the scenic route. Driving along this way a couple of weeks ago, we saw some deer crossing the road.... there were so many. A lot of them had already made it across the road at this point. Click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see. It was very cool!

Ice Skating

The girls have been begging to go ice skating for the past few years. Finally we went after school on a Friday a couple of weeks ago. At first Kara clung to some other girls she knew from school (and they were really good to hold her hand and skate with her while she was figuring out the ice). Brooke clung to the wall for a few laps. Then they both got brave and by the end were holding hands with each other, skating alone (pretty quickly too), and practicing turns and spins. They both showed some talent for ice skating. Too bad it's so expensive to be involved in. At least they had fun doing it!

Some pictures:

Brookie's Basketball

In January, Brooke started basketball (one of her birthday presents from October). At her age, the city puts on mini-clinics every week and then the last 10-15 mins are scrimmages. Brooke is best at defense - she loves to steal the ball. She goes after it even if her own teammate has the ball. If play ever gets stopped for a jump ball or if there is a pile of girls on the floor, Brooke is also in the middle of it all with her hands on the ball. Shooting and dribbling are improving. She's left handed, but keeps practicing with both her left and right hands for shooting and dribbling (which means she's not as good as she should be if she'd pick a hand and stick with it).

Here are some action shots of Brooke:

Neglect

My poor, sad, little neglected blog. Where has my attention been? Apparantly everywhere but on you.

A couple of weeks ago I started going back to school to (hopefully soon) get my RN. I still need to knock a couple of pre-reqs out of the way, but so far so good. My brain's not too rusty (only took a few REALLY stressful days to get the gears turning and the hand cramps from too much writing to go away). So far on the quizzes and tests I've taken I'm averaging an A in my classes. So far, so good I guess. We'll see what happens when mid-terms come (starting next week). I'll keep working hard and you can keep your fingers crossed.

I have taken pictures of some events from the past couple of weeks. Hopefully as my schedule clears up (maybe over the weekend) I'll get some pictures and blogging caught up on. :)

Until then, hopefully you're all staying as busy as I am. :) January is flying by!

Christmas that was After-Christmas

After Christmas we had a great time visiting with family in California. Jeff had to entertain his boss and a new-hire at work, so he stayed home with the puppy and the girls and I left for our week-long adventure!

We had fun caravanning with Ronnie & his cute little family... the girls sure love their cousin Easton. It was really fun to have someone come stay with us that enjoyed the dog too! Easton & Amber became best friends really quickly.

Some pictures from our trip:

Stopped for lunch at In-N-Out in Las Vegas... Easton had some fries with his ketchup:





















Neat Southern California sunset that greeted us as we drove into Orange County:

















Christmas with Grandma & Grandpa - big hits for the girls... the Wii & the snuggies! Brooke wanted to take both to bed with her that night!

Easton & Grandpa hanging out in front of the tv:

Hairdo's by Aunt Kari... Kara & Brooke really loved their braided do's while Easton looked super cute in his faux-hawk!:

Cute cousins... the girls had a great time playing with Easton! They loved running around with him at the mall and Brooke enjoyed her bath with Easton's new bath crayons. Brooke & Easton in the bath reminded me of being little and taking baths with Ronnie... fond memories! Although I guess I have blocked the memory of trying to drown Ronnie in the tub and then telling people that "he likes it!". Sorry, Ronnie! :)

Christmas morning

The girls declared this Christmas as "The Best Christmas Ever!". Yay! Always glad to hear... glad they were happy. We enjoyed spending time together, letting the girls have time to play with their toys, then went to a movie (Alvin & the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel - girls' choice). Then later that night we battled the flu. Yucky.

Some pictures:

Santa stuffed those giant stockings full!















Some of the loot:





















Waiting to come out and see:

















Digging through their stockings: