Friday afternoon in the rain at Snow Canyon

I love it when Paul is done early with me on Fridays.  This day it was rainy and we decided to check out this one waterfall in Snow Canyon and follow it to the top to see its' source.  We weren't disappointed.  It was beautiful.  Love my raincoat and Snow Canyon with my honey!

Elephant Arch for MLK Day!

Wow, I'm so behind I can't remember a lot, but the main event was taking a hike to Elephant Arch.  It had rained recently, so we thought it might be better walking in the sand.  It was.  A lot of other people had the same idea on the same day, so it was a bit crowded, but still lots of fun!  The Randalls, the Borrowmans, the Weavers and I went.  It was the highest I had ever been (up into the arch) of all the times I've gone over the years.  Really cool arch and great company!

Brenden #8 + baptism + Cub Scouts & temple baptisms

Brenden is another one of those January birthdays.  He is also the last of the 4 cousins that are all born within a year's time.  Finally it was his turn for a birthday, baptism and to join Cub Scouts!  Lots of exciting things when you turn 8! Happy everything Brenden!  We love you! (He got to participate in the Pinewood Derby just a bit beforehand since it was so close!)  We had lots of fun hanging out with the Key clan for lunch after the baptism!

In the afternoon after this fun we had more fun.  We got to go to the temple with Brady, Tavin, Kaebri and Tasia to do baptisms for the dead.  Lou participated in the baptisms too. Bryan and Paul did the baptizing and confirmations.  It was Brady's first time and it was nice for Tavin to be there to show him the ropes!  We didn't get his picture unfortunately.  This was also our first time to go with Tasia!

Randall January birthdays - all at once!

January turned crazy and it was hard to ever find a time to celebrate these January birthdays. We planned to do it one Sunday and then the weather got in the way and the bishopric forgot to sustain Brady.  Finally we got them all at once!  It was fun to have Bryan's dad there to celebrate too.  It was also the day that Brady was ordained a deacon and the grandpas got to participate in making that happen.  That made it and even better day!  Happy Birthday to all and congratz to Brady on receiving the priesthood.

Starting off the new year's family dinners

We started the new year's family dinners off  at our house.  We had a great turn out just missing Derek, Moss and Christie and family, and Beacher.  We also celebrated the first of our many January birthdays with Eden! She's now in double digests at #10! Grandpa and Grandma Sheffield joined us for the cake, candles and present part of the evening.  Happy birthday Eden!  We love you! We love you all and look forward to more great family get togethers in 2017! We added a new thing to the evening that I hope we can continue.  After it was pretty much all said and done and the kids were playing we gathered the adults around the table and had a little family report/council time where everyone kind of reported on what their family was doing and had a chance to bring up anything they wanted to share with the family as a group.  We  talked some about the plans for Family Camp along with the other stuff this time.  It was nice.  Let's do it next time!  

Noah's baptism!

The last event of 2016 for us was Noah's baptism.  He's the 3rd one of the 4 boys to be baptized.  We just have Brenden yet to go.  It was a nice time to enjoy most of the family as we gathered for this special time.  Noah seemed pleased. Noah's best friend and neighbor Mallock Weaver ? , (no relation) was baptized too, as well a little girl. Noah and Mallock share a birthday too! After the baptisms/confirmations we gathered for lunch and visiting.  The only thing we didn't get done was to take enough good pictures. We are so happy to see each grand child take this important step on the path back home. Congratulations Noah! We love you.

Christmas 2016

The fun began with a light looking trip with the Randalls the Monday before.  We visited the Desert Garden and the Town Square and then came back to the house for hot chocolate and donuts!  Such a fun evening!

Christmas Eve we partied two times.  Moss and Christie hosted a lunch at their beautiful new home in the afternoon.  We had yummy food that everyone brought to share, enjoyed a wonderful little Christmas concert from Brynnli and Tavin and then we got to open our gift from the gang...awesome tickets to the Tuacahn shows coming up this summer!  Thanks to all!  We are going to have lots of fun!

Later that evening we had a pretty low key Christmas Eve dinner with us, Grandma Kurtz and Moss, Christie and kids. A little before Christmas we got the exciting news that Moss and Christie are having another baby coming up in July of 2017!  So excited for that!

Christmas day we enjoyed going to church and then coming home and opening gifts with Grandma and Bean.  After that we traveled around from house to house visiting with the kids and giving them their gifts.

The Weavers came down from Cedar and dropped by to see us!

Next we visited Derek and kids!  I think his favorite gift was the waxing kit from Juge!

Moss, Christie and their kids were very excited about their See's certificate from Grandma Poulsen!

On to the Borrowmans!

After that Grandma was tired out, so we dropped her off and headed to Enoch to see the Randalls!

It was a wonderful Christmas Day!  Having it fall on Sunday made it extra special and gave us a bit more time to remember the real reason for all of the celebration...thanks be to God for the matchless gift of his divine son who made the plan of happiness possible.  Oh how we all missed Weed this Christmas time, but how immeasurably grateful we to know we will be with her again because of this gift from our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Jay and Brynn and family shared this Christmas day in the snow picture with us since we couldn't actually be with them the day of.  We did get to enjoy them for a few days after Christmas and had a lot of fun puzzling, etc!

Pine Valley Fun - before and after Christmas!

Snow!  We have taken advantage of the close to home snow at Pine Valley and thoroughly enjoyed it. A couple of days before Christmas we had a little time on our hands and went up hoping there was enough snow to cc ski.  There was some, but not quite enough, so we just hiked the trail and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  

The day after Christmas we decided to try again and brought Brynnli and Tavin along to try out cc skiing with us.  It was perfect!  We had such a fun time.  We found and empty porch at a lodge complete with a nice little table and chairs when we were done and enjoyed out hot chocolate and Cripsy Creme donuts there.  

A couple of days later we took Kaebri and her cute friend Bailey up to try it out.  The day was warm and the snow was melting but we still had plenty to ski in and it was another fun trip with more donuts and hot chocolate.  We have some pretty wonderful grand kids and it is fun to hang out with them!  They may get tired of our outdoor adventures some times, but they are good sports anyway!

Christmas tree harvesting with the Randall girls

Last year we revived the old tradition of going out to cut Christmas trees with Weed and kids.  It was such a fun time that we wanted to do it again this year.  The Randall girls were up for the adventure and shared their truck so we wouldn't get stuck!  (Brady had a bb game so he, Bryan and Joel missed the fun.)  We went to the same spot as last time and just like last time some people were stuck!  They already had help getting unstuck, so we just drove on down the road and went tree hunting.  It didn't take long to find two candidates. It was a lot easier bringing them down the slope after cutting than hiking up the slope to find them!  Here's the pics minus Aftonia!  She was cold and escaped into the truck ASAP after the cutting.  Our tree had a little bonus.  It had a nest in it.  It survived the cutting and ride home and became baby Jesus' manger.  We had some teary moments remembering our last year's outing and missing Weed, but thinking of Christmas and the wonderful gift of the savior it brought to us helps us feel so blessed and full of joy knowing Weed will be there to greet us after a while. 

December birthdays!

We started December off with birthdays - Brynnli #17, Noah #8, Paul #64 and Gaige #11.  Paul wanted me to go with him on a rock trip to Ashfork for his birthday. We had to leave the day of Brynnli's birthday before the cake and present part.  We stopped by to give our good wishes on our way out of town. What an amazing 1st grandchild she is.  Can't believe she's 17 already and such a beautiful young woman.  Love you buckets Brynnli!

Noah's is the day after Brynnli's and we missed being there in person for that one and had to do our birthday wishes over the phone.  Too bad too many things were happening right about then.  It looks like Noah had a happy #8.  Can't believe he and 3 other boy cousins are all turning 8 during a year's time.  We love you Noah.  Hope your day was as awesome as you!

We had a great trip to Ashfork other than the motel being a little crazy (the bathtub faucet didn't work, so we had to take our showers in another room) and Jacob Lake being out of hot chocolate!   We did find time to celebrate the birthday the actual day too.  It was a crazy busy Sunday evening, so we ended up with a quiet cheesecake eating/present opening celebration with just Supe available to join us.  But in some ways, it was even better than if everyone had come over.  Paul called each family to thank them for the gifts and was able to visit with them even better that way than if they had all been here at the house at the same time!  Thanks to all!  He loves the jacket and we will both enjoy the movie gift card!  And he loves you most of all!

Gaige was up next on the 13th and he turned 11!  We actually got to join him for brownies and ice cream, singing and blowing out candles!  It doesn't seem that long ago when Gaige was a really tiny baby who came along just in time for Christmas.  Now he's an amazing, half way grown up kid!  We love you Gaige.  You make watching sports really exciting!