Afton's baptism and February Family Dinner

These two events just blended right into a wonderful weekend.  Jay and Brynn came down for the baptism and stayed over for dinner.  We missed a few people for the baptism and dinner, but it was still a great time together.  We (Paul, Bean and I) actually missed the main event unfortunately.  The time was changed to accommodate a funeral and crazy me got the new time into my head completely wrong.  We missed the whole thing.  I feel so bad...this is the only one we've missed so far.  I don't think Afton was broken up about it, but I wish I had listened to the nagging little voices (maybe that was the Holy Ghost trying to get through to me) that kept telling me to check the time, text Lou, etc.  I hope I do better at doing that in the future.  But we still had a wonderful time afterwards visiting with everyone and eating delicious dessert breads, etc. at the Randalls.  And then the next day we got to visit more at Moss and Christie's during the Family Dinner.  The Superbowl got mixed up in it unfortunately, but not enough to mess it up.  We are so blessed to have all of us in state and able to get together and enjoy important occasions and just for fun too...unless I mess up on the time!!!

The January birthdays - 2019!

 The Randalls have a rash of birthdays in January - half of the family!  Bryan was first - sorry, no pics.  Afton turned 8 and Brady turned 14!

We caught up with Brenden on the day after he turned 10!  Kai was cracking all of us up!  He was just running around trying to be in the middle of everything.  Such a funny little guy.  Brenden is the best big brother ever even when he wanted to make off with his presents!  

We love all of these wonderful January b-day peeps!

Panaca, Pioche, Boot Hill, etc.

Last Saturday it just felt like time for a little road trip.  The weather had warmed up some and we'd had a beautiful walk on the Red Hill that morning (minus seeing the almost finished new East Stake Center in flames from up there).  We looked at the map to see where we could go close by with just a long afternoon available.  We ended up heading to some stake parks (Echo Canyon and Spring Creek) over in Nevada and seeing some new things and revisiting some old things.  We finished off eating yummy dinner at Marv's in Enterprise.  What a fun day!

Panaca - Bullfrog Pond and unknown arch.

Pioche - Boot Hill  and old mining machinery

Spring Creek State Park and old stone buildings - no pics of Echo Canyon State Park
We saw them pulling out some fish at this lake!

First Rock Trip of 2019!

I like rock trips for quite a few reasons:  we get away from everything and spend time together, we sometimes listen to good books or other audio programs, we eat out and especially I like that I get Jacob Lake's cookies, and I catch up on sleep snoozing in the truck!  And another thing I really enjoy is all of the beautiful and varied scenery along the way.  We went over Friday after school, spent the night in Flagstaff and picked up some Gemstone rock and some for Ross also.  It was a good, uneventful trip.  

I love the old stone buildings at Cameron, the colorful cliffs by Lee's Ferry, and this time of year - the snow at Jacob Lake!  

Then as we start down the mountain from Jacob Lake the view opens up and continues to the cliffs by Colorado City and Pine Valley in the background (covered in snow right now).  These are drive by shots, so the quality isn't great.  

Fun in the cold and Happy #12 Eden!

We combined two fun things today!  We have wanted to get out and see if we could still cross country ski and we wanted to wish Eden a Happy Birthday #12 - a day early!  And we did both!  We also enjoyed the new movie, Mary Poppins Returns and lunch at Wendy's.  We actually did pretty good at skiing...it was cold and windy, but still fun!  And it was good just to get out together for a day!  And it was good to wish our sweet Eden a happy birthday.  Can't believe she's 12!  

Eden has the honor of the first birthday of the year 2019 in our family!  

Happy New Year - 2019!

We celebrated very low key this year!  We went out to dinner with Bean, watched a couple of movies and then set off a sparkler after the movies!  The next day we enjoyed morning hike on the Red Hill and a beautiful afternoon bike ride in Snow Canyon!  And that felt just right for celebrating to us! 

The last thing of the year - Happy Birthday Mom!

Aunt Georgia and Jana Cheney made sure to wish Mom a Happy Birthday on Decembner 30th!  It would have been #97.  I'm sorry we missed wishing it to her in person, but so happy she is with Dad and was not here suffering for it.  

And then it was Christmas 2018!

We started our Christmas rounds with the Randalls on Christmas Eve. Grandma, James and Bean joined Paul and I for that visit.  We usually visit them on Christmas Day, but there was a chance of snow that we didn't want to deal with.  

Supe and Auri joined us for Christmas breakfast and some visits.  Beacher had to work the morning shift at the hospital.  

A visit to the Smiths.  Colony's kids spent the holiday with their dad, so we missed them.  

Auri was fascinated with Kaebri's Christmas tortoise Sheldon and loved pestering Roxie and stealing her bean bag chair.  

Kai kept us entertained at Moss and Christie's!  

The Borrowmans were next.  They entertained us with Gaige and Koen's new segway.  

The Weaver's came down for a Christmas dinner with Lance's family and stopped by for a Christmas visit to us on their way!  

The northern Lillywhites sent darling videos to let us share a little Christmas with them!  

And when Beacher got off work She and Supe joined us for lunch and some Merry Christmas!

It was a wonderful Christmas made most wonderful by the blessing of knowing that because of the greatest gift of all -  our Savior  -  and the knowledge that through that gift we can continue loving and enjoying family life together always!  

And then it was Christmas Adam - dinner and games at the Smiths!

When our kids were little they decided that the night before Christmas Eve should be called Christmas Adam!  This year they wanted to get together and celebrate and the Smith's were nice enough to host this gang for dinner and crazy fun games! 

As a group we made parts for a clay Nativity and put it together.  Brenden made and added the most important and last piece...Baby Jesus.  Then we divided into 4 teams and played our crazy games!  

After the games Paul and I opened some of our gifts from the family!