Cold Times

The past couple weeks have been some COLD ones and it feels like it has been one giant vacation.  I have barely pulled out my camera.  So here is a recap of our chilly life from the iphone. 

Lots of lazy days playing around the house...

Daisy (the dog) has been spending more time indoors due to a couple factors.  A. It is an Arctic Tundra outside.  B. She is prone to roaming the neighborhood and bothering our neighbors. She is pretty naughty.  

Getting creative with Dominoes.

If you double my friend Molly's Rocky Road Candy it makes a 9x13 pan.  This was the last piece.  I think I ate the entire pan.  One hunk at a time.  It gets better with time. 

Tragedy.  

About six years ago Ryan gave me a white gold band with a double row of princess cut diamonds.  I haven't worn it in about three years because one diamond had fallen out cleaning and I hadn't replaced it. But, I LOVE the ring.  I look at it lovingly every week.  So when there was a weird grinding sound in the dish disposal I didn't really think anything about it.  When the boys finally figured out what was making the sound and yelled, "IT'S MOM'S RING!" I still didn't really think anything about it. Why would my ring be down in the kitchen.  Um, yeah.  It was my ring.  Still don't know how it managed to walk itself down to the kitchen but this was what was left of it.  And that is my short story.

Things like this make ground up diamonds easier to take.  (Forget diamonds...I am seriously going for the CZ as a replacement.  I don't need the stress!) But this little girl, man, she is at such a cute age. 

Another thing going on (in my head) is that I want to cut my hair to look like Anne Hathaway.  Yes, you heard me right.  So I go back in forth in the mirror.  

Long Hair?

Short Hair?

I was hoping to look more like this...

When I am not daydreaming about movie stars and hair cuts I try to keep a clean house.  This guy is not much help.  He was on floor duty.  When I didn't hear from him I went to check on him and this is what I found.  He had fallen asleep on the job.  Seriously.  Sound asleep.

Good thing he is such a sweetheart!

The reason it seems like the past few weeks have been one giant vacation is because they pretty much have been.  The week after the kids went back to school we decided last minute to head down to Park City and stay at our Time Share.  We stopped at Nielson's Frozen Custard in Bountiful along the way.  So, so good.

I never even took out my camera the entire trip.  Really.  Probably because we did a whole bunch of absolutely nothing and it was wonderful! We ate all our meals at the condo.  Fancy things like Spaghetti from a jar with no shirt on. 

We did take a quick jaunt to Olympic Park to watch the Aerial Ski Jumpers but it was seriously SO cold that we said, "That's cool." and left.

We swam a lot, and these guys hung out at the Condo goofing around.  Unfortunately, the older two boys just could not miss school so they had to stay home with Grandma.  I think they liked the break from all the little ones!  Thanks, Grandma!

Luke spent a lot of time at the table like this.  His teacher was so great to give us all his school work ahead of time.  It made me realize (more like reaffirm) that home schooling would not be our most effective form of learning.  It is like pulling teeth to move them along! I asked how he does it at school, and he said his class is much more fun.  Go figure. 

Grandpa was able to join us one night in Park City.  We actually got him to join in on a game of Apples to Apples. (He LOVES games...wink, wink.)  The boys are really not naked here.  They just returned from the hot tub and are still in the swimsuits.

Unfortunately, (for my wallet) I made my way down to the Outlets.  They had some seriously amazing sales going on.  I just could NOT pass up doing some clothes shopping for the kids.  I told Ryan I was really saving us a bundle of money in the future.  It is true. I made the mistake of bringing Michael and Luke along and they thought it was SO boring and just played games with all the mannequins in the store.  I found him posing with a display here.  I guess it was better than when I brought Annie.  She loved every minute of it and found about fifty million outfits she thoughts were, "SO CUTE!"

And just like that....it was over and we were headed back home.  It was so relaxing and I was glad Ryan pushed us to go.  I was hesitant to leave since we were just getting back into school and I wanted to get the house back together....blah, blah, blah.  However, it was so nice and Ryan was even able to work while there.  Perfect little vacation!  We were excited to get back and see the big boys though!

It was good that we left when we did because there was a major winter storm rolling in. 

Upon our arrival back I finished putting away the last signs of Christmas and rearranged my regular decor.  I had a mishap and broke one of my favorite urns that I got from a garage sale years ago.  Is this some sort of theme in twenty-thirteen?

My first night back I was on car pool duty for Joshua's Swim Practice.  The roads were snowy, remember that Winter Storm we had roll in?  I was not even thinking about speed and then BAM, I got pulled over.  I couldn't believe it.  The officer was all business but I was very polite and just waited for what seemed a long time.  Luckily he let me off !  I think this is my 6th time in my driving history that I remember being "let off".  (I have been driving for 22 years, so it is not like this happens all the time.) I told Joshua to take note how polite and respectful I was to the Police Officer...I think it goes a long way!  Plus, I really don't think I deserved a ticket, I was just following traffic! 

Today school was canceled-not for snow, but cold temperatures!  When you look out the door and see this, you might feel sorry for us with all this Ice Age-like weather.  

But don't!  I seriously don't mind.  Cold is cold for me.  Once it is below like 30, it all is the same to me. And when it is this cold, I dress for it.  (Unlike when it is a little warmer and I wear a hoodie to the store and think it is just miserable!)  I told my sister if I lived some place like New York where I couldn't let my car run to warm up without a risk of it being stollen I don't think I would like it.  However, look at my front yard.  Ain't nobody coming and stealing my car as it warms up.  Seriously.  So, I don't mind the weather one bit. 

I think it might be that I like having a reason to stay home as much as possible and wear fuzzy warm up pants.  When it is -15F who is going to fault you for staying in pajamas as long as possible?

Reason #101-look at the wild life we are surrounded with- so many beautiful deer.  I think my parents backyard could qualify as a wild life sanctuary.

I always have thought of myself as a Utah girl more than an Idaho girl.  Even though I didn't grow up there, I was born there, went to college there, and visited practically every summer.  But after seeing the inversion in Salt Lake it made me really appreciate the sunny clear skies here in Idaho.  It is so beautiful in the winter!  Serious sunglasses required because the snow is so sparkly and bright.  Kind of like the Celestial Kingdom. 

Check out our beautiful Sunsets...

This is what I wake up to every day.  Well, really it is dark when I wake up, but the sun does come up and it is so beautiful!  I do realize there is a little haze.  When there is not you can see the big mountains in the distance.  I will take the haze and no inversion, thank you very much!

 Who knew I would come to like the cold so much?  Well, since I have to get up in that cold darkness, I better go to bed!  Good Night!