Highlights of 2023

It's time to say goodbye to 2023! It's been a wonderful year. One of the highlights was being able to get family pictures taken. 

We hadn't had nice pictures taken since 2020, which was the last time we had everyone home (thanks to covid). But Katharine wasn't born yet in those, so we didn't have a picture of everyone yet. Plus from 2020 - 2022, Melodie Ethan and Hyrum were all gone on missions. I was really hoping that we'd be able to get photos taken after Hyrum got home from his mission, but I wasn't sure if Wesley would be gone already on his. I knew there was a possibility that Hyrum's and Wesley's missions would overlap, so these photos are a tender mercy for which I am very grateful. 

We had everyone here for one weekend, after Hyrum got home and we had to wait until Joseph got back from a trip to Guatemala, and we also had to fit it in before Hyrum left for school in Idaho. So it worked out perfectly, phew!

So that was one of the highlights of the past year for our family, and here are a few dozen more! ~

January - New Year's Day at Brighton, Joseph turns 23, Night at Snowbasin, Peter turns 4, Quick trip to St. George, Wes's hockey senior night

February - Wes' first hockey goal! 24 Years, Anniversary day trip, Skiing at Alta, Sophi likes Basketball, Wes is good at henna, we love bouldering

March - Ethan is 21, Spring break trip to DC, Monticello, Busch Gardens (two times), Jamestown, Yorktown...

April - ...DC Mall, Mt. Vernon, Biking begins, Katharine can stand, Abi and Lily music school, My bday

May - Katharine can walk! Owen trumpet recital, Katharine turns 1 year old, Joseph took the MCAT! School's out

June - Corey and girls to Guatemala, waterford, hiking, Corey's birthday, Lily is 14, Wes is 18, My sister's wedding,

July - Natalie is 10, Owen turns 8, Hibberts at Bear Lake, JeNeal's passing, obituary, and funeral, Park City

August - Corey got Covid, Hyrum is 20, First day of school, Hyrum returns his mission to San Diego

September - Family pictures, Abi is 16, Sophi is 12, Owen is baptized, Daniel is 7, Wes' wisdom teeth out, Games at Waterford, Monarch chrysalides and lots of butterflies!

October - Fall colors, Lighting the Y (Katharine's famous), Cookout, Our pet Lucky, Halloween

November - Thanksgiving, Wesley's mission call, Mel to Arizona

December - Bouldering at Momentum, Mel is 23, Christmas, Trip to St. George, Gooseberry Mesa

It's been a full year with many blessings. We look forward to the ways we will learn, be challenged, and grow in 2024! Happy New Year!

Nordic Valley

We are back home after spending two days skiing at Nordic Valley. We spent the night at Wolfcreek and so we skied yesterday at Nordic Valley and again today. Yesterday I didn't ski. I sat in the car with Katharine and Hyrum as we waited for our room at Wolfcreek to be ready at 4. There isn't a lot of snow, so Nordic Valley only had one lift open. Hyrum didn't want to buy a ticket for both days, so he's held out being a little bored yesterday, but he got a buddy pass today. Katharine didn't ski cause kids in backpacks aren't allowed. I thought she'd wear Peter's skis from two years ago but I guess we didn't bring those? I don't know what is going on... I didn't help pack anything. I was dragging my feet a little bit on this trip. I think with the trip to St. George, I probably wasn't ready to leave the house again? I felt like there was so much to do at home... But instead of cleaning anything, we all just threw snowpants, coats, gloves, etc all over the basement floor and then walked away. Sigh. I also didn't help much getting us out the door. Well I did do all the food prep. But I didn't bring Katharine's shoes, which was a mistake, and I also assumed someone else got a coat and snowpants for her, which was another error. I put lots of socks on her (one pair of hers, then two more from Peter and Daniel) but she'd pull them off,. Her toes were cold in the car... she'd be freezing if we were outside, so we just stayed in the car and watched puppy videos. (She likes puppies). Today Corey said he'd stay with her so I could ski. So we checked out of our room at 10, then headed over to the resort. Lily Peter and Mel. 

Sophi Abi and Mel.

Ethan and Bella came up last night, but they didn't bring ski stuff. I didn't want to ski, but once I got on the hill I was ok with it, just biding my time. Peter was fun to ski with. He's cute.

After I did two runs, Corey texted that he and I could head home if I wanted. Ethan and Bella could use our equipment. They got buddy passes so I did my 3rd run and then I went to swap clothes with Bella. Ethan and Bella suited up~

They looked cute so we took a pic. Then she said "Let's get one of you guys too!" but I was pretty sure we weren't as cute as them. That's ok. 

We got Katharine in our photo, and she gets the cute quota up. 

So we took Bella's car home with Katharine, and they all kept skiing until 2 and came home in the van and Corey's Pilot. They left around 2 cause Ethan and Bella had work back in Provo. Joseph and Wes were at home, plugging away at their independent study classes. Wes has 5 more! Can he do it - can he get 5 classes done in 3 weeks before he starts the MTC? 

Actually the Stake President wants him to finish in two so that he can take a week to prepare for his mission, so yeah, this kid is under a serious deadline. He worked on Earth Science yesterday and today. They helped each other stay on track. Wes said "I wanted to play Battlefront, but instead I did 12 hours of math..." Corey left Ethan with the $100 of his Christmas money to use in an emergency (to bribe to keep the kids skiing longer,) but he misunderstood the instructions, and instead Ethan told them if they did a jump, he'd buy them Wendy's on the way home. So the roast and potatoes I made wasn't eaten by the kids when they got home. BUT then Junior and his parents came over to visit for a few hours, so we had second dinner with them and they all ate the roast then. And a chocolate cake. 

Oh, I forgot to mention, part of my "I don't want to be here" mood was because of my 3am bathroom clean up...

I heard some whimpering and thought maybe Peter was lost or had a bad dream, but instead found him in the bathroom with a runny messy #2 on the floor that he was trying to clean up by himself. By the amount of toilet paper than had been used, I think he had been trying to clean it up for atleast 15 minutes. He might have figured the clean up was done well enough, cause he moved on to putting his clothes back on, but couldn't put on his pants cause they had a mess in the back. So I cleaned things up, gave him a bath...

...started laundry, found some swimming pants and a thermal shirt for Peter to change into, and then sent him back to bed. So THAT'S why I wished I wasn't skiing: Lack of sleep. But there's more fun ahead tomorrow - we have the New Years Eve party with our neighborhood friends at the the Felix's cabin at Brighton. Party party! Peter and Katharine might need to stay home since they've had the runs... 

What Do You Meme? WRIDE EDITION

Hello. We are up at Wolfcreek and I have just a moment so I thought I'd try and blog. It's been a nice Christmas break with the kids. I mentioned on Christmas Day that Joseph and Melodie gifted Corey and I and our family a wonderful remake of the "What Do You Meme" game. It featured photos of the kids, Corey and I, and even Grandpa made an appearance and classic family quotes. We played it over at Wayne's house on Christmas day. Below is Natalie choosing the quote she likes best to go with Ethan's "Don't Care" mission photo.

The options were: 

• When kids say "I'm hungry" 10 mins after you fed them
• How dad feels when kids say "I'm bored"

I thought they were both very appropriate and I was laughing! Here's another one of a cute little Katharine looking quite disheveled. 

My favorite options for this one: 

• When your secret Santa gives you something that was yours to begin with
• When you realized that Dad can see all of your latest google searches 
• When you wake up from a nap and realize you slept through the entire evening and now it's time for bed.

Haha! So funny! Here's the last one from Christmas day that I took a picture of. 

This photo is of Wesley re-enacting me when I fell when I was rollerblading up at the U of U with Corey and some friends, and I broke my leg. (This was the summer before my senior year and messed up my senior year soccer season, bummer!)

• When Dad puts on an educational Sunday movie 
• When Mom and Dad warn us that Santa won't give us presents this year and he actually doesn't
• When they said scriptures were almost over but that was an hour ago 

and all the college kids could relate to this one...

• When you're all ready to go out but then realize you have no money, no plan, and no friends. 

So sometimes the original quotes that came with the game work pretty good! But most of us all prefer the family quotes. It was really funny. We're going to have fun playing this game! 

So Corey and the kids had a fun time skiing today, although there isn't a lot of snow, so only one lift is open. It's still fun to spend time with the kids and to do stuff together. 

K taking selfies of us... I love this pretty little face! 

Dance Party!

Corey and I got back from our biking retreat late last night. We were glad to see all the kids and hug our little ones. We started to gather in the front room after breakfast. We turned on the baby shark song so we could smile at Katharine dancing to it, and one song led to another and we were soon having a full on dance party. These following links are videos - It started with the little kids leading us in Cotton Eye Joe, then Wes joined during the repeat and took it up a level. Next was Rio, and you can see Sophi coming down stairs. One by one the kids woke up to the music and came to see what was going on. The little boys requested Bad Guys. That one made me laugh as I thought of them, in their roles as the little annoying brothers, saying to their older siblings "We're not the bad guys! We're the good guys!" And then THIS ONE was my absolute favorite! This was a request by Joseph, and I loved that all the college kids and big sibling teenagers joined this one (they all knew dance moves from FSY!) 

I had to take a screen shot of Mel doing her little shimmy - that was my favorite part of this dance. Joseph's high kicking and clapping was pretty good too. Oh, and also when all the kids yelled "RUNAWAY!" and scattered! Lots of favorites, it was so fun!

And the last song that Corey recorded was a tween request of Fallin' For Ya. I liked seeing Mel and Hyrum eating their cereal on the stairs as they watched the party from the stairs. Breakfast and a show.  Hyrum has been sleeping in the basement, so he had probably the best seat in the house to hear the music and the stomping on the floor. I'm sure that this morning's impromptu dance party will go down as one of my favorite memories of this winter break. I know we have something special here in our home - a little piece of heaven with all these kids and how much fun we all have together. I'm soaking up this break, as it is our last time with all the kids before Wesley leaves next month for his mission. I love my family! I highly highly recommend being in love with your spouse, and if that comes with the added blessing of a quiver of children, take it! IT IS THE BEST. 

Gooseberry Mesa

Corey and I are back home after a quick get away to St. George. We woke up at a decent time, enjoyed the free breakfast they served at the Marriott Townplace Suites. I read in 4 of the 6 books I brought, not bad (I was trying to justify why I brought so many, cause I didn't know what I'd be in the mood for!) Corey did some work and I stretched while I read, then we checked out at noon. Filled up the car, stopped by Lowes for a screw for the Velocirax, then we headed to Hurricane to find the Gooseberry Mesa trail. It was a longer drive away than we thought. The "main street" of Apple Valley is not your typical main street. It was lucky that we didn't try to do this one yesterday. We started on the trail at 2:20 and rode the South Rim trail up to the ridge that overlooks Highway 59 - 

This trail is not a black diamond... apparently it was a double red diamond! 

As the Snowbird advertisement billboard says, this trail was for a different breed, and that breed is us! We did pretty good! Not bad for two almost 50 year olds!

It was other worldly and super fun!!

It was a perfect experience to finish a great little get away. We rode the ridge up all the way to the last rock where we got a great view of both sides of the mesa - 

Pretty fun!! Then we rode the north rim back down to the car. We started this with no idea what to expect, but some google reviews said it was a 4 hour thing, yikes! So we did great for going into this thing totally blind. It worked out just perfectly - it was 10.21 miles, took us 2 hours 15 minutes to do it, 644 elevation gain. Even though we had to drive home in the dark, I'd do it again and I hope we do go again next year post Christmas. Actually Corey and I are thinking this might be a quarterly thing that would be good for us. And the kids did great at home! We just got back, all the older kids are awake (Joseph through Abi) and all the younger kids are in bed asleep! And the house is clean. Mel and Hyrum were the miracle workers, and Abi made dinner. Joseph and Wes were doing school all day, but they put away all the Christmas decorations, and the house is totally clean. Mel said Katharine was perfect too! Katharine is asleep with Natalie, but I'm going to go grab her cause I need her to nurse. I didn't pump since this morning. We have one day home tomorrow, and I'm hoping I'm able to take advantage of Mel's help and do a bit more with me here too. They cleaned up our bedroom, but just moved all my piles to the side of the room. I'd like to get rid of the piles for good, but I need some help, so we'll see if we can do that tomorrow. Friday we are going up to Wolfcreek to ski there Friday day, then sleep over, and maybe ski again Saturday, then Sunday is church and heading up to Brighton. It's been a full and busy winter break, makes it feel too short! Perhaps we planned to much. Next year we'll maybe skip the over night ski trip, but we are taking a couple break again. It was wonderful. I'm excited to go do Gooseberry again someday. 

Zen and Bearclaw

Hello from Southern Utah! Corey and I are in St. George for a little day-after-Christmas get away that we planned for ourselves, as a pat on the back/reward for us giving the kids yet another year of life and another successful Christmas day. Sure, it may have been a little anti climactic gifts-wise (sorry Hyrum) but that's happened before, and there hasn't been too much emotional scarring because of it. Plus the nine kids at home have been kinda slackers chore wise this year, so I'd say we are even. We do owe Mel big time for making this get away possible, and whoever else she says was a good helper when we get home tomorrow. 

We left home today at 10 am, went by the Sandy Momentum for some quick bouldering, then were on our way at 11. We got to St. George around 3 and went straight to the trail head by the Worldmark resort, where I did a bit of exploring in January. 

We made it to the top of the Zen Loop trail.

We made it back to the car with a bit more of sunlight still left, so then we went up to the watertank, rode the three fingers of death, went along Bearclaw poppy for a bit, then turned around and made it back to the car by sunset.

It was really fun! We are staying at the Marriot Townhome suites or something. It's like a very small room, it's good. After a quick shower, we decided to go out to dinner, because the only food we brought was pink lady apples. We drove to one restaurant that ended up being closed, so then we drove a little more and happened upon George's Corner. And it was a hit! Corey got some mocktail that was super good - had cranberries in it and some spice, and then he ordered some sausage bowtie pasta dish and I got the Autumn Salad, which had salmon, sweet potatoes, candied pecans and goat cheese...

It was absolutely delicious. Loved it. If we're ever in St. George for a date night again, I wouldn't mind going there a second or third time. Totally hit the spot. And now we're reading a bit in a quiet room., we haven't turned on the tv or allowed noise to disrupt us. I brought 6 books, cause I didn't know what I'd be in the mood to read when the moment came, so I just have a goal to read a chapter of each book. Only one down so far, Pres Oaks book "Life Lessons" I read a few chapters though. It's a light read. I'll try to read the other 5 tomorrow before we check out. Checkout is at noon, and we'll hit another trail before we head home. :)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Day! We had our family gift exchange in the front room at 9:30. 

For the family gifts, we started with Joseph, who had Sophi. Sophi opened her gift and then Sophi had Abi, so Abi went next, and the patter proceeded like that until everyone had opened a gift from their secret santa sibling. So: 

• J had S
• S had A
• A had W
• W had L
• L had M
• Mel had H (but he opened it last night haha, so he was kinda bummed today feeling like he didn't get anything for Christmas. At one point he sadly said "Even Wes got legos!" (that was Wesley's gift from Abi, I gave that to her from my stockpile) and Corey commented to Hyrum "Wes got legos because he does NOT have a full beard" Haha!
• H had E (who was not present, but had been sent with him)
• E had N (Ethan had dropped it off here at home)
• N had J

And the little boys had each other ~ Daniel had Peter, and P cheered as he opened a present to find D's old pajamas. He cheered and exclaimed "I always wanted to wear these!" Then there were a few other scattered presents from kids that were in the giving spirit: O gave Abi a box of candy. Abi was wowed with "Opened swedish fish! It doesn't get better than that!" (and O had just wrapped them... they were Corey's gift from Lily! haha) 

And Abi gave Lily clothes she didn't want anymore. "Clothes! Yeah! Abi's old wardrobe!" Abi interjected with "...I didn't wash them, but..." lol!

A few other quotes - Joseph pretending to be giving a gift of verbal love "I want you to lookin the mirror and know that you're beautiful" Corey to all: "Joseph is practicing using rhetoric" Then they decided that opening gifts was taking too long, so after Abi gave her gift Joseph said "Yeah, we should pick up the pace" Corey: " You mean not everyone has to give a monologue showing how thoughtful they are?" haha. At 10 am Corey and I received a gift from the college kids, which was the best gift ever and is already declared an instant family classic - they made a "Wride Edition" of the "What Do You Meme" game! 

Corey opened it and everyone gathered around to see what this magical game was!

Oh my goodness, SO SO SO FUN and FUNNY!! Weird pictures of each of us that they gathered and put with funny family quotes!

This is gonna be so fun to play! A picture of Ethan flexing for a mirror selfie ~ Mel says "Ethan is featured A LOT in this..." 

We played it today over at the Wrides, it's worthy of it's own blog post, so I'll save those pics for later. Katharine opened some presents - I think everyone gave her something. It was cute.

Then over for the real loot - The elementary kids got a physical present, the rest of the kids got $100 cash. It was cheaper than buying them gifts, and faster than being thoughtful. NOT cause we want to be cheap and unthoughtful, it's just that we have been at this for over two decades, and there are still young kids in line for the next two decades of Christmases, so we gotta think long term survival here. To quote Corey today on the reason why we don't have a lot of gifts this year: "I gotta pace myself. This marathon ain't over yet. I still have toddlers." 

They each got a lego set, which we told them we'd have to put together later, cause we had to go meet family at Wasatch Lawn. We gathered there at 11:30.

We had gotten together a few weeks ago to make stars to put on a tree on JeNeal's grave.

Let's see your stars, kids...

Hyrum put a nice Book of Mormon Christmas scripture on there - Alma 7:10-12

They all did a good job. (I didn't make one but that's ok)

Hanging the stars on the tree... It was a little cold. The older kids are all so good to take care of their little brothers and/or cousins.

Mark, Corey, and Nancy visiting. 

We sang a few carols and then went to Wayne's house for lunch. 

I didn't take pictures there except for when we were playing "What Do You Meme" and again, I'll post those later in their own blog post, so funny. We stayed for a few hours and were back home around 4. Hyrum and Wesley helped their little brothers put together their lego sets. Owen got the Rebel Base, Daniel got a Ninjago Ninja Dogo Temple (very cool) and Peter got the Spider-Man Final Battle. Natalie got a Harry Potter castle. Katharine got on the counter and made a mess of the leftover funeral potatoes, and made some drink concoction out of the water and other food that was left out on the counter.

The Hibberts did a zoom call around 7, that was good to see them even if it was just online.

And for scriptures tonight we read The Living ChristThe Living Christ. 

Katharine tuckered out from the day's celebrations. Everyone else is about to fall asleep too. 

It was a Merry Christmas. I'm so grateful to be a wife and mother. There's a lot of excitement on Christmas day, and sharing it with all these kids is the best and happiest part of the holiday for us.