Factory Reset

We didn't go skiing today. Instead had a pretty chill morning, slept in a bit, Corey said we'd climb later. Started my fast before fast Sunday tomorrow. Kids played with friends, Corey working in the front room. I've been up in my bedroom most of the day reseting my phone, yay. Mel had texted me yesterday that Christian helped her factory reset her phone and afterwards she had 26.63 GB of storage, wow! My phone was at 63.93 of 64 GB in use as of this morning, with 421.9 MB available (not good). Corey said he could help me with it tomorrow, but I decided not to wait and see if I could figure it out. I didn't know what I was doing, but with google AI and youtube videos helping me, I was able to do it. Mel said she used this app - Apple Devices for Windows. I backed my phone up there, then I backed up to icloud as well, then to the Settings app to the bottom of General, to Transfer or Reset iphone where I clicked "Erase All Content and Settings". That was a little scary. Thankfully it came back on, opened up to the new factory settings, so got that going after each prompt: Language English, set up face ID, etc etc. Then back to the computer to restore my backup info. My phone said "Restore in Progress" for almost 40 min, which I was quite a bit longer than it had taken to back everything up, hmm. I couldn't push anything or do anything about it, so just waited, only a little bit concerned. Soon it opened up and was loading all my apps and info, and look at this - ok looks like all the stuff is there again, good! And I go to check my iphone storage and look at this ~

41.56 GB!!! Yes, that's much better! Man, what in the world was all that iOS space filled up with this past year? It has been taking up 55% of my storage! I don't know what that was about, but I'm glad it's gone, yayyyyy. It loaded all my apps, photos, text messages, etc everything like it was this morning. And more good news: I was able to reinstall things I've been deleting the past month. I have Gospel Library back, yay, and Apple podcasts, and now I should be able to take photos this year, yay! So I'm much relieved about all that. Today I've done laundry, swept and mopped the kitchen, practiced the Living Christ more, and scrolled a bit on Instagram. Oh yeah, I was able to get that app again too (thought I had deleted it before the lack of storage issue, so hopefully things don't get out of hand with the girls wanting to use it or me scrolling myself.) A reason why I wanted to fix my phone today was a friend who did the girls trip with us has gotten very slender these past few months, and she shared the link in the girls trip group chat of the health coach guy's instagram account who helped her, it's her brother's friend I think she said? His handle is fitnessdane, he talks about inflammation and I've seen the result with her, so I'm interested. Going to focus on not stressing my body and resting more. She cut out cardio when she started in July last year cause he told her to and to keep walking to under 10K steps. UNDER! She has started to work back in weight training now that she's not inflamed anymore, and is doing that 3x a week. For exercise I've been doing all the same things I've done for years, but weights been creeping back on, and even though I know I'm stronger from climbing, all the weight is not muscle. I feel bloated, so yeah, hoping to learn more about this and see what happens. She said he required her to work with him for 6 month, and it was $400 a month, plus the supplements and stuff he told her to get. That's not in our budget right now, and even if it was I don't know that I'd do it. I'm going to listen his content thought and see what I can figure out. With it being fast Sunday tomorrow AND the first day of the month, maybe March would be a good experiment for me to do less and rest more and read and we'll see what I can learn, Kinda like a personal reset month as a lent-ish thing before Easter. I like that idea. Ok, going to go climb and/or sit in the sauna. 

Girls' Trip to Gooseberry

I'm back home, got home around 11:30 pm. It was a great day. I'm going to document it real quick. Biking Gooseberry was fun and amazing. 

Jess took that pic of me. At the beginning of the trail - ready for fun! Jen took a pic from the back of Paula's truck. 

A few guys who were starting up the trail asked us if we were sponsored! Haha, no we're just a bunch of moms. Hyrum said last night that this can't be called a "girls" trip, it's a old women's trip. One of the husbands who was missing seeing all the active ladies in the neighborhood said he missed the Granite babes, so that's what stuck with us after. The mountains behind us (north east of us) are the south end of  the Zion National Park Wilderness. The mountains look sooooo amazing.  

We met the hikers and first time bikers at the top. 

We all got there within 15 min of each other, yay. It's an amazing view of the Zion mountains and Virgin/La Verkin valley from the top. Here's ME just being normal.

I think the thing the other ladies were most surprised about me was how much I yell and grunt to get up over the technical features of the trail. I think it's my brains way of helping me prep for a fall, or to hopefully not fall. I The party is still goin on, but I came home cause I'm not used to that much fun haha. It was good and I got my fill. Originally I was coming back tonight cause we were going to go skiing tomorrow, though I knew that part of the plan had been cancelled due to high temps and lack of snow. I thought I'd still see Wes, but he hasn't been here. He went straight to Provo with Lauren's family (her parents picked them up from Rexburg) and Wes is going to stay the night at Ethan and Bella's. So, no climbing with Wes I guess, sniff. It was good while it lasted. 

Kids were still awake when I got home but they were getting ready for bed. Abi took them all up to Layton to watch their cousin Mikey in his highschool's musical of "Catch Me If You Can". He was the lead Frank Abagnale Jr role! 

Abi had said she was going to hang out with friends, so I was surprised she took them up. Neil treated them to tickets and a treat after. The judges were coming tonight, so Neil texted earlier this week asking if we could come, and since I was gone I didn't do anything to make it happen, so good job Abi for supporting your cousin! I was pleased that they went. I gave them all a hug and Corey and I visited about the trip while we cleaned up the kitchen. Oh, and Mel shared with me something - she has had the same issues as I do with her iphone not having storage. She said Christian fixed it tonight with a Microsoft "Apple Devices" app that she got on her computer to back up everything, and then she did the factory reset, and when she reinstalled everything it put back all her apps and messages and everything! She feels like she's been given a new life, lol, so I'm going to try that asap tomorrow! It was a nice weekend. 

Church Rocks & Bearclaw Poppy

This morning, Corey went climbing early with me, which was nice cause I was a little bugged last night cause we were going to go yesterday, but he never got back to me and left me hanging. I was grateful he got up early with me. It had to be early cause I was leaving at 8:30 for a my first ever Girls' Trip with neighbors. I'm also grateful that he's been holding down the fort today and will again tomorrow (with Abi's help) while I here. I'm in St. George for Stacey's birthday. She arranged this whole thing an it's been great so far. I drove down with Kirstin and Becca, and we met up in Cedar City with Jill who was driving solo, and then I joined her for the rest of the drive to St. George so she wasn't alone. She's also one of my favorite people. We all met at Paula's house (member of the ward who has another house in St. George) and geared up then went for a ride at 2:45 pm on the Prospector trail and Church Rocks.

Clockwise starting from me at the top - Me, Jess, Katie, Paula, Jill, Stacey, Charmane, and Kirstin in the bottom left. You might notice that I'm in long sleeves and long pants. That's cause I don't want to get a road rash if I crash (4th pic from the end). It's just not worth it, so I always wear long sleeves and long pants whenever I bike, and it has saved me enough times that I know it's the right decision. (Plus I didn't get sunburned today!) There were more girls who hiked the Red Reef Trailhead (Ashley, Becca, Aubrey,  Michelle, & Maryanne) while we were biking. I loved loved loved the landscape. 

Admiring the hills and mountains on our way out - 

and sharper shadows when we were on our way back to the cars - 

Me shredding the trail, haha. Katie took that pic. Jill behind me.

So that was fun and wasn't too hard, which is good cause we're doing Gooseberry tomorrow. At 5:45 pm we hurried out before the sunset to do a beginner trail with the ladies who had gone hiking earlier, so they could try biking. We did Bearlaw Poppy with the first time bikers - 5.50 miles, 47 minutes. I did not get any pics of that cause my stupid phone is out of storage. Jill took a few pics bit before sunset - 

I gotta figure this phone thing soon, it's stupid and driving me nuts. I'm glad my phone did ok recording my stats on strava. After Bearclaw Poppy, we went to the Airbnb to get our swimsuits, then back to Paula's house for yummy pizzas and a salad for dinner and pickleball and swimming. I played Pickleball with Jen (below, we won!) vs Michelle and Katie. 

Katie took that pic. We did two games, Katie and I vs. Jen and Michelle for the 2nd game and we won that too, NOT that I'm competitive. I did some swimming laps in the pool to stretch out after pickleball, and that felt nice. Boy, I did a lot of recreation today! Climb, bike, bike, pickleball, and swim! At Paula's before dinner, I called everyone via messenger to show them what we were doing (cause I couldn't take a pic to send) and where I was. I felt like I was back in the Martin's house in Brazil. It was gorgeous with palm trees, a slide, pool, hot tub and pickle ball court. I didn't show them inside, but that was even more amazing. How fun to have a home like that someday! It was fun to say hi to Katharine!  She's doing good. Corey's working hard. Abi's been doing good playing mom for me. It's been a great day, and were back at the Airbnb (some apartments north of the St George Worldmar) and I took a shower and now we're heading to bed. Most of the ladies are upstairs in a kid bunk bed area, Jill and I are sharing a king. I warned her that I snore, and she said she moves around a lot, so we'll see how we do haha! 

Art Director

Lily is running for SBO - Art Director. Her posters were due this morning, and I must say, they were/are awesome.

I especially liked whatever this creature is. 

It was a rip off from Napoleon Dynamite, but I think Lily did it better. For the other one, she wasn't sure if she is allowed to have her face on her poster, so she had that copy of her face on tape that she can take off if needed, and then her poster will just look like this.

I'm so impressed Lil! I'm 95% sure that there is not a better artist at Skyline than her, so if that's the main criteria for Art Director, she's got this in the bag. She had those turned in at 7:30 am today. It was good I didn't go climbing (didn't set my alarm) cause I was home to help her - she had a few things she needed printed in Corey's office. 

After she was at school, she asked me to send her the pic I took of her posters, and I couldn't cause there was "not enough space" to download it to send. I'm so frustrated with my phone lately. So I deleted my Costco App, Walgreens App, Ancestry App, and Lastpass App, and then it still wouldn't let me send it. I restarted my phone, deleted 4 photos from the attachments in my messages, and then I was able to send her that one photo at the top. My phone is being so dumb. I predict that I am not going to be able to take any photos this weekend on the girl trip to St. George. I think I'll need a new phone soon, or I need to take it in and have someone smart figure out why the IOS takes up like 55 percent of my Gigabites, and the IOS another 22%, apps 22%, photos and messages 2% and I'm always fighting for that last 1% so my phone doesn't shut down and tell me "not enough space". So yeah, I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 8:30 until Friday night to go to St. George with a lot of neighborhood ladies, for a bday trip for our friend Stacey that she planned for her 40th bday. A biking and hiking trip, so fun. It goes through Sunday, some are coming back Saturday night, and I'm in the group coming back Friday night. We were going to go skiing Saturday with Wes, but with the high temp in Park City on Saturday being 50 degrees it might not happen. Maybe we'll just go and see how it is to ski in slush? We have one more day pass and this could be one of the last chances. For the girls trip, we are going to bike Gooseberry on Friday which will be fun. I haven't been on the bike for over two weeks, so it will be nice to get out and ride.

Today I worked on my Living Christ book while I listened to the songs from The Living Christ Album to help me memorize it. Here's the songs that are helping me. I am doing section 1 from a different album, there are two: The Living Christ Album by various artists, and The Living Christ Project which are mostly sung by Kristen Bodine Scott. I recognize her voice from some primary songs, like Risen. But for this memorization project, her singing all the songs to different melodies was just getting my brain confused, so I am using her for the first section, but I couldn't get the second section down with her, so I searched for something else and found the other playlist. So that's how I'm doing this - 

• Section 1 - As We Commemorate - Kristen Bodine Scott
• Part 2 - He Was The Great Jehovah - Felicity Roberts
• Part 3 - He Instituted the Sacrament - Voices of Zion
• Part 4 - He Rose - Jessica Slater
• Part 5 - Of the Living Christ - Richard Peters
• Part 6 - Of Him the Prophet Also Declared - Silvia Soledad
• Part 7 - We Declare Donovan Delta
• Part 8 - We Bear Testimony - Bree Hoover

I've got them all in a playlist now, here and in my itunes. I'll listen to them over and over again until I get it down! I've got 1 and 2 and started 3 and 4 this morning as I made sourdough, and have started 5-7 this evening. I better go pack for tomorrow. Hopefully Corey and I will go climb tonight, or I'll go boulder in the morning.

PTCs and Book Fair

It was my "usual" Tuesday morning today: Wake at 4:20, 5am initiatories at the Jordan River Temple,  then for climbing I went bouldering at the Sandy Momentum instead of driving out to Millcreek - I didn't have time to do that because Abi needed the car for school at 7. Went home, got the teens out the door, cleaned myself up, woke up the boys and K and then took ODPK to Books and Bagels. They love it. Donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast yayyy? 

The kids looked at the scholastic books for the Book Fair, and I went in the area but then said to Daniel that I am not going to do it right now. There was a line of people waiting to buy stuff, and I'm not waiting. I resented the pressure of it as usual. I wouldn't resent it if we had $ to burn, but it's not in the budget, and we don't need more books anyway, so I just wish the book fair didn't exist. BUT, I had denied my children books at the conferences last fall, so Peter started campaigning last night for permission to buy a book today. I told him (and thus also his brothers cause I gotta be fair) that they could each get one book, but we'd do it later after Parent Teacher Conferences. I was sure I'd have to get one for Katharine as well, and I was right. So after Book and Bagels, I came home, took a nap to recover from my early morning while K played some Starfall. After that, K and I went over to church so I could work on the RS board for March. K drew with markers on the dry erase board. I called my mission comp Charity who had a birthday last week and we caught up, it's been two years I think since we talked last. It was a good visit. It's funny that Nicole's birthday is the day before our anniversary, and Charity's bday is the day after our annivesary, so I always remember their birthdays. 

After finishing the board, I took K to Macey's for a free ice cream cone (thanks Daniel) and then home where I finished my visit with Charity and also worked on memorizing section 2 of the Living Christ. I had this song on repeat. I did section 1 yesterday, but I found a song with a singer for the next section,  cause having the same lady sing all of them sounded a little harder and boring. So I'm going to use the various artists of the Living Christ Album and I'll try to do one section each day this week. I'm not sure if it would be easier to learn 8 different short songs, or if it would be better to learn all of it in one song/oratorio? Although a ten minute song sounds more challenging to me. K yeah I think I'll just go with the Living Christ Album's versions of the songs. 

Time for parent teacher conferences. Owen was first at 6:30, then Peter at 6:45, and Daniel at 7. While we were Peter's teacher, I thought he looked so cute so I took a pic. Then I thought I'd get one with his teacher, cause Peter loves her and I think she's an amazing teacher too. 

I don't think I've ever taken photos with the kids and their teachers, except at school plays. Or if the teacher takes it and sends it. I am going to try to remember to do this from now on though. Their teachers are amazing. Daniel's teacher is Ms. Hekking, and Melodie had her in 3rd grade too. 

We talked about how crazy it is that enough years have passed that Melodie is married now! How is that possible? As I trying to open my phone to take that pic, it froze and my camera wouldn't open. I barely was able to take that pic though, my phone... ugh. This iPhone storage is stressing me out, combined with pressure from my kids via the book fair to buy stuff was bugging me. I was in a foul disposition. After finishing with Daniel's teacher, we went to the book fair. Katharine wanted a puppy book - $8. ugh. 

This morning it was very crowded. This time we were almost the only ones there, and it was quiet. I tried to bribe them and said I'd get them TWO books at the thrift store, or they could have just 1 here. They chose 1. Um, how about we all leave and go get ice cream at Macey's instead of books? No, they wanted books. Well, except Owen. Ugh, I don't want to make a trip to Macey's unless it gets me out of this for everyone... I thought I saw the lady at checkout give me a little glance as I tried to talk my kids into NOT getting books. Daniel got a book that was only $5, yay, that works. Peter finally found an acceptable special price $5 book as well. It didn't have a lot of pictures but it was about Spiderman, so he approved. That's good. Katharine was the hardest to bargain with. She ended up getting some small $4 rip off white paper notebook with a glitter cover. Dumb, but if it means we can leave, I'll give in. I ended up getting Owen a football helmet poster so that I didn't have to make a stop at the store for ice cream. 20 min of negotiation and I got left only paying $19 for 3 books and one poster. I let that all get me too worked up. Owen posing by the Book Blitz team posters. He's read all the books. Good job O. 

I needed a pic of Owen with his teacher. We went back to his classroom but she was gone. Then luckily we saw her down the hall heading to the exit. I deleted a few photos so I could take some more photos, and we caught Ms. Z in the office.

Ms. Z had Melodie and Wesley too. When I was texting her last month about Owen being behind on his science fair and my excuses of "we had a missionary come home and my daughter is getting married" etc etc, I didn't take note that they were the two kids of mine that she had taught. She pointed that out to me tonight when we were visiting. I don't think any of Joseph's teachers are still here, but the rest of the kids have teachers that are still here, and we have one more kid that will be coming through still. I have Katharine at home with me for one more year, then she'll be starting school in Fall of 2027. She'll be the class of 2040!! That's wild.

Scrabble

Yay, I had a moment to blog earlier today cause Abi took kids to the church. She's so nice to do that for them. Owen especially likes going over to play in the gym, and then all his 5th grade buddies come too. Mel and Christian are here - they were in the area to watch his sister's basketball game and then came over for a visit and brought some rice and grilled veggies to add to our dinner. Having roast (from cans) with carrots (that got frozen in the back of the fridge) and potatoes. We had to wait for Abi for a while - she said to start without them but Corey wouldn't. Abi finally came 30 min after she said she was coming, said it wasn't her fault, cause she had to go drop kids off. After dinner we all cleaned up, yay, and then we played Deluxe Scrabble for Family Home Evening. It was a very nice board game that Corey borrowed from his dad. Here is a pic of all the words we came up withn and Mel and Peter won (they were super lucky to get the X and the Z and get both of them on triple word points! I was on a team with Daniel. 

We did like three rounds and then we called it good and had ice cream. 

Ok what else happened today and this past weekend... I have a few days to catch up on, so maybe I'll just give bullet points on stuff (this is how I usually enter my notes of things to log)

Today/Monday

• Woke up at 4am to finish making a loaf of sourdough. 
• 4:15 made final loaf and set oven to delay start at 5, set an alarm for 5:30 to put it in. Lay down on couch
• 5:30 got up to put it in
• 5:55 get up to take off lid
• 6:15 to take it out
• I was tired later today from getting up to cook and I was glad that cute Katharine took a nap this afternoon with me. I snuck away and she kept snoozing. Pretty little thing.

• Did a walk on the basement treadmill at like 10 am. Do I want to bring it up to our bedroom?
• This morning I got a roast with carrots and potatoes started in crock pot, plus another loaf of sourdough for dinner. Then Mel and Christian came and added rice and veggies, perfect.
• After the treadmill I wanted to go to my mom and dad's house, but when I was ready to be on my way, I texted Abi and yes, she had the key to Mel's car. So I'm stuck. Abi took the van but Mel's car was here which I could have used, IF Abi hadn't taken the key. 
• Mel took her car back tonight - that was another reason they swung by.
• My mom went to neurologist today, High blood pressure, unchecked and untreated hypertension has prob caused damage to her brain. Jersh was there with her for 6 hours, at the neurologist then  they went straight to the ER cause Mom's blood pressure was too high.
• went over finances trying to figure out our monthly income for the Medicaid/CHIP insurance application, but a lot of deposits are from loans Corey's taken out? We're in a real mess, Lord help us

Sunday - 

• Date and Pecan sourdough for breakfast. It was good but I ate too much.

• Peter made the Noah's ark Oragami boat activity in the Friend Magazine. That is a good Sunday activity Peter! Good job. 

• cooked potatoes so they would be ready to make potato salad after church
• Went to Church
• nap while kids watched David movie and The Homestead
• Watched home videos on youtube
• sit down dinner - potato salad and shrimp
• ordered season 4 & 5 of the chosen so we can watch it before Easter. My fam hasn't seen season 5, just me.
• Lily dressed Katharine up like a ballerina







• Kids playing Mancala, I don't know where we got these two pine boards and dozens of tiny clear marbles. 
• at scriptures the kids started using a pool noodle with the marbles and shooting them at the board, a lot went flying down the stairs, I guess I get to go try and find those tomorrow.

Saturday - 

• Morning toprope with Corey at Fort Union
• some handstand stuff
• Ran errands: Walmart (rice milk, soy milk, pink lady apples, onions, hairspray) then to Costco for a lot, then Macey's on the way home cause I forgot celery (for potato salad tomorrow), and to get myself an ice cream cone.
• Listened to this Alex Honnold interview while I ran errands, I really liked it!
• used all the $302 rebate at Costco cause I went over budget, sad... I wanted to keep that for my  mental health - secret cash stash. Oh well, sniff
• Since I ate ice cream, I went on a walk and delivered the rest of Mel's thank you notes. Took 54 min. cold, but pretty sunset! Gave Kathy G a note and she invited me in to see some clothes that she wants to offer to Abi for her mission. On the way out, she noticed my Chosen hoodie, said she's been meaning to watch it but hasn't, so I put my dvds of seasons 1-3 in my church bag so I'd remember to give them to her to borrow on Sunday
• Coreys' been working all day
• 8:40pm - I'm going to go sit in the sauna, was in there for 50 min.

Anniversary Ski Trip

Corey and I took the day off and went skiing in Park City today for a little anniversary trip. Here we are walking out of the Marriott Mountainside by the hot tubs. So fun to walk out and be right on the slope!

Another pic by the pool - the lift behind us. 

We were on the lift at 9:15 - started my Strava! My phone wasn't fully charged, I think I started at 80%. I kept it on low power mode and crossed my fingers that it would last the whole day. My favorite photo of the day was taken on our first ride up the Payday lift. Wow!!!

There had been a light snow falling all night and small diamond flakes were coming down as we rode up the lift. All the trees were frosted with snow. It was so pretty. We went up Payday then went to Bonanza and decided we'd work out way over to the Canyon's side of the resort, just to check it out. Ok, I'm looking at my Strava map that was recorded... let's see if I can track where we went, so...

• Up Payday Lift
• Over to Bonanza Lift
• Down Parley's Park
• Quicksilver Gondola
• White Pine (ooh! that crossed the Midmountain trail!)
• Dreamcatcher Lift
• Across and down McDonald's Meadow
• Down Panorama
• Up Day Break Lift
• Down Lazy Day > Elk Dance > Harmony
• Up Tombstone Express
• Down Red Pine
• Up Saddleback Express
• Down Painted Horse > Echo/Eclipse
• Up Sun Peak Express - 

and that was as far north west as we got. We did Sun Peak 2 times, down Echo again, and down Transitions one time. 3rd time we went past Sun Peak down Flume > Willow Draw to the...

Orange Bubble Express lift! Now this one was a highlight. 

We thought ski lift life in a bubble was GREAT! It shielded us from the cold and the wind! The lift experience was better in a bubble! Why wouldn't you want to be in a bubble! We want to lift in a bubble. We highly recommend bubble lift-ing. And we'll carry that over to our real life too. Why not live in a bubble if you can? It was great. And we also tried to say all these words in the accent of the language over and over again, sounding angry for the German language, fancy for the french, regular for English, and like a chef for Italian. 

After the Orange Bubble Express, we started to work our way back over to the Mountainside. 

• Orange Bubble Express
• Down Upper Mainline

Got a hot chocolate at Red Pine Lodge which is near the Saddleback Express. We both think the High Meadows area would be fun for the kids! They still have one more ski day, maybe we'll come up to the Canyons side of the resort when we do that last day skiing this year.

• Up Saddleback Express 
• Down Snow Dancer
• Surprised to find ourselves at SaddleBack Express again - so went right to go down Chicane
• Chicane > Another World
• Timberline Lift > Iron Man Lift
• Chrome Alley
• Quicksilver Gondola

Back at the Quicksilver Lodge for a photo. It was too bright!

• Down Broadway to King Con, cause that is the lift we know second best (we always bike past that when we are biking up Armstrong). 
• Up King Con
• down Sitka > around the Gotcha Cut off
• a little bit of Ladies Slalom 
• down Homerun
• Up Crescent 
• Down 1/4 load > Claim Jumper > Broadway 
• Up King Con 
• down Sitka (I think this pic was on Sitka)

Did a little bit of Gotcha then I tried to not be a chicken and we did Ladies Slalom from the top. Found an un-skied part of the CMG trail, took that over to the Men's Slalom > Ladie's Slalom > Homerun.

• Up Payday 
• Up Bonanza
• Down Trees/Blaster > Muckers > Short Liner - Miner's Mile 
• Up Bonanza 3:50 > Trees/Blaster > Step's Access > Homerun and then we were done. 

It was a great day on the mountain. 

Sorry for all the boring stats. I'm thinking sometime when we come biking next summer I'll be trying to figure out where we went, so those are for me incase my future self is interested in where we skied today. I usually listen to music when we ski but I didn't today cause I didn't want it to drain my battery, which I was hoping would last the entire day on low power mode. And I think I was wise to do that cause my phone barely made it. After we took off our skis, I was able to hit "finish" and was pressing "save activity" when it died. When Corey and I got to the car, I plugged it into his charger, and was happy when I saw that the activity had not been erased. Strava says we did 23 runs, a distance of 49.35 miles, and 23,616 vertical feet. 

Back at home now. Mel watched Katharine for us today. She left back to Lehi before we got home to thank her. She had the kids do their chores and music and made a little "pizza night" reward chart to help the kids do their stuff.  And she provided the pizza. Thank you Mel! Tonight Corey worked, we didn't go out for date night cause the whole day had been a date, but the kids still watched their movie and I disappeared by coming up here to blog. It was a good anniversary.

Valentine's Day Family Feast

Today we had our annual Family Anniversary dinner. This year I put the kids at the far side of the table. Here are all the kids minus Bella, she was taking care of Alvie. 

I meant to take another photo after she got back but didn't, though I did get her and Alive in this short video. I also forgot to take a pic of generations 2&1 at the table (Corey and I and our parents). I had them in the original video, but it was like 70 seconds long, and if it's over 60 seconds youtube won't let me add music, and I wanted the music, so I had to trim it down to under 60 seconds. Hence, just the kids. But Corey and I and Wayne, Kim and Linda were all here today enjoying a meal together.

So this morning we got up early to get started. Table and chairs were already set up from yesterday. Today we started making mashed potatoes and sourdough while we set up the tablecloth, setting out the china, figuring out what we wanted to do for the centerpieces. Girls worked hard, then took a break.

Sophi was working on a Valentine activity where we each got to write out things we love about each person. We cooked the salmon around 12:30, then prepped the salad and shrimp. We were ready at 2. My parents came around 1:45 with strawberries and blueberries. Corey left early with the kids to go climbing, and then they went to Wayne's house until feast time. My dad taking a photo of our banquet table.

Food all set out as guest start to arrive. Ethan! Don't eat yet!

Kids finding their seats.

Mel and Christian, Ethan and Bella & Alvie, and Hyrum & Wes and all the kids.

Wes and Hyrum went to Wayne's first where Corey and ODPK were hanging out. They went climbing this morning with Zeb and then went to Savers and turned in Corey's Where's Waldo rainbow shirt for some other sweet outfits for ODPK. After Wes arrived, people started asking about his new girlfriend, who is his girl as of last night. Wooo!

Sitting to eat. 

Nice fire on the tv.

One thing Corey worked on today was putting some of our old mission cassettes that we made for each other into digital format, so we played a few clips of those while people ate (like my mission homecoming talk at church). We both sounded so young! The kids didn't think we sounded old enough to get married. We also watched our wedding video while we ate and a Cupid cover video that Hyrum and Wes made and released today, it was really fun! 

We enjoyed watching that and played it a few times. Me and my pretty little princess Katharine!

We took a few selfies. She's cute.

After eating the main meal, we opened up the dessert table, which was brownies that Bella made, some strawberry covered pretzels, and passion fruit cake that Mel made. Hyrum and Wes were supposed to bring a dessert but they failed, boo. It's ok, but note to self for next year - don't outsource all the desserts. I was probably missing some of the magic cause I didn't have an abundance of desserts. After dinner everyone was invited (though most didn't hear? Or I wasn't clear) to come to the table to write down some love notes to each member of the family. 

We wrote notes to Joseph Eliza and Mary too that I'm going to mail to them. They had their own Valentine feast in Ohio and sent us a photo. Yay! We're miles apart but together in this tradition.

Or they were just doing a valentine's day thing, but I'll say they were having an anniversary feast. We didn't dance after or anything, cause people cleaned up and my mom hinted that they had to get back to get work done. We also didn't do a dance, cause Lily Sophi and Natalie all had "Galentine" dinners planned for tonight, booo. I didn't love that they had places to go. Next year I'll try harder to make this tradition happen on a day where I can keep everyone captive. Wes and Hyrum both disappeared to take naps cause they had stayed up late working on their video. We had a fun time visiting with M&C and E&B for a bit. After the girls left, Wes and Hyrum came up from their naps and then Wesley took ODPK to the mall to the Lego store, cause he promised them he'd do that before his mission. They came back and built their legos sets.

It was nice of Mel and Christian and Ethan and Bella to hang out.

Ethan and Bella are sleeping over, cause they are coming to our ward tomorrow to hear Wesley speak for his mission homecoming. Mel and Christian are coming back up for that too, but they are sleeping at home in Lehi. They just moved into their new apartment yesterday. We have been visiting more with Ethan and Bella in our room. It was a nice day. Didn't totally hit the spot for what I was going for, I think mostly because people had other places to go, which might be cause we had it on actual Valentine's day instead of our own day. So notes I made for myself for next year: 

• have a dance party
• send out itinerary so people know what to expect
• Plan a family history moment (find parts of mission tapes, journal entries from around our engagement or wedding, or something about us that the kids don't know about us)
• More desserts - me be in charge more? This year the kids did all the desserts, need it to be more wow
• Do it in the evening so there can be more ambiance with candles or string lights.
• Don't have it on a Saturday when people have other things going on
• Don't have it on Valentine's day (unless Valentine's day is on Sunday)
• Make a photo booth? That could be fun