Welcome 2020

I know a lot of people who did all sorts of creative posts for the beginning of 2020.  There were a lot of "best of" posts, and plenty of people reminiscing about the past decade.  Reflecting back that far seemed like way too much work, especially when I would rather focus on the here and now and everything we have to celebrate.  After looking at some options for New Years Eve activities, this year we decided to start the partying early.  We headed to Provo Beach Resort for Noon Years Eve where they had lots of activities including a dance party and an enormous balloon drop.  We arrived at the perfect time to dance and the kids thought the balloon drop was amazing.  We ended up staying for a few hours and all of the people and celebrating really helped us get into the New Years spirit.

One of the kids' favorite activities was the petting zoo.  We all had so much fun playing with the turtles, bunnies, and birds.  The volunteers were super helpful and we all learned a few things as well.

This bird kinda had a crush on Tim!

Free face painting was a definite perk!

Seven Brother Burgers has become one of our favorite places to eat,

Brycen's burger was especially impressive.

After lunch, we met Jami and the cousins at the mall to see a new movie, Spies in Disguise.  It was a pretty cute show and the kids especially thought it was funny.  After the movie we hung out at the mall for awhile and let the kids play, then came back to our house for pizza.  The cousins left early so Ada could go out with her friends, and from there, we were just watching the clock, counting down to midnight.  Tim told Luke and Ruby that they could stay up till midnight and despite me begging them to go to sleep, they were both determined to stay awake.  Tim and Luke played a lot of ping pong, and Ruby and I mostly laid around and watched TV, constantly checking to make sure we didn't miss the ball drop.  Finally, midnight arrived, the ball dropped, and we went to bed.  The kids were super impressed that they had stayed up so late, and Tim and I...we were just tired. 

The snow has been pretty scarce this winter and the kids have been dying to go sledding.  When we woke up to snow on New Years Day it was so exciting and we quickly made plans to go to Santaquin to go sledding with the cousins.  Pole Canyon had a ton of new snow, and after trying out a few different options, we finally found the perfect hill.  The kids flew down the hill so fast - we had a couple of near misses with a power box, and plenty of wipe outs at the bottom.  Tim is always a good sport and plays, but the kids even talked me into jumping on a sled.  Ruby and I laughed and yelled the entire way down and had so much fun.

Even the dog wanted to sled.

We even found a little sunshine which is always good for the soul.

Unfortunately the sunshine ended up being pretty treacherous.  After having a fantastic time on the mountain, we all loaded up  our cars and trucks and headed down the canyon.  Almost as soon as we started driving, Tim knew that we may have a problem getting down safely.  What should have been a very short drive turned into a long and nerve wracking slide fest.  By the time it was all over, two of the trucks had crashed into each other, and our Pilot had nine small dents that stretched from the front to the back.  There were a lot of tense moments, and a few scared kids (and mamas), and by the time we made it home, a lot of thankful hearts that everyone was safe.