finally! a sg weekend

we hadn't been to st. george since the beginning of august for tanner's grandma's funeral (and even that trip didn't really count because tanner worked 95% of the time and i was sick most of the time thanks to being in my first trimester). we were so excited to be able to head down and grateful that most of the family was able to be down there too, but we definitely missed jordan and moses!

we saw mockingjay friday night with everyone (tan was not a fan and slept through most of it) and then had some fun times on saturday together starting out with some climbing time! morrie absolutely loved hiking to our spot and was a "climbing machine". we couldn't get enough of the blue skies and sunny, warm weather after having cold and dreary weeks with snow.

the purpose for our trip was for the frei/hafen christmas party. it's normally right around christmas but debbie's family was all in town right before thanksgiving so we swapped it to that weekend instead. they always do a live nativity and morrie was lucky enough to be joseph this year and soaked it right up. truth be told, he was mostly thrilled because he thought he was jake the pirate but that didn't stop us from loving that little fella. as soon as he was dressed, he came into the room to show off his outfit and started doing spins for us. i was dead.

the nativity itself went as well as expected with a two year old joseph. morrie was so jealous of the angels standing on the mantel that he joined them there most of the time (can you even get enough of his adoring little face in this pic?)

but eventually joined everyone around the manger by the end. baby nativities will never cease to be my favorite.

 before leaving for the weekend, we dropped by the melos house to say hi and came away with this picture kole drew at school. he had to transform that shape into a photo and decided to turn it into a man diving into a pool. maybe the best thing i've ever seen.

f r e i f a m i l y v a c a t i o n pt 1

the melos invited us to go canyoneering in yankee doodle canyon with them. it ended up being a bigger adventure than anyone anticipated but one of my favorite memories from the summer. it was beautiful and fun and cold and funny and sometimes a little scary seeing as how the water was so cloudy, you couldn't see the bottom and didn't know how deep it was most of the time. thankfully we had the brave dads and courageous kids to keep us all going. oh and katie and tanner's funniest relationship. we can't wait to go on another adventure again soon!

 we had to crab walk above the water sometimes and these pics are my favorite. i was trying to document the four adults going across together and one minute katie was in the pic and the next..she wasn't. she fell right into the freezing water.

the older girls were so brave! they were first in the water almost every time and were so helpful.

 poor leila and kole's little bodies couldn't take the freezing water and these parents were the best comforters i ever saw.

 trying to recreate katie and iuri's cute pic. how are we so bad at taking pics?

 through the canyon and almost all the way out! so happy to have this fun adventure buddy husband.

 cool dads for the win!

 we did it!

 the bravest family there ever was.

 the next morning we adventured around santa clara together. we hit up our usual faves and got our car fixed in the middle of it all. morrie loved digging holes with papa's excavator at his feed yard and riding his four wheeler with him.

 we went to the little rivers in downtown with the torres kids and loved it. morrie had little body guards with ella and max by his side and ran up and down the whole time we were there. he's lucky to have such great cousins!

i was the luckiest to have these ones as my dates for an entire week!

 we drove to LA wednesday morning and had a beach afternoon with the rowleys. unfortunately, we weren't there long enough for tan and jared to have their usual surf sesh but it was still delightful catching up with them. we met up with the winkelmans in downtown disney for dinner before dropping off morrie for a little cousin slumber party while we went to LA. 

the concert was everything we dreamed it would be. we knew it wouldn't be a dance party like his previous concert but were so happy to see him sneak in a few moves during "all of me". his voice is dreamy and so is his music. it was so fun having a night out in our old city together with my love. thanks, winks for letting us enjoy our city together and taking on another baby to create another set of the twins! 

 how are we so bad at selfies???