Holidays 2014

What a fun change this year to be so close to family for all the holidays!  We spent a lot of great time with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents and loved every minute.

October
Conference in the mountains.  My favorite place to be.  We sat back and warmed our toes by the fire while listening to General Conference this year.

 Grandpa Mark's birthday was spent with lots of cousins digging into Grandpa's cake and the chocolate fountain.

 We visited Cornbelly's to run around a corn maze, pick pumpkins, and go down long slides.  We had tons more stamina this year to play for awhile, a perk of the kids getting older.

 Carving pumpkins into cool characters.  Cade's was a ninja turtle, Ben's a tough jack-o-lantern, and Afton's a bat.

 A late fall hike in perfect temperatures.

 Leonardo the ninja turtle, Pippi Longstocking, and BumbleBee the Transformer.

November
Visiting Grandma Stubbs on Thanksgiving. Uncle Phillip taught them Tenzis.

 Thanksgiving with cousins at our house.  Here they are creating root veggie creatures as our centerpieces.

Our backyard football field (look close to see the painted lines and end zones)

December  

Helping Grandma Jan decorate her Christmas tree

 Decorating our "kid" tree with all the collected ornaments thru the years.

Jared's work Christmas party. A nice change from the lame ones we used to go to.  This one was family friendly and had great food!

 Santa came to visit

 Decorating, and then immediately eating, a gingerbread house.

 Christmas Eve sledding. No injuries, hooray!

 Getting all decked out in Nativity story gear.  These costumes are all hand made by Grandma Jan and are amazing.  Afton was Mary, Ben was Joseph and a Wise Man, Cade was a Wise Man.

 Christmas Day with cousins.

 Sledding with cousins after Christmas.

Our littles all dressed up

 School Christmas program

 Christmas morning with their favorite gifts.

New Year's Eve Party! Churros con chocolate, crazy hats and cousins!

 Our New Year's tree

 Countdown to Kid New Year's

 January
Cross country skiing in Pocatello for Jared and Mike's double birthday party.  Cade tried for about ten minutes and was all smiles until he was done.  Then he rode luxuriously in the sled pulled by Mike (seen in the background).

 We all tried, fell, and skied on the patchy snow.

 Afton was fearless and even took downhill at a fast speed

 Warming up with hot cocoa in the yurt

 Mike's cake, Happy Birthday!

 Jared blowing out the candles. We only put three, instead of 38.  Happy Birthday Jared!!!!

Exploring our new digs

While the list of repairmen that have traipsed through our house to fix something grows, we have been exploring around our area and totally enjoying being close to family.

The kids were brave and friendly and made some quick friendships at school.  It is always good to have someone to play with during recess!  Our school had their fundraising carnival in September so we got to do the usual face-painting and stocking up on silly little trinkets.  Kids love that kind of stuff.

We discovered a really beautiful hike a couple minutes from our house.  It is called Dry Canyon and the steep ascent pays off with a great valley view and cool rock formations as well as lots of shade and what we are pretty sure is a spy-network of tunnels and speakers.  You'll have to come visit so we can show you!

We have a huge pirate boat docked in a neighbor's yard. Cade had to yell "Ar Matey!" a couple times.

Painted Afton's room

We got a new cousin (my brother's baby) Lock

Ben lost his first tooth!

Afton and I went to the women's conference with Stubbs cousins

We went to BYU sporting events (Jared is in HEAVEN)

I got together with friends I have known for over 20 years.

A great September to remember!

Yellowstone

For years I have wanted to go to Yellowstone.  Never having been there before I was excited to see all the cool stuff I had heard about.  Well my amazing family made it easy for me to reach that goal by having a family reunion there this summer.  Hooray!

We stayed in a gorgeous cabin in Island Park, ID and made day trips into Yellowstone and surrounding cool areas during our stay.  It was so fun.  Even though we got rained on, a lot, we saw all the gorgeous beauty of nature and had a great time with family.

Pictures!

This is the beginning of the Snake River called Big Spring.  It is a huge spring that is bubbling and beautiful.  Since we lived right by the Snake in Burley it was fun to see it's source.  The rain may have shortened our visit but it also made the greenery pop.

 Group shot at Big Springs.

Mamma moose and her baby right by our cabin

 Our goofy face family shot.  It's a slice of real life, people.

 Here we are checking out the hot pots in Yellowstone. Go Stubbs clan!  (We sure missed the Tylers!)

 Old Faithful, of course.  Not only was the depth of the earth exploding, but Cade was having a major meltdown at the exact same moment.  It was appropriate after all.

 Cade and Ben spotted an elk.

 Standing over a valley with bison.

 Yellowstone's Grand Canyon.  Super impressive and the sunshine wasn't so bad either.

We also went to a musical at the little theater in West Yellowstone.  It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.  Not bad for a little production.  Afton loved it best that her shoes and shirt were glowing in the blacklight.