Happy New Year!!

So New Year's came and went without us hardly noticing. We were on a plane and kept fleeing from the New Year. . . maybe that's not a good omen. Anyway, when we finally landed in Utah the New Year caught up to us. We were driving on the Legacy Highway and saw a ton of fireworks going off. Our first sighting of fireworks in some time. It was nice to be reminded that the New Year had indeed come.



This is Andrew waiting in an airport. One of his only moments of freedom the whole day.


This is that same waiting time. Evan was pretty tired by this point so it was fun for him to just sit and play his Dad's Ipod.


At Grandma and Grandpa Dance's house a picture is always taken of the cute kids on Sunday morning. Addison wasn't feeling well, but she still managed a week "cheese".


She got into it after awhile. Everyone else was ready to be done though.


The kids got to go sledding down the hill at my parents house. It's something they want to do again when they go to visit them again. They really like sledding. Too bad they don't have a cooler Mom who would take them somewhere to go sledding here in Ithaca!



This is our Niece Raven. Addison grew to really like her because she would carry her around. Addison likes that.


Harlie, another niece, decided we should have a party. She somehow roped me into helping her and once I was on board it was a party!! I'm not good at doing things half way, but compared to some of my other parties I've thrown I think we could consider this half way. The kids all made their own party hats, and invitations. I bought some punch balloons and a little present for each niece or nephew. They had fun.


We got to go to Salt Lake for the last couple of days of our trip. We went to temple square and toured around with the kids for a little bit.

We went to the Joseph Smith Memorial building and to the distribution center.


I love this picture of Addison "looking" at the temple.



Andrew is a pure cutie pie!!


I can't believe I got Brayden to sit still for a few seconds while I quickly snapped this picture.



Grandpa took our family picture for us.


Grandpa even got his picture taken by Evan.


We hiked through the snow, and Josh pushed a double stroller through snow, just so we could go to this cemetery. FYI - don't go to "This is the place" park in the winter time. BORING!! But we wanted to go so we could see these graves.



The graves mark a group of pioneers that had been buried in the Salt Lake Valley. In about 1987 they were building a building and found the remains of the forgotten cemetery. They moved the remains up to "this is the place" park for permanent burial. It turns out that they couldn't identify all the remains, but some they were and two of them were my ancestors. It was pretty neat. It was all part of the book that Josh wrote for me for Christmas (which I still need to take picture of and post about).


We got to see some REALLY GREAT friends of ours and hang out as much as we could.


WE LOVE YOU BRIAN AND ARIEL!!!

We also had some other GREAT friends of ours, the Tinlings, let us stay at their wonderful house. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of them or the wonderful party they threw for us. We were very fortunate to get to see so many of our friends while there, and wished we could have seen more. Thank you so much for letting us stay!!! WE LOVE you guys too!!

It was a fun trip, and if it did anything, it taught me how much we miss everyone, and how sad I am to not get to be there for some of the greatest events happening in some of their lives (you know who you are!!)! We wish you luck and hope it all goes well!!

Hope to see everyone again soon!