Sweetheart Dance

It was the annual Sweetheart Dance at Clearfield High the week of Valentine's.  It's a girl's preference dance and this was Lindsey's first year to attend.  She had a great time with her cheer squad and their dates.  The cheer squad decided to all go together as one group.  It required some extensive planning and some hurt feelings along the way but Lindsey said it was the most fun date she has had so far.  At the end of the evening the group came to our house for ice cream and a movie.

Luke also went to the dance but I wasn't able to get pictures of both of them (I wish they could make arrangements to meet up at the same park.)  Luke had fun designing and decorating cakes as the "day date" then eating the cakes after the dance.  I thought that was a pretty clever idea.

The rest of us celebrated Valentine's Day pretty low-key.  It landed on a Sunday this year so we didn't have our traditional dinner/feast because we (mostly I) didn't want to work so hard on the Sabbath.  We did have fun sharing reasons why we love each other and shared a few gifts and candy.

Ashlyn Turns 4!

It's hard to believe, but Ashlyn is now 4 years old!  She is old enough to realize that her birthday was coming and she was looking forward to it for a long time.  Once we got the Valentine's Day decorations out she started getting excited because she knew her birthday was before Valentine's Day.

She started the day off with breakfast in bed, waffles made with the Princess waffle maker.  She followed breakfast up with present opening.  Savannah had a lot of fun ordering and wrapping Ashlyn's presents this year.  She is off track from school so she took great pleasure in preparing Ashlyn's birthday.  I was grateful for the help and enjoyed watching her get so excited for Ashlyn's birthday.

Later that day, I drove down to pick up Brigham and Peter, Ashlyn's cousins.  Ashlyn loves playing with them and wanted to share her birthday with her cousins.  I know the picture down't look like they are happy, but they had a great time together (the picture was at the end of a six hour playdate and Brigs was ready for cake!)

Savannah also helped design and make the cake.  Ashlyn was upset at first that the entire cake wasn't pink (emotions that also stemmed from a long day) but she came around and was very excited.  Grandma and Grandpa Anderson came over, along with Brigs family, to help sing "Happy Birthday" and celebrate with her!

Targhee Time

For the past ten years, we have tried to make an annual ski trip to Targhee in Wyoming.  We haven't always been successful because of scheduling or pregnancy, but we have made it most years.  This year we realized would be our last one before Luke heads on a mission and then Lindsey and then college starts.  It seems kind of surreal!  We started taking the kids to ensure that when they went on their 4th grade ski trip they would know how to ski.  Now all the kids, except Ashlyn, have moved out of ski school and we get to enjoy the whole day with them on the slopes.  This was one of the most enjoyable trips we have had.

Ashlyn did great skiing with her instructors.  She progressed enough to go up the lifts to some of the harder runs.  I am always amazed that the little kids seem to have no fear.  I get a kick out of watching them ski with no poles and zip in and out of the trees.  Ashlyn got to also hang out at the Kids Club for parts of the day.  Last year, we couldn't get her to stay there and this year we couldn't get her to leave!  She loved everything about the trip and continually asks me when we are going back.

The other kids would spend most of their time skiing together.  Luke would often go on his own for a while then meet up later with everyone.  Lindsey got caught in powder one day that she claims went up to her neck!  We all laughed when she would tell us the story and exclaim that she thought that was the way she was going to die, with snow up to her neck.  Heather was the watchdog who made sure she always knew where everyone was and would wait for someone if they got behind.  I convinced her to go on the big lift up to the higher runs.  She was not happy when we unloaded but she did great.   Savannah was always cold and refused to pull her hair back.  It would often become frozen and stick to her face.  This was her first year without lessons and she did great.  Matt also had his first year on his own and he loved it.  His favorite thing was to lead everyone into the trees, including his Dad.

That leads to the downside of the trip-- James got hurt and ended up on crutches.  He was trying to keep up with Matthew and he ended up going down backwards (not sure how it happened).  He put a lot of pressure onto his calf muscle and tore it.  He was out for the rest of the trip.  He continues to recover from the injury but it won't stop us from going again next year!