2011 In Review

January

• Winter escape to San Diego, including a visit to Sea World

February

• Annual trip to the East Canyon Yurt
• Upon arriving home from the yurt we discovered my parents basement flooded. We, especially Chad have spent quite a bit of time the past year helping them refinish the middle level, and basement level of their home.

March

• Three weeks earlier than his due date we were surprised with our third little boy, Luke.  We certainly love him and can't imagine life without him.
• Ben turned 6
• Ben slept through the night for the first time in 4 1/2 years

April

• Logan getaway.  (Check out getawaypackage.com.  We generally go to Logan twice a year.  We love it!)
• A pretty uneventful Easter.  Usually we go camping or at least have dinner with the Phillips family.  We didn't do either of those things.  It was strange.

May

• Luke's baby blessing.
• First annual women's luncheon- I did it with the women in my family.  I hope to make it an annual tradition.
• Worked on our basement bathroom.  Having to take care of kids and do home construction is a pain in the butt!

June

• The first week school was out we spent the week up in Park City with my sister and her family, and my parents.  It was soooooo fun!
• We added something to our bedtime routine that we really like.  It's called, "Best and Worst", we ask the kids what the best and worst part of their day.  

July

• Chad went to scout camp.
• We enjoyed fireworks with our awesome neighbors on the 4th and 24th.  Chad is very excited about the change in the firework laws.  Well, we all are.  Fireworks are so much more fun.  Expensive, but fun.
• Ben took a basketball class and Jack took a Balls of Fun class through a neighboring city's summer rec program.  

August

• I came up with a crazy idea to buy a vehicle in Texas.  Anything for a trip. :)  My mom, my sister Jennifer and our kids spent a week in boiling hot Houston, Texas with my aunt and uncle.  We had fun.  The kids say it was one of their favorite trips ever.  It might have to do a little bit with my aunt and uncle having a pool.  
• I bought a new vehicle, and drove it home with my sister and all our kids.  They handled the trip really well.
• We got back just in time for Ben to start first grade.  I don't like having him in school all day.  I miss him.
• Jack turned 4
• We sold the first car I ever bought.  
• Chad started using the loseit.com app

September

• Jack started doing the UPSTART program.  It's a computer preschool game.  It's awesome.
• We went camping at Tony's Grove up Logan canyon.  That place is gorgeous!
• Ben lost his first two teeth and Luke's first two teeth came through.  (The bottom two front ones.)
• Chad's parents left on an LDS mission to Tacoma, Washington.
• I ran the Dirty Dash with Jennifer, my cousin Kyra, my friend Natalie and her husband.
• We watched my nieces and nephews for a week while my sister and her husband went to Kauai.
• We hosted a neighborhood ice cream party at the end of the month.  (It was unusually warm.)  We made homemade waffle cones.  Mmmmm!
• We started working on Mega Deck.  (What's Mega Deck?  The deck in our backyard that is constructed using 400 lbs of concrete, three 16 foot steel I-beams, a couple dozen pieces of Unistrut, and Trex.)  

October

• Chad and I took an early 10th anniversary trip to Kauai.  We left the older two boys, but Luke got to come with us.  We had sooooo much fun.  Now we want to move to Kauai for a year.  
• For Halloween the boys were Angry birds.  Ben and Jack were black bomb birds, Luke was a red bird, and Chad and I were the pigs.  

November

• Chad shaved off his goatee for the first time in six years. And then he quickly grew it back.   
• I made homemade grape jelly for the first time.  It is tasty.  And we go through a lot because most days Ben want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.
• Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family.
• Chad ran a 5K the morning of Thanksgiving.

December

• The Great Windstorm of 2011.  A pine tree in our backyard blew over and fell on the power line.  It bent the mast on our house and disconnected the neutral from the power pole.  My dad is an electrician and was a lifesaver for many people, including us.  The mast on our house was quickly repaired but we had to wait four days until the power company came and hooked back up the line.  It was a minor inconvenience being without power.  (Being without water would have been a whole different story.  That would be hard.) 
• Christmas!
• New Years Eve party.  Thanks to Shannon and Dallas Smith for inviting us.  I thought about going to bed at 8pm, but it was definitely more fun to hang out with friends for a while.  And most of us still got to bed at a reasonable hour.

While we had a lot of fun with the big events of the year, not to be forgotten is just simple every day life.  Well, not really simple, but just every day life.  Chad works hard at his job, I work hard at home.  Days are sometimes long and endless, but the year has flown by.  We have all loved having a baby in our home and Luke is growing up way too fast.  Ben and Jack too.   

We are blessed by awesome extended families and friends old and new.

Life is good.