Dedicated to Biking

This post is dedicated to all the awesome biking we did this year in St. George.  We have a ton of pictures, but here are a few of my favorites. We hit stuki springs trail, bear claw poppy, a different loop off of stuki, red cliff reserve and church rocks.  This is why we come!

Spring Break 2014

It is that time of year again.  Time to ditch the winter slopes and head to the warm red hills of St. George.  We headed out the evening of April 3rd and we arrived late morning on April 4th.  We made our best time yet.  We were rocking the night driving.  We love the 80 mph speed limit in Utah and the kids love waking up in Utah. Sounds crazy but it works for us.  Kevin drove the majority of the way, but I spelled him once in the middle of the night. 

We didn't waste any time hitting the mountain bike trails once we got to the house.  Happy Birthday to me!  A fun trail ride with family in warm St. George.  B-days don't get much better than that if you ask me.  After the biking we went out to Craig and Chyleen's rental house and swam in their 80 degree pool.  We all went to Brick Oven for some delish pizza and I had to be wheeled out!  I love me some Brick Oven.  What a great Birthday!!!!

We got up again and did it all the next day!  Minus the driving.  Mountain biking included Amber and Jen this morning which was a fun twist.  We went on the Bear Claw Poppy trail and made it back in time to listen to General Conference.  Between sessions we went to Snow Canyon for a picnic and to let the kids play on the sand dunes.  Then it was more conference, more swimming at Craig and Chyleen's pool and then the boys headed off to the priesthood session.  We had birthday cake and ice-cream to celebrate all the B-days within a 2 week period.  Being able to spend time with Craig's family was an extra fun bonus to our St. George trip. 

-Craig, Julie, Chris and Spencer

-The kids with grandma watching conference

-Lincoln, Jen, Josie and Grandma at Brick Oven

-Chris, Jen, Amber, Spencer and Kevin at the top of the 3 fingers of death

-Kevin getting some air

-The gang at Snow Canyon

-Lincoln, Conor and Josie

-Kaiden and Lincoln running down the dunes

-Josie

-Conor and Paisley

-Lincoln, Chyleen, Grandma, Grandpa, Conor, Jen and Paisley

-Conor, Grayson and Josie

-Josie, Lincoln and Conor

-Kevin crashed out after his all night drive

-Lincoln trying to shoot hoops-I love how his mouth is open

-Pool time!

-Dinner after the priesthood session. 

Birthdays!

End of March 1st of April is full of birthdays at our house. It happened to be a crazy 2 weeks besides the birthdays. Kevin and I went to Big White, Conor hurt his scapula, we were getting ready to go to Utah for spring break and just all the crazy schedules of regular life.  We managed to squeeze in a birthday eclair cake for Kevin at some point, Conor managed to get a birthday waffle with candles on it, and he got to open his presents before he headed off to school, I was lucky enough to blow out a candle on my slice of cake with all the other birthday buddies while we were in St. George. It all worked out perfect.

The scapula-Conor got a little green stick fracture while playing flag football in PE.  He took a dive and landed on his elbow, jamming his scapula.  He was in a sling for a few weeks but he got tired of wearing it.  Amazing how fast little kids heal. 

Happy 37th Birthday Kevin!

Happy 11th Birthday Conor

Conor's waffle cake

Chris, Kevin, Conor, Julie and Craig with our birthday cake slices.  We all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other.  No were else I would rather be on my birthday!  Love these guys.

Big White

I like to claim this was a birthday get away for Kevin's birthday since we left on his b-day, but it really was just an opportunity that we couldn't pass up, which we almost did (lame us.) Kevin's Mom being the super star Grandma that she is, agreed to watch the kids for a few days and we made it work. Big White, British Columbia here we come. Kacey and Garth invited us to join them, the Merrill's and the Law's, and use Garth's Mom's condo for a weekend of skiing and grown up time without the children. What a super, fantastic, fabulous, memorable, relaxing, can't wait to go back trip.

 I picked Kevin up at work, as it is 1/2 way to Canada anyway, then we crossed the border and worked our way up to Big White. We spent the next day skiing in what I like to call one of those ski days you will always remember, snow was just right, weather amazing, company was great, the resort was just the right challenge, yadda yadda. Can you tell it was F-U-N? After a hard day of skiing we hit the jacuzzi and had dinner, played some games etc...And we got up the next day and did it all again. We are lucky. We mostly all stuck together on the slopes the first day, but on the 2nd day we split up a bit and the Kellogg's and Hamilton's ended up together on a few runs and we went down the famous "cliff" run.  It was memorable I will say, especially when the wind picked up and you couldn't really see what you were dropping into.  Good thing the snow was soft.

We had never met the Merrill's before and we are so glad we did.  We laughed a lot on this trip and we think the Law's and Hamilton's and Kellogg's should go on some more couple trips together for sure.  

Check out the beautiful Bluebird day!

-Kacey and Me

-I have never seen so much snow on the roof of some of these places-I tried to do it justice, but it was truly a beautiful sight not worthy of my photography skills.  So So much snow everywhere!

-Matt, Natalie and Adam headed down a pristine slope that we had all to ourselves.  This was one of my favorite runs that was long and endless fun, with hardly any other people to dodge.  Wish we had done this one a few more times. 

-Funny story here-So this is Matt and if you look at the very bottom middle of the picture you can see Kevin in the back.  So this is triple chair and Kevin was suppose to get on this lift with us, but he suddenly panicked thinking it was a double and pulled out so hence Matt ad I were on the lift alone.  We are still laughing about this moment. 

Kevin, Matt, Garth, Kacy, Me, Adam and you can see the Snow Ghosts in the back that Big White is famous for

-My sad attempt at a jump

-Natalie, Adam, Kacey and Garth

-The "boys"

-Jamie, Julie, Natalie and Kacey

-Hamilton's,  Kellogg's,  Merrill's, and Law's

-Headed out-so sad.  This is the front of the condo we stayed at. 

-The road out

Some More March Fun

We made it up to 49 a few more times in March. We had some beautiful bluebird days and a few not so great days, but always a good day at the slopes.  Josie has gotten to be a great little skiier and is able to do some blues and even a few easy blacks if we take it slow with her. We had a super fun year of skiing and we will be ready for next year. 

Josie had to get a baby tooth pulled.  She had a not so pretty abscess up on her gum line and who knows how long it had been there.  We knew the tooth had some trauma about a year ago, but didn't know the abscess was there.  It was pretty painless, but a trip to the dentist.  Josie's mouth is full of holes right now.  She currently has 4 missing teeth right in the front and no replacements in site.

Lincoln and I were lucky enough to go to lunch with Craig and Chyleen one afternoon.  They were in Spokane for a few hours to pick up a fun new car.  It is always fun to see family unexpectedly in your home town.  Wish we saw them more. 

Conor, Kevin and Josie top of the mountain soaking in the sun.

Josie ski girl

My ski gang headed down to chair 5

Josie in the chair with her happy gas flowin and the cool sunglasses.

Chyleen, Me and Lincoln at Red Robin in Spokane Valley-Craig is on the other side of the table probably solving the wolds problem on his phone.