Tea Party

In early December Maya held a tea party for her cousins. She wrote out invitations and made most of the food herself. I was their server. The kids had a great time eating and sipping their hot chocolate.

 

Wind Storm

So this is what winds near 100 miles/hour can do...

Our front yard

Our front entry 

Damage to the exterior walls caused from shingles hitting into them.

Maya helping to clean up our next door neighbour's yard.

Kate helping. Ross was very grateful for their hard work in his yard.

Our roof - photo taken by our neighbor (not Ross) from his roof.

We also lost a small tree in the back and had damage to our fence. We are grateful that our power was only out for chunks of the day - some people didn't have power for 3 days! We are also very grateful for home insurance!

David Archuleta

Every year the Mormon Tabernacle Choir does a Christmas show and there are one or two special guests who perform with them. Last year that special guest was David Archuleta (for those of you who don't know who he is, he got 2nd place on American Idol in 2006 when he was only 16 and he is a member of our church). Maya had been a huge fan of his ever since we went to that show so when I found out that David Archuleta would be signing his CDs at Deseret Book the day after Thanksgiving this year I knew we would have to be there. Kate is also a fan and the girls were SOOOOO excited. We arrived at 3pm to see him and were happy to be near the front of the line (the earliest people arrived at 1pm). David arrived at 6:30 and Maya and Kate got their turn to meet him soon afterwards.

I am glad that Maya is not so old that she is too cool for her parents to be there taking photos! We realized later that we should have had them go up one at a time so we got a better photo of Kate with him. He gave them both a high 5 and signed their album covers. Maya is wearing a one of her guitar t-shirts and she was planning on telling him that she wants to be a singer too but she got starstruck in the moment and forgot to tell him.

I think David Archuleta is a great guy for Maya to have her first crush on and I am happy for her that she was able to meet him. I am trying to think who I had a crush on at that age. Maybe Val Kilmer from the movie Willow? Or Sean Astin from The Goonies!

Halloween

Maya made some ghost and pumpkin sugar cookies for Halloween this year. She and Kate decorated them together and took some to our elderly neighbours, Ross and Jamie.

As with most Halloweens, Maya goes through several costume plans before settling on the final choice. This year she decided to be a Medieval princess after she bought this headpiece when we visited Medieval Times. I had actually made the white shirt last year when she wanted to be the goddess Athena but she didn't wear it last year because she decided to be an '80s girl instead. So this year I just had to make the cloak to go with her outfit.

She joined Kate and 2 friends to go trick-or-treating in Kate's neighborhood. I am always amazed at the efforts some people put into decorating and dressing up for the trick-or-treaters. Maya and her friends loved this house.

We always trick-or-treat at Grandma's house and she gives extra treats to her grandchildren. We were happy to see Annabelle and Luke there too.

A pirate and a princess.

Jackson Hole

After a few days back home in Utah we took another trip. This time we went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. When we went to the Grand Canyon last year Jack had looked into doing a river rafting trip. It didn't work out for that trip so we decided to do a rafting trip down the Snake River with everyone this year instead. Well, everyone who was old enough except Maureen who was happy to have the excuse of taking care of the younger children while we were all gone. I was really excited that Maya could come on the trip with us.

The first half of the ride was a scenic trip so it was very relaxing and pretty. We saw several bald eagles, osprey, and even a few river otters which are a rare animal to get a glimpse of. Half way through the trip we stopped for lunch and to pick up a few more tourists for the rapids on the last half of the trip. That was great! I wish there were more rapids and that each one lasted longer. These photos were all taken on the same rapid called the Big Kahuna. We had so much fun on the rapids and then we had so much fun looking at these photos afterwards. Poor Josh and Adam didn't have anything to wedge their feet into as the rest of us did so staying upright was a challenge. Maya is in the middle but you can see her well in the last two photos. You can click on the photo to see it a little larger.

Jackson Hole is a great place to visit if you are looking for a cowboy kind of experience. At first when we arrived in town we thought the 4 antler arches around the park in the center of town were barbaric. Then we found out that elk shed their antlers ever year and the local boy scouts collect them. We were much more supportive after that!

The scenery on the drive out of the town was beautiful.

We liked the signs too.

Pioneers and Temples

After Las Vegas we spent a night in St. George. Several of our group did tours of church history things in St. George and others went shopping at the outlets, but since our family did both of those things last year we spent the afternoon at the hotel pool and hot tub and it was a wonderfully relaxing afternoon.

On the day we drove home, the van (with all of the Aussie visitors) went the long way home so that they could visit the Manti temple. Josh joined the van for the final leg so he could see the temple with them.

Pioneer Village is one of our favourite places to go and we were excited for the family to experience it also. Maya took the day of school and she and Josh joined the family too. Poppy helped Louis walk with stilts.

Maya and Abbey took turns beating the rug clean.

This does not look like a fun farm chore to me. If I were a pioneer I would have made the kids do the plowing!

Jonah sharing the love with Kiah.

Josh also joined his family on a tour at Temple Square in Salt Lake.