Last Home Meet

There were many tears at this last home meet for Shayne and all the Sr.'s. Each Sr. was called up onto the starting blocks and given roses by Coach Dani.




It's hard to think that it's coming to an end. Region is this weekend and then 2 weeks until State. Then it's over. Not just for a little while. It's over for good. Sophie thinks she's going to swim next year but we'll see. Here is her relay team. They have all become one big happy family.



We are looking forward to State. Every Year Joel and I Chaperone for Pine View and stay with the Team in the Hotel while the kids spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Shelton and their cousins. It's a win win for everyone. It's always fun for Shayne and I to come up with new ideas of things to give to the Team to keep their spirits high. Sometimes our minds get a little more excited than our little budget can handle. Oh to not have to worry about money. Wouldn't that be nice? Oh well, since that'll never happen we just have to get creative. This year Shayne is swimming the 50 Free and 100 Back. She is hoping to drop some time in her Back for Region otherwise she may end up doing the 100 Free instead. It is the end to an Era. An end to traditions and things that they've shared that will now become priceless memories. One of her traditions is that she would always kiss the relay teams caps in order before they swam. Well, this is Matt and he never wears a cap. We think he does it on purpose.;)

She's been swimming for 4 years with some of these swimmers and some of them longer than that. But, it's time to move on. It's been a fun and scary ride at times. I can't wait to see what happens next. Speaking of that...

p.s. Blaine Salibury comes home from his mission TOMORROW!

AntiGravity!

For Christmas the kids all got AntiGravity passes in their stockings thanks to Santa and Aunt Jan and Uncle Andy. It is an indoor trampoline arena that we haven't wanted to go to since our friend Taylor was severely hurt at one just like it in SLC. But we decided during the school break to try it out. It ended up being pretty fun but I was on edge the entire time and was glad it was over an hour later. Had we not had the passes we would not have gone because it was $8 for the first hour per kid! We could go to Floodstreet Theater and see a movie for $2 that lasted longer and was safe. Now we can say "Been There, Done That" and move on.

New Years Eve Night!

It has become a fun tradition for us to go crash the party at McArthur's Temple View RV Resort every New Year's Eve Night from 7:30 - 9pm otherwise known as 10:30 to Midnight. Every year Ira and Jen McArthur invite us over to their RV Party that they put on for the retiree's that are there over the holidays. They always play Bingo and have Ann and Dallas Mangum's live band for a night of dancing! It truly is one of the best nights of the year. We take all the kids to JoEllen's at 6pm and eat pizza. Then we leave them there under the watchful care of Sophie or whoever is the oldest and take off. Ira turns all the clocks ahead so that at 8:59 we start the New Year Countdown. That way he can be done by 9:30 and go do something else and the old people can go to bed. It works perfectly! I get to dance with my Sweetheart this one time a year only. I look forward to the RV Party for 364 days so that Joel and I can dance once again.


This year Spencer and Shana joined us. Joel said that we'd better work on our moves so we can keep up with JoEllen and Kyle. They are great dancers. They remind me of my parents and how they used to dance around the house all the time growing up. Some of my favorite childhood memories.


Then we came back and joined the kids with a couple different games and ended with Puffy Poo, otherwise know as "Shove As Many Marshmallows You Can In Your Mouth Without Throwing Up."


Then we had the countdown and cleaned up and went home to bed. A great way to kick off the New Year. Happy 2012! May it be better than the last!

New Years Eve Day

So on Dec. 31st at noon we got together with all the Wells Families and went for a hike to see some Petroglyphs. To get to them we had to pile in the back of Kyle's truck. We had 16 of us plus Olive in there and 6 in the cab. It was right on the Arizona border and was really fun to see. Can you see the goat?

There were a ton of fun rocks for the kids to play on. We joked about how it was a man made playground.




At one point someone asked how long they thought it would take to hike to the top and Mason said, "Let's find out." (These two pictures were taken right where I was standing and I wasn't even at the bottom. The highest point right in the middle is where they all climbed.)

So off he and Shana went and just like little sheep all the kids followed. We had to yell at some of the littler ones to come back. Mason made it first and then Shana, Maycee, Sophie, Drew, Ben and George.



It was pretty steep in some places. Ben was so surprised to see the whole valley from up on top. Maycee found some jaw bones while hiking. We all had a great time. The weather was perfect. Where else can you go hiking on New Year's Eve but good old St. George! Then we went home to shower and get ready to party it up later that night.

Home Run Derby

Every year we sneak into the Wells Family Christmas Home Run Derby but this year Joel had to work so we held our own today. We had Brian, Kai and Luke, Jared and Alex. Shayne invited Kyle Buck and Kyson Sullivan too. Then we had our family minus Sophie.





It was a perfect day. 65 and Sunny. Joel won for hitting the most light poles, Kyson won for hitting the fence the most and Jared, Joel and Brian ripped a ton of home runs. I wish we didn't do this just once a year. We should make this a Halloween Day, Turkey Day, Boxing Day, Kwanza, Hanukkah and any other day Day.

Merry Christmas!

Here is my Pine View Christmas tree (tribute to Shayne) with my Jack Skelington ornament that I got for myself at Disneyland. Joel's new suit is hanging next to it.

This has been the funnest Christmas since last Christmas! I loved that it was on a Sunday. Christmas Eve we went to Brian & Holly's house for dinner and to do the 2 traditions that the Beckstrands have.
#1 Re-intact the nativity with the little kids. I was in charge this year so we had the 2 youngest (Bailee & Luke) be Mary & Joseph. They were darling. Josh and Alex were Shepherds, Ben David and Kai were the Wisemen and Joel read the story out of the Bible. It was awesome but I didn't get any picture's of it. Hopefully I'll get some from someone who did.
#2 Elaine reads "Cajun Christmas". It's "The Night Before Christmas" with a Cajun twist. She even does the accent which everyone loves!

Then we left and drove around to see the lights and then came home to open new pj's from my folks and read more Christmas stories until the kids fell asleep. On the way home we asked the kids how we should do Christmas because we had church at 9am. Santa gave us our incredible trip to Disneyland so all he was coming to our house for was to fill our stockings. So we didn't need to worry about opening Santa gifts. David came up with the great idea of just doing stockings before church and then coming back to unwrap everything else. Everyone agreed and when we woke up the next morning at 7:15 Ben & David were already dressed in their church clothes and ready to go. It was a Christmas miracle!

After church we got back into our pj's and opened all the Disneyland gifts.

The girls got Eeyore Pillow Pets.

Josh and Joel got Chewbaca and Yoda backpacks and the boys got to build their own light saber in Disneyland then wrap them up when they got home and gave them to each other.


We had so much fun remembering everything we did in Disneyland.

Later that afternoon we went over to Mike & Elaine's for brunch and to watch home movies. Then we went to JoEllen's to see what they got and came home. It was a full day and was great fun. I love that it started with church. It got my boys started off right. No fighting or yelling and just being calm. I wish we could do that every year!