visiting and skiing

We got to have both sides of the family come for a visit this month.

Paul's parents came up for Anelise Hancock's wedding and stayed with us for a few days. The two families overlapped for a couple days and we got to have a fun dinner together and watched the Superbowl. Lorraine brought up delicious Texas brisquet and Rudy's sauce. While the boys watched the football game we all got a lesson in decorating cookies from Lorraine. It was really fun! A skill I've been wanting to learn for awhile. The kids also got really into it.

 My parents came up for a ski trip and also stayed with us. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Park City ski resort. My dad learned to ski and grew up skiing a lot at Park City, hence it also makred his 50th anniversary of skiing there! He came up with a master plan to celebrate his "skiing jubilee" which included skiing every single run at the resort. It took him 3 days and he was so happy. He and Paul had a banner day together in what they both described as their "hardest day of skiing ever" when they skiied 30 runs, including every double black and most black diamonds on the mountain. Those boys can shred. We had a family ski day when we took the kids up. They didn't last long but Caitlin had a wonderful time and did awesome! She had the best attitude and had tons of fun. And yes, Paul did have Nolan on his back and Caitlin between his legs for a time. Then we passed Nolan around.

I also got to go up another time with Paul and my Dad while my mom watched the kids. The day that we went there was about 9 inches of fresh powder and at tho top of the back mountain you could only see about 1 foot in front of you, it was so foggy. Needless to say not my ideal conditions but the boys were nice enough to wait for me and they are such great sports to ski with, I had a lot of fun. Skiing as a family definitely holds some of my favorite memories of growing up so it was fun to do it all together again.

We also had a family dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe... complete with a balloon animal battle.


My mom ended up staying an extra week while Paul had to go out of town. She was my helper all week watching the kids and running errands and doing anything I needed her to do and keeping me company while Paul was gone. The kids loved playing, making cookies, dressing dolls, doing play doh, coloring and whatever else Grammie was willing to do with them. It was great! I so appreciate my mom's willingness to drop everything and stay to help me.

The kids got their Valentine's presents from Grammie and Papa a day early... cute Mickey and Minnie stuffed animals that they are in love with.