We loved Christmas! We stayed at our house for Christmas morning again this year. It was very nice. I think that it was back in November that Aleah told me that she needed a bar and a beam. She said, "I really need a bar and a beam. I don't get enough practice at my class. If I had a bar and a beam then I could practice all the time!" That is totally how she is. She knows the importance of practice. When she wants to do something she practices and practices. So Brad and I decided to get the kids some gymnastics equipment for Christmas.
Brad set up an app to send him a text if anyone posted gymnastics equipment on KSL (an online classifieds). It worked perfectly! We were able to get a beam and a nice big folding mat for really great prices. Luckily, my friend in our new ward sells gymnastics equipment and so we were able to get a mat, a bar, and a pair of rings from her. We stored everything at our neighbors' house until Christmas Eve. Then we set it all up before we went to bed. It was so much fun!
Christmas morning Aleah and Cade woke up at about 7:45, which is sleeping in for them! We went downstairs as a family. They were so excited to see the gymnastics equipment. They played on it most of the day.
Legos! Legos! We love legos at our house. We had a fun morning putting together legos. Aleah got real good at reading the instructions.
We also love cars at our house, lots and lots of cars!
Cade and I had fun play with the Gears. It is fun to be creative in an engineering way.
The day after Christmas we had a party with my family at my parents' house. We had our traditional crepe breakfast. This year my parents got a delicious ham to go with the crepes.
My parents are always so creative in the way that they give us our Christmas gifts. It is always a lot of fun. This year they did a game like, Let's Make a Deal. They gave us our first gift and said that we could have that one or the one in the garage. The first gift was a little plastic wheelbarrow that was broken. We decided to go for the one in the garage. A new wheelbarrow is going to come in hand this spring when we do our yard!
After the party we headed down to the cabin at Brian Head. We got to spend some time with Brad's sister Sonya and her family. Brad's sister Tina and her family also stayed at the cabin with us. It was great to see them and visit with them.
We got Aleah in a ski class. We were going to put Cade in a class as well, but he got altitude sickness and so he wasn't feeling very well. When we finally figured out what he had we got him some oxygen and then he was fine the last couple of days that we were there. We will be taking oxygen with us to the cabin from now on!
Aleah was very excited for her class. I wanted Brad to just teacher her, but he felt like letting her take a class first. I stayed at the cabin with Cade and Brad went with Aleah to her class. After about 40 minutes, Brad was ready to pull her out. They weren't doing anything! Then they started playing in the snow. They started working on their pizzas (snow plows) for a bit and then they went in for lunch.
After lunch Aleah was done with the class and wanted to go back to the cabin. She was bored and she said that her boots were hurting her feet. Poor girl, they gave her boots that were too small! We learned our lesson. The good part of it all was that we found out that we could use the magic carpets on the bunny hill without a ski pass.
Here is a picture of Cade and his cousin playing outside while Aleah was at her class. Cade seriously just sat there the entire time. One of the symptoms of altitude sickness is tiredness. I have never seen him like that. He always has tons of energy!
After Cade started feeling better he wanted to try out skiing. Brad's parents got a bunch of little boots and skis from DI. So we got the kids all geared up and went down to the bunny hill. Aleah said, "These boots are much more better for me! They don't hurt my feet."
When I was getting a helmet for Cade he said, "Get me a really awesome one Mom!" Well, thankfully he has an older sister and so he likes pink, because that was the only color of helmet there was. I was a little afraid that pink might not qualify as, "really awesome". As I grabbed the pick one he said, "Yes! That one! That'd be perfect for me."
There was a small magic carpet that went to a really little hill. The kids started there. They all did great. After a few times we went over to the big magic carpet that went up to a bigger hill. Aleah stayed there. Cade went back to the smaller hill to work on his pizza. They got really good at getting on and off of the magic carpet all by themselves. It is a perfect set up for teaching kids to ski!
Here's the group getting ready to get on the magic carpet.
Aleah got really good. She could go down the bigger hill without falling. She even started turning!
Brad got to play around with Ted's Google Glass. He had fun. I tried them out for a minute. They were pretty cool!
We always love our vacations to the cabin. We are never ready to go home. Especially this time since Cade was finally feeling good and having fun! We are so thankful for our family and the wonderful vacation that we had with them.
