Moab: Spring 2014

We headed down to Moab in March for the Canyonlands Half Marathon.  I ran a very poor race and struggled with shin splints and other ailments, but luckily we were in Moab and still had a great time!

Friday afternoon, we had fun playing at the park and hanging out in town after we arrived.

Jen and Jess ran the race too!  It was so fun to meet them before, ride the bus up with them, and hang out with their families afterwards.  We didn't get any pictures, but we all met for dinner at Eddie McStiff's the evening after the race and it was so much fun to catch up.  Josie and Piper LOVED all the attention from their kids.

We always go into Arches, but we had never really explored around Canyonlands National Park, so we decided to head there for a few hours on Saturday.  It was windy, but we enjoyed the views and got some good shots.

 

 Sunday afternoon we hiked Negro Bill Canyon.  I was so proud of my girls.  We were out there hiking for around 4 hours and they didn't complain at all.  They hunted for rocks, threw them in the stream, hid underneath little cliffs, said hello to people, and were little troopers.  We wore them out for our drive home.

Life Lately

 I've been so behind on this blog, so here is my typical lazy wrap-up of some things we've been up to lately.

In early January, I went to Vegas for the CES show for the week.  This was the longest trip I've been on and daddy did a great job solo.  They did some painting.

 Also, here's how he did their hair.  He was very proud and sent these pictures to me.

One morning, the girls got up a little early, so they enjoyed a book or two with daddy.  Love the bedhead.

The other afternoon, Piper was tired and this is where we found her.  She put herself right to bed in Blue boy's kennel.

Josie has been loving art lately.  She's perfectly happy to sit up at the counter and color away.  She asked me to take this picture and send it to Bubba and Grandpa.

Looking pretty cute after school at Jamba Juice.

This is a crappy picture, but I had to document one of our rare evenings out.  For Valentine's Day, Josh and I went out to eat at Mazza and saw the Pixie's in concert at Saltair.  Josie and Piper had a blast at my parents making valentine's, eating treats, and being spoiled.

 Green smoothie mustache in the car.

 And to balance it out, ice cream cones at IKEA.  :)

Ski School and Skiing Fun

We've had so much fun skiing this year.  Thanks to a series of lessons at ski school, the girls are really picking it up quickly.  They did five afternoon lessons up at Brighton this year and by the last day, they were skiing without any tip clamps, making turns, and they even did a little "race" where each kid in their class skied down the little race course set up by the Brighton ski team.

I tried to get some pictures one day before lessons, but putting on their ski clothes is like giving them espresso shots.  They would not hold still.

This is the morning before their last lesson, the day they did their "race".  It was pretty cute, Josie and Piper went down the course together (they had side-by-side courses set up).  In the middle of her run, Josie fell down and instead of getting up, she just laid there waiting for someone to pick her up.  Piper looked over and saw that she was down, so she stopped in the middle of her run to wait for her sister.  The announcer lady commented on the excellent sportsmanship. :)

As usual, Josh and I have had some really fun days skiing together.  

I've also been lucky enough to have a couple of girls ski days, which has been awesome.  Mindy, Krisha and I enjoyed a beautiful powder day at Snowbasin.  

 Then last weekend, our little group spent the weekend up at Krisha's condo.  We skied a little bit, ate a lot, and talked a lot.  Here's lunch in the lodge at Snowbasin.

 The skiing was crappy that day, but we really didn't care.

 We ended the day with a nice dinner.  Love these friends.

Sledding at Gorgoza Park

Josie and Piper have been asking to go sledding all winter and for some reason we just haven't made it up.  We've done plenty of skiing, but not any sledding.  On President's Day, we decided to go big and go up to Gorgoza Park near Park City for some serious tubing.  It was a blast!  I thought it would be fun for the girls, but not necessarily super fun for us, but it turned out to be awesome!  We spent two hours zooming down the hill.  Also, the unseasonably warm temperatures meant we barely even needed our coats.  So fun, we are going to have to make a tradition out of this.

Christmas wrap-up

Christmas this year was awesome!  The girls now seem to be at that magical age when Christmas is the absolute best day of the year.  We had a lot of running around to do, but I don't mind because it just means we are blessed with a lot of people to visit and love.

As usual, we started out on Christmas Eve with the Egan party which was held at the Deckers this year.  We played the Amazing Race again and Josh's team won - again - likely due to a lot of crazy driving.  And this year, the girls decided to jump right in to the annual program with a couple of performances.  They sang Jingle Bells, but they also sang "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri.  Nope, not even close to being a Christmas song, but it's one of their favorites and they ask to hear it in the car all the time. Josie especially sings her little heart out.

Here's another shot of the group singing together.

Christmas morning we got up, but not too early.  Lucky us, the girls aren't yet to the age that they know to wake up at the crack of dawn.  Josh made some sticky buns and we opened the presents that Santa brought.

New princess bikes!

Later that day, we headed up to Bubba and Grandpa's house for the Wathen family gathering.  There was more food and more presents.  Josie and Piper love playing with little EJ.

 Giving lots of love to Conor and Melissa, reading with Grandma Bubba and opening presents.

Then to round out our Christmas day, the Jones family came down to our house.  The girls ran wild in the basement with their cousins, we ate more food, and opened more presents.

Grandpa with the grandkids (minus the Koupal kids).

Jones boys together.

It was a great holiday season and I feel very blessed.

Pictures with Santa

Brynn and I took the kids to Thanksgiving Point this year to get their pictures with Santa (er, Brynn dressed up as Santa).  The pictures reflect their personalities perfectly.  :)  I love EJ's very serious expression in these photos.