the brand new year brought the start of ski team for moses and a couple beautiful solo ski mornings for me.

there was a neighbour gal pal’s birthday party, and lots of nail painting with polish from eve’s christmas stocking.

august decided he loves to run around the block and gabriel wrote some letters to his cousin pen pal in texas. we eventually took down our kitchen wall of christmas cards, fun bubble baths were enjoyed, and the twins and i had a great outing to the trampoline park, bean museum and byu creamery for lunch with cousins dean and simon.

i went winter hiking with my sisters (right by the cozy place where ian and i had our wedding dinner), and august was reunited with his favourite creature on earth, scout the dog. gabriel had some great saturday morning ski adventures with ian and moses re-discovered the wonders of brio train tracks!

we had a back deck fire every sunday evening (especially fun with the fire color packets the boys had given ian for christmas), august cracked us up falling asleep mid-magnatile-play, i enjoyed my beloved rock canyon winter hiking, moses started getting into decorating his space in his room, and a marble track with simon is august’s happy place.

over mlk day weekend, we drove down to arizona to meet our friends the finters. we met in flagstaff for some skiing and then continued on to the finters’ house in mesa for some more fun together. the first morning the dads skied with the big kids and the moms took the littles to the trampoline park (the twins loved being with the finters’ little baby!). i swapped with ian halfway through the day, but got smacked from behind by a reckless snowboarder and got a concussion! that was really not fun, but thankfully i was able to lay low the next day and heal up. the finters’ two oldest kids enjoyed their first experience skiing and it was so fun to be all together in the evenings at our airbnb. we swapped skiing for swimming in mesa – everyone had a blast in the finters’ backyard pool. i took the twins to my sister’s house (she lives in the next town over) and met up with my brother there and helped with orange harvesting and juicing! then it was back to the finters’ house and baby and dress-ups and playground and graphic novels. so, so great to be with these friends – adults and kids loved the reunion and the time together.

on our way home we stopped by horseshoe bend. we’d been here before but this spot’s brought me to tears this time – so spectacular!

back home, we visited daddy at his office and played at the byu bookstore after, gabriel (our game lover) got really into clue. i realised i dealt with post-concussion syndrome, and i took the twins to the aquarium one morning.

eve and i had a super special mommy date to the ice castles in midway! it was so beautiful and we had such a blast. evie insisted i call her elsa the whole time, haha. it was pretty magical.

when my sister shawni was in town one day, i got to meet sisters and sister-in-laws for a sunset hike and then we went to shawni’s condo for dinenr and hot tubbing. what a treat!

the twins had a chinese new year celebration at their amazing preschool, august did some more block loops and gabriel read some books to the twins, eve and her across-the-street bestie had some fun play dates, gabe’s pen pal fun continued, august tickled us by sometimes putting himself to sleep for a mid-day nap, and i got to take the boys to the dogman movie.

at the very end of january, i took the twins to saratoga hot springs, which i love to visit every winter. we had a fun adventure together swimming in the hot pool and then checking out the icy shore of utah lake.

2025 off to a great start 🙂 i feel so grateful that i have come to love winter!