Happy New Year!

The story continues...

New Year's Eve we headed up to Aspen Grove to spend the next two nights up in the mountains for lots of family, fun, and games.  We joined Scott's brother and sister and their families as well as his mom and dad with different aunts, uncles, and cousins meeting up with us each night.  Our kids officially had a ball being able to play with so many cousins and Scott and I had fun visiting as well.  Of course, things did not go completely without a hiccup, so, to illustrate the last few days of our trip, I present The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good --

• The view.  I mean, come on.  LOOK at this place!

We stayed at Beckham Lodge, which is the same place we stayed two years ago when we came for the summer Family Camp.

• Not having to rent a car.   Scott's aunt and uncle so kindly let us borrow their 1992 Mercury Sable station wagon for the whole time we were in Utah.  {And even better we were able to get it up the mountain without any problems!}

My family had a tan one of these babies back in the day.  Hearing the kids fight over who got the back {rear-facing} seat brought back so many memories.  Hahaha.

• Bonding with the cousins.  It was especially fun seeing Adam and Susi's kids who we don't get to see as often since they are not within driving distance from us.

Here is Abby trying to teach the kids how to do this cup clapping thing that's been done to different songs on You Tube.

Alex kept making a beeline for this keyboard, and cute little Ella kept trying to "help" him and take care of him.  It was adorable.

• Being fed delicious food each night thanks to Scott's mom.  Seriously!  She deserves a major reward for all the work she put into planning meals, buying and preparing food, transporting it up to Aspen Grove, and then cooking and serving it to all of us.  She is amazing!  

We set up tables all across the common area to accommodate everyone.

Waiting in line for some yummy food!

• Playing lots of games and having lots of fun.  Once dinner was cleared on New Year's Eve, we busted out lots of games and other activities for the kids {and grown-up kids} to do.  Grandma set up a coloring station for the little ones, and Jane and her twin cousins, Lucy and Ella, parked themselves there for most of the night.  Other games being played were Clue, Phase 10, Acquire, and Ticket to Ride.  The teenage cousins along with some of their second cousins went to a Youth dance up in Heber City while the rest of us stayed behind to ring in the New Year.  And ring it in we did!  As a special treat, we even let Ethan, Grace, and Sophie stay up until midnight.  

Lucy, Ella, and Jane with Grandma.

Where's Waldo?  Hahahaha.  I had already scanned through this picture several times before I noticed Ethan staring and smiling creepily at me through the slats of the chair.

• More sledding!  This time we were slightly more prepared.  A quick run to Target right before we left was semi-successful in procuring appropriate snow gear for all the kids.  Ethan, Grace, and Jane, along with a bunch of the other cousins, braved the elements to check out the sledding hill on the grounds at Aspen Grove.

There was ONE snow bib left at Target and it was in Ethan's size.  There were no snow boots for him, but rain boots seemed to do the trick.

Grace threw a mega-fit when I came back from the store with nothing but some Hello Kitty rain boots for her to wear.  "You didn't get me anything on PURPOSE!!!" She screamed at me in what was arguably the most ridiculous statement of all time.  Because, really.  Is there any way I would ever purposely do something to provoke a melt-down out of this child???  

Luckily, Susi had an an extra snow bib that she borrowed which did the trick even if it was a little small.  After using a sharpie to cross out the Hello Kitties on each boot she was good to go.

Grace and Hannah.  BFFs for life.

Scott's brother Adam was so nice to take Jane down the hill a few times since Scott was back at the Lodge with Alex and Sophie (who was having asthma/breathing issues almost the whole time we were up there).  Jane LOVED sliding down the hill in the inner tube.

Check out how gorgeous that sky is!  It really was the perfect day out there on New Year's.  Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining.  Even though it was bitter cold, it ALMOST felt okay in the sun.  Once that sun started to drop behind the mountain, though, it was brutal!

Ethan caught some air on this mini-jump that someone had created.

And Jane occupied herself while waiting for her turn by kicking around a newly busted sled.

Just for the record, the blown-up inner tube was the most highly coveted mode of transportation down the hill.  And lasted the longest.  I'm pretty sure all the other plastic saucer sleds ended up shattered and destroyed.

Action shot -- Thanks Adam!

• More bonding occurred.  Jane was quite the pet {or pest, depending on how you look at it} for the older kids.  She LOVED playing with Sam and Jake and Abby and Sydney.  And by playing I mostly mean bugging them.  Hahaha.  They were all such good sports about it, though, and I actually think they got a big kick out of her.  Most of the time.  Hahaha.

Here is Jane chucking a plastic cup at Abby who caught it before any damage was done.

"Sam is my best friend!" she said over and over again.

• And MORE games were played.  Scott taught the middling crew how to play Scotland Yard.  They were intrigued.  After playing a single round with them, they had picked it up enough to play on their own.  Ethan was pretty much in heaven because there is NO ONE here at home who will ever play any games with him.  Grace really doesn't like board games, and the other kids are too little.  Scott and I rarely have the time {or patience} for playing games with him, but after seeing how much fun he had with his cousins, I think we should make it happen more often.

Joseph, James, Ethan, and Ben had the games on lock-down this trip.

The Bad --

• Major asthma flare-ups.  Both Sophie and Jane were having problems while we were in Utah, but once we were up in Aspen Grove it escalated even more for Sophie.  Aside from needing regular breathing treatments every 4 hours while awake (and sometimes sooner than that), she and Jane were both waking up in the night needing additional treatments as well.  At some point during each night we were there, I was worried we would need to make a trip down to the hospital based on the way Sophie was breathing.  I don't know if it was the altitude, the dryness, or the extreme drop in temperature from what she's been used to {or perhaps the combination of all three}, but whatever the reason, she sounded bad.  Luckily, we were able to get ahold of the doctor's office on Wednesday morning and they agreed to call in a prescription for prednisolone out in Utah for us to start until we could get her in to see the doctor the next day when we were home.

Playing on the iPad through yet another breathing treatment.

• The messes.  Oh the messes my children made everywhere we went.  As we were cleaning all the rooms out before checking out of Aspen Grove on Wednesday, we discovered where all the food had been going that we saw Grace and others sneaking over the course of the 3 days we were there. To their "fridge," of course.  Disturbing and disgusting, all at the same time.  Hahaha.

• My inability to read the directions on a borrowed bottle of contact solution.  Which leads me to...

The Ugly --

• My eye.  After a late night on New Year's Eve and then being up half the night with various kids, I was not quite thinking OR looking at directions when I grabbed the bottle of contact solution I had borrowed from one of Scott's cousins and proceeded to squirt it onto my contact lens right before putting it in my eye.  I really should have paid attention to the warning that was printed on a red label right on the front of the bottle -- "Use only lens case provided.  Do not rinse lens with Clear Care prior to using."  Because what I ended up doing was bathing my left eye in un-neutralized peroxide.  Yeah.  It burned.  A lot.  I flushed it out with water the best I could and luckily, Scott's mom had some eye drops on her that kind of helped a little, but UNluckily it just so happened to be the day we were taking our family picture and I was stuck wearing my glasses for the rest of the day {and trip}.

At the end of the day.  Some of the redness and pain had gone away, but not all of it.  

Why can't I look as cute as Sophie in glasses?  

Oh well.  Some people have all the luck.  Hahaha.

And there you have it -- A rockin' New Year's Eve and day!  Once we got back to Provo on Wednesday, we spent one last day all together before Kristin's family and our family took off on Thursday.  Scott hit up Les Miserables in the afternoon with his mom, Kristin, Susi, and the 4 oldest teenagers while I stayed behind to pack things up so we'd be ready to go in the morning.  But don't worry -- I really didn't want to go.  I know this is blasphemous to so many of you who might be reading this blog, but I just don't do super long movies ESPECIALLY when there is only singing.  I like the song songs in Les Mis just fine, but it's all the sung dialogue that pretty much drives me nuts.  And makes me SUPER antsy.  Scott sent me a message about 20 minutes into the movie to let me know I'd made the right choice in not going  -- "fyi," he texted, "you would hate this."  Hahahaha.  Once everyone got back, the teenagers watched all the kids for us so we could take Scott's parents out to dinner to thank them for everything they had done.  It totally was not NEARLY enough compensation for all they did, but as Kristin said, it was a gesture.

Our trip ended yesterday with the LONGEST day of traveling ever.  Hahaha.  Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it felt that way.  We flew out of Provo, and once we were on the plane, it took 45 minutes to de-ice and get the engine started so that we could fly.  And this was after a super long wait through the lines to check-in and get through security.  Everyone was LOVING being right behind our large crew.  Our connecting flight was in Denver, and we were so late getting there that we would have missed it if the gate hadn't been right next door.  As it was, we walked off one plane and got right in line to board another.  Thankfully, we made the flight, and even MORE thankfully, the kids were pretty cooperative.  It helped that Alex fell asleep in Scott's arms almost immediately, and the TV screens in front of each child helped a ton as well.  Once we landed back here, we thought we'd have just enough time to gather up our luggage and drive straight to Sophie's doctor's appointment.  We were wrong.  Our remote wouldn't work to open the doors when we got to the car, and when Scott manually unlocked them we saw flashing lights on the dashboard saying, "THEFT!"  Nothing was stolen, and who knows if anyone REALLY tried to break in, but regardless of that the car wouldn't start and NONE of the electrical stuff would work either.  And it was freezing outside.  After loading everyone up {with the luggage still outside because we couldn't get the trunk open} we waited while Scott tried and tried to get ahold of someone to come and give us a jump to see if that would do the trick.  Someone finally came, the car finally started and we FINALLY managed to load everything up.  And then the car clunked out again as soon as we started to back out of our spot.  Aaaaahhhhh!  I won't even bother trying to flesh out the scene for you with screaming, over-tired, and melting down children in the background.  Suffice it to say that this was the worst part of the day.  After tracking the same parking attendant down and getting another {longer} jump we made it to Sophie's postponed doctor's appointment and finally, FINALLY got home.  

And that was that.  Although, I think this trip must have taken more out of me than I realized, with all the sleepless nights, dealing with cranky children, and always being on the go.   Once the kids were in bed last night {SUPER early, by the way -- we're talking 6 o'clock} I crashed hardcore on the couch around 7 and then slept until 10:30.  I woke up for about 45 minutes to try and help Scott deal with Jane who had also woken up before finally crawling into bed to crash some more.  Aside from a 4 AM stint with Sophie and the nebulizer {and a wide awake Grace who was already set up in "her" chair watching TV when we came down} I slept straight through until morning when Scott brought a screaming Alex to me in bed before leaving around 7.  I was kind of a mess this morning trying to get kids to school because I was still SO tired.  I even fell back asleep on the couch for like a 5 minute snooze after I had fed Alex and Jane and they were playing with their new toys.  Thankfully, no one threw any fits about going to school this morning, and once the older kids were off I enjoyed a fairly low key morning and even got around to cleaning up the kitchen in the afternoon!    

All's well that ends well and I'm hoping by the end of the weekend we'll have the whole family back on schedule.  After all, it is a new year and we've got to get it started off right!