The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Oh, I love Christmas. I love the food, the family, the parties, the concerts - everything.  Here are some highlights.

Here's Aaron the entrepreneur who is always figuring out ways to make money.  I think this time he put up the outside lights for me because he is the bomb.  I sent Aaron out to buy his own presents for his siblings and he did pretty well.  Aaron of course only wanted clothes so that he can look swag as always.

 Miranda is my #1 helper with wrapping presents.  I hate wrapping and avoid it when at all possible.  I think that's fair when I have to shop for most of the presents myself, right?  Anyway, what would I do without my little elf?

Sam & I took the girls to Flagstaff for the North Pole Experience.  It was pretty awesome although the girls thought they might be just a little too old for such silliness.  They sure do have that workshop decked out though and I found it quite magical.  Here we are with Santa before heading back home.  While we were in Flagstaff, we also went water sliding, rock climbing (me, Miranda and Amber) and zip lining over wild animals (Sam and Bethany).  Later that week, Miranda, Aunt Emily and I went to Salt Lake to visit friends and pick up Collin.  Miranda and I were plumb traveled out.

 Christmas morning finally arrived and Amber had to be the first up to check out the stocking goods.

 Bethany doesn't look quite as excited about her stocking loot.

Miranda with her new chair from Grandma.  I think it takes up half of the girls' bedroom but she's wanted one for months.

Chad with his  electric keyboard.  He says he just can't get to any pianos on campus and he's forgetting how to play.  Whatever!  Let's hope he can fit it in his storage cabinet.  If not maybe they'll send him home to be with his family.

 Aaron and mom in all our morning glory.

Amber made me a set of these mugs  because my other apple mugs were all cracking.  Is that sweet, or what?

And after Christmas Uncle Ben and family came to visit.  Yahoo!  Abby and Bethany got a little silly after staying up until 3:00 in the morning playing Nerts for two nights in a row.  Funnest card game ever!  We are all quite addicted.  Anyway, these two sillies are headed off to EFY this summer with Isabelle and their other cousin Savannah.  Let's hope BYU survives.

The kids all watched movies with Uncle Ben while Sam and I were finalizing the purchase of Chad's new/used Ford Ranger.  I told them they could have used the television set.

 Miranda and Abby taking a break between skating laps.

 Aunt Stephanie and Rex.  he got a little more enthusiastic as the evening wore on.

 Fiona, my snuggle buddy, peaking out over  the railing.

 Miranda adjusting her skates with Daddy.

 And Chase adjusting his skates with Uncle Sam.

 Amber got a little bit cold after a half hour or so.

Four of my favorite skating beauties, Isabelle, Abigail, Bethany and Miranda.

And now, the holidays are over. Collin went home, Aunt Jane and family went home, Uncle Ben and family went home and now tomorrow Chad will return to college.  Boo! :(

NMMI Happenings

We had a terrible time saying goodbye to Chad.  It was especially hard because he had to leave about three weeks before any of the other college students in order to participate in recruit training. I think there were tears all around.  Here are the girls before we took off for Roswell.

Chad in the baseball locker room.  Most of the boys hung out there for the first month to avoid being yelled at by officers and because they couldn't call home or have access to their phones.  Yikes!

Reading the recruit pamphlet.  About this time, I was pretty sure he was going to bolt and I was going to happily bring him back home again.

Not the best look.  I was so worried to leave Chad in this house of horrors and it didn't help that the couple of times we got to talk to him during the first month, he said he was in Hell and that the only time his life didn't utterly suck was during baseball practice.

 Here's the crew during RAT month.  Do you recognize that tall boy standing next to #15?

This is Chad's favorite thing about being on the Broncos.  They have a fabulous weight lifting program.  Chad has gained about thirty pounds of muscle weight.

We brought Leah down for Parent's Weekend after the RAT period ended.  Chad still claimed he hated everything about NMMI other than baseball at this point.  Chad did get to come for one weekend in October at which point someone at church for some reason asked him what would happen if a recruit was caught drinking.  Chad told him that the recruit would be marching for so long that he or she might as well march on home. Ha!

 But, should you think it's no fun and games, here is the team on Halloween.  This doesn't look so bad, does it?

It has been a whole semester now and Chad has actually adjusted quite nicely.  He loves his teammates, his coaches and even his troop members.  And thanks to the good grades he earned mostly due to mandatory study hall, he will be returning as an officer and can therefore do pretty much whatever her wants and is even going to have a truck and hair.  Yee Haw!

And here's the best part.  The new uniforms.  Don't they look sharp?  Three weeks until baseball season begins and they can officially show these babies off.

Autumn Fun!

Aw Halloween.   A time of spooks and goblins and the beginning of the end of my diet.  Alas!  This year our cousin Sam came to join in the fun.  Yahoo!  Miranda just wanted to be a glow stick person (is that a thing?) but it worked out great because we could always find her no matter how far ahead she got.

 I know it's hard to tell but this is Amber with her best friend Kate.  Amber loves Phinneas and Ferb.  Bethany went trick-or-treating with a friend from school and didn't even let me take a picture of her costume.  She went as a super hero from a Five Seconds of Summer video.  Oh boy! She is definitely a teen.

 This year we had our annual Hurst reunion in Uncle Dale's recently built barn.  It is awesome!  He and Bev just returned from their mission and they were the ultimate hosts.  As always fun and games were plentiful and the food was divine.

Bev has put up photo montages all around of various themes.  This one shows the history of Uncle Dale and Black Oil.  Another has huge pictures of her and Dale's parents from back in the day.  I'm not gonna lie.  This is right up my alley!

 Miranda, Amber, Bethany, Collin & Rory waiting for the other cousins to arrive.

 Aunt Sheila made this bad boy.  So cool!  He was almost too awesome to eat - but we did anyway.

 The barn from outside.  I want one just like it.

Amber and her cousin Emery discovered that they were soul mates when it became clear that they both obsess over Minecraft.  They were inseparable for the rest of the evening.  They went out exploring and Amber found this pretty horse whom she named "Snowflake".

And a couple weeks later it was Thanksgiving.  Here is my handsome boy with his cousin Rory.  Yet another female he has wrapped around his finger.

In order reenact the above throwback picture, this is how Becca and Chad celebrated turkey day...

As you can see, neither of them has matured that much in the last few years.  The Thanksgiving quote of the year comes from Amber who reports that the way to prepare Thanksgiving dinner is to, "Find a turkey, punch him in the face, give him a piece of your mind and stuff him in the oven."

And this is how the LC young women bring in the Christmas season - with a spectacular night at the bowling alleys.  Once they learned to keep their wrists straight, they weren't half bad. Love them!

Summer Miscellaneous

Some random pictures from the summer.

Chad and Sam overlooking some gorge in Arizona.  Chad went to a baseball camp in St. George and we got to stay with the amazing Aunt Cindy who was a fabulous hostess and sent us home with 300 apricots.

 Amber at her end of the season softball party.

Miranda warming up at Amber's party.

 Miranda getting wet in the dunking booth at the 4th of July carnival.

 Bethany spent a little bit of time at the face painting booth.

And Amber just wanted to race in the Burque 500.

Four kids at Sam's work picnic.  The food was great but they look like they've had enough of the socializing.

And all great summers must come to an end.  Here is Miranda with some friends at 6th grade Jump Start.  Can you believe this girl is in middle school?

 Miranda, Bethany and Eden walking to school on the first day of 2014-15.

And Amber on her first day alone at elementary school.  Fall & Winter here we come.