I'm Back!

• On December 11th my old computer decided to not work any more. I remember the date because I had a blog that I wrote ahead of time and I was just going to post it on that day. Well... that never happened because that file is on my old hard drive. I hope to be able to get stuff off my old hard drive. My neighbor is working on it and we should know this week if we can. Can I just tell you that my world was rocked. I could not do anything. I know it is so sad. I go to my computer for my calling, to contact the kids school, to call my neighbors- everything is on that computer. Let alone my dependance on email. I had a good 3 week break and I learned that I can survive. I don't have to check email 5 times a day because I was only able to check it about 3 times a week and it was fine- nothing was life threatening.

So, I will try to catch you up on our December- one post at a time.

• So the computer crashing was a surprise. That weekend we had another sad surprise. Andre's grandma Ruth Tippets died on the 13th. She lived in St. George and we have gone down to visit her every year since we were married. We love her and Jaxon and Tanner loved her and were sad when she died. The little boys didn't really understand. I want to write a post in honor of her and her life. I will try to do that in the next month. But this is the post about our trip down to the funeral.

• This is a picture of us at the family luncheon. It is so nice that they supplied us with a meal. Her ward had just recently split and not many people even knew grandma. That is a great thing about the Relief Society. The service that they do is so awesome. All of Andre's sisters were there and it was good to see them. Andre & I spent a lot of time wandering and exploring with the boys so they would have something to do. That is the problem with little kids. You just can't visit with people like you would want to.

The funeral was nice and the boys tried hard to be good. Jaxon wanted to listen to the talks so he sat by dad and was so grown up about it. Andre sang a solo for his grandma.

It was great to see family that we see only once a year. We have grown close to Andre's Uncle and Aunt Lee & Patti. We also got to see his other uncle Steve who I have not ever met. Funerals are a great time to get together with family but it is too bad that it takes a funeral to get us all together. This is a picture after the dedication at the grave. By this time the little boys were so tired, but they had been so good. The incentive to be good (I would never bribe my children) was that they could go hiking in our favorite spot in St. George. I think it is called Pioneer Park. It is just above the main street in town and it had caves and cool trails and fun places to climb on. The three older boys had fun while Chase took a much needed nap.

Andre's sister Nicole stayed in a hotel so we got to swim in the pool there. The little boys loved jumping in to dad. Chase liked to "bump" and he did it over and over.

We had Nicole's and Marci's kids to play with so it was a fun evening.

A few months ago Jaxon did a report on Zions National Park. He wanted to go right then. So because we were down near there, we decided to check it out. We had a lot of fun exploring and walking around but it was cold and there was snow where there was shade. This is my favorite picture of the trip. Everyone was so happy in this picture.

We did start a hike. We turned a corner and there was the snow. We tried to go a little ways but the little guys were having a hard time (and my shoes were sliding everywhere). So I went back with the little guys and had just as much fun. We had an "abenture hike" and we found deer footprints, a snake hole, a snowman, and all kinds of stuff that make toddlers happy. We walked along the river, threw rocks from a bridge and had snacks.

So here are the older boys on the snowy trail. They hiked up to Emerald pools trail. Much to Jaxon's dismay they only went to the middle pool. Andre felt like it was a little too slippery to keep going up. Guess where we will be going this summer? He keeps reminding us. Here are the boys at one of the waterfalls. I didn't go on the hike so I don't know what it is. But the boys and Andre had fun together. Yes Jaxon is wearing a knit cap over his baseball hat which is on top of the hat from his coat. I have stopped asking why- I never get satisfactory answers. All the boys liked driving through the mile long tunnel dug out of the mountain. and overall we had a fun day.

So it was an unexpected trip in the middle of the Christmas chaos but it was great to remember Ruth and her life. It was also perfect to remember why we celebrate Christmas. Christ made it possible for families to be together forever. She was able to be with her husband for Christmas. She was seperated from him for 39 years. And she was also with her daughter -Andre's mom- who died about 23 years ago. What a wonderful Christmas for all of them.