2-Peat!

It's official-- our ward men's team are back-to-back Region Champs! You know how I hate a dynasty but this is pretty fun! Great job guys!!! Here's to a three-peat!! (Although there is talk of doing some district play...)

A Super Super Mario Party

The boys playing with "The Claw"-- the one and only present Chase wanted for his birthday this year. It is a mini version of that arcade game that has a claw reach down and try to pick up a toy-- this one reaches for candy. I did not want to get it for him afraid it would be one of those toys played with for two minutes then forgotten about-- so we will see...

The boys playing Mario in their Mario jammies-- thank you Debbie, what a great find and a really fun addition to the party-- matching Mario jammies to make the Mario sleepover party complete!

Chase's cousins-- Cooper, Kodiak, Caleb, Chase, and Griffin!!!

Our attempt at our own little Mario world game-- here is a picture of the boys defeating the green girl with silly string.

Chase's Mario World birthday cake with matching mushroom cupcakes! The boys ate the dots from the cupcakes and that's it-- what is it with kids and frosting?

Lance a.k.a Shy Guy being attacked with balls.

Mini golf-- picture quality not great because it is almost pitch black in the building.

Once everyone arrived they were greeted with a party hat-- needless to say they were pretty excited to get started on the festivities.

Before everyone came Chase had to make sure all the animals had their party hat on too. He was pretty excited! I can't believe he is five!

Well, I can't believe another year has gone by since his last Pirate party but here it is. He is so excited to be five. This year he wanted to have a sleepover with cousins and when cousins sleep over they love to play Mario on the Wii so he thought a Mario party was just the ticket. We were thrilled that it was a lot easier then last year. Anyway, it is not his birthday yet so I will report on the rest of his birthday activities to come but I had to share this one first! Thanks guys for coming and helping him have "his best birthday ever!" (Chase did say this!)

The Fire Station

Today, Chase got to go on a class field trip to the fire station where he met Fireman Casey and got to see all of the things that are important for a fireman. Then their class sang their stop, drop, and roll song. Very cute and very fun! He loved it!

Vegas Vacation

This past weekend we went down with Debbie and Quincy-- and many other BYU fans--to the Mountain West Tournie in Vegas. It has been awhile since we have actually stopped and spent time there--as opposed to just driving through on our way to Disneyland. We had a nice, relaxing time. We went shopping, ate delicious food, more shopping, and had a plethora of basketball games to attend. Unfortunately the weather was not quite ready for us to sit out in the sun by a pool but I did manage to finish our book club book-- The Help. If you are at all interested in books this is a great one! I LOVED it!!!! Anyway, we decided o come home a day earlier then planned because BYU lost Friday night and also because there was a storm moving in that would maybe hinder our drive home. Luckily we were able to get home fine, however, we were lucky. The weather was horrible in parts and we were able to avoid a collision with a diesel that jackknifed into a van right in front of us and the cars behind s were able to stop in time but cars behind them were not so we were stuck between two collisions. After making sure everyone was okay we could escape by driving on the snow and weeds to get to a country road about 20 feet away. Otherwise, we would have been there a long time. Other than that there were no other problems we were just glad to be home. Thanks to all our family members who took their turn watching Chase over the weekend. He had a blast and so did we!

A Utah First

Sorry, you can't see us very well in this shot but you can see the pretty sun and mountains and lake behind us!

Yesterday we went with friends down to the lake to see the snow drifts on the icy lake. It was really cool to see the huge mounds of snow and walk around on the lake. The snow wasn't your normal snow-- it was like ice crystals that had bunched up together. Chase enjoyed karate chopping big chunks. We went down around dusk and it was so pretty to watch the sun slowly set with the lake and the snow. Randy and I had never done that before and I really never even knew it was something we should do. I highly recommend a stop at the lake to see this beautiful place we live.