Gypsum Mine.

We took the kiddos out to a Gypsum Mine that is just like 20 minutes outside of St. George -- in Arizona, actually. According to my sister-in-law it is a party spot for all the high school kids, but the kids loved it too. You can just walk right down inside and chisel off some gypsum. Addie kept saying "it's a raw (rock), pretty!"

Christmas.

Little miss was exhausted from all the festivities of the last few days so she slept in until almost 9! She had no idea Santa had left her a ton of cool stuff downstairs. All of the adults were up waiting for her to wake up so we could get going! But the wait was totally worth it. She was so much fun this year! She still isn't old enough to really understand Christmas, but she was blown away by all the cool stuff!

Playing "Puzzies" with uncle tato...

It was such a good Christmas. I can't believe it is over already!

Christmas Eve.

We started out Christmas Eve in St. George. Marie did a present pass for all the kids. Addie loved it... mostly the bows. I think she took the bow of off every single present.

Then we headed down to Cedar for some bowling! I love this tradition. We always have so much fun!

Addie was my little good luck charm. Every time she bowled for me she got either a strike or a spare.

Her very first time however... After the celebration in the picture below, she got really excited and started chasing the ball down the lane. I don't know if you guys have ever been out in the lanes, but they are SLICK!! I found that out after I started chasing after her and we both ended up on our butts. Wish someone would have gotten a picture of that!

After bowling and a nap for little miss we went straight to my mom's house for the Christmas Eve party. Where Santa was nice enough to take time out of his extremely busy night to stop by and say hi!

Addie has never really seen Santa before and she wasn't really sure what to think...

Christmas Eve Eve.

We spent the Sunday before Christmas down in St. George with Ray's family.

We got ready in Cedar and then headed down for church. That night the kids did a nativity and it was so cute. Then we headed over to the temple to see the pretty lights. It was such a fun night and definitely reminded us what Christmas is really about.

Addie hanging out with Uncle Ron... she really likes him.

Snow Day.

Addie got to go outside and play in the snow for probably her very first time! She loved it. She kept eating the snow and saying "mmmm... nummy". Now every time she see's snow she wants to eat it!

Celtics Game.

Ray's friend Daniel is living in Boston right now,  so we thought it would be fun to meet up with him and his wife Stephanie. We decided to go to a Celtics game and it was so much fun! We had 4th row seats and we sat next to a guy all dressed up like a leprechaun. I thought he was going to be a weirdo, but he was so nice! It was his goal to get Steph and Daniel's little boy, Brighton, on the big screen. He succeeded! The game ended up going into double overtime and the Celtics won. Such a fun night!

New York.

Ray has never been to New York, and neither had Russ and Denise, so we decided to take a day and go down to check out the "Big Apple". We woke up super early and had to cram about two days worth of stuff into one day. But it was totally worth it. We had a blast!

Ray's mom, Marie, was nice enough to fly out for a couple of days so that she could watch the kids while we went out and played. Thanks so much, Marie!! There is no way we would have been able to see everything if we had the little people there with us.

Ray's Pizza... if you know Ray, you know he LOVES pizza. He actually ended up stopping and grabbing dinner at this place. It was pretty darn good.

Macy's... Emily is going "elf style" down the escalators. They still have the original escalators in this building. They were so cool!

We wanted a picture with the statue of liberty lady, but she wanted us to pay for it. She was pretty good at turning away from our pictures, but we did finally get her by the end of the night.

I went to New York in 2003, and at that point ground zero was still just a big hole that they were trying to clean out. I couldn't believe how much it had changed. The memorial was awesome. It totally gave me cold chills. And they are rebuilding the twin towers, only now they are calling them the freedom towers. The guy giving us a tour said, "Isn't that cool? You can't keep this country down." True dat.

Cape Cod.

Russ and Denise were nice enough to keep Addie for a night so that Ray and I could go explore "The Cape". We stopped in Plymouth on our way up to check out plymouth rock. Wasn't quite as big as we expected.

We stayed in Hyannis that night and then drove out to Provincetown the next day.

It is apparently a summer destination because it was pretty dead. But the beaches were so pretty and the streets were lined with the cutest little shops you've ever seen.

At one point we decided that we were going to take a picture with all of the windmills we saw, but we only saw two so we gave up that idea. Ray decided that he wanted to be the photographer for this pic, and I would have to say that he did a pretty darn good job.

Children's Museum.

Our second day in Boston we thought it would be fun to take the kiddo's to the Boston Children's Museum. Addie loved it! She has been really into cars lately, so the car room was an obvious favorite. It definitely wore Addie right out because she zonked out in her stroller afterwards. Something she NEVER does. I wish we had one of these in Cedar. We would go all the time!