Ringing in 2013!

After a long three weeks of battling with Google over a glitch in the system I am now able to upload pictures to my blog and am finally back in business!  New Year's Eve seems like a distant memory at this point, so it will be nice to reflect on the happenings of the days following Christmas and bring them to mind once again.

Ryan and Mindy's families came "home" for New Year's and a few days of family fun.  New Year's day was spent at Boondocks arcade center, a late lunch at the Training Table, tubing and then games and a counter full of appetizers in the evening.  Picture above shows the family playing a new charades game that was fun for all ages.

 We usually have the kids bring in the New Year at 10:00 though now most of them are old enough and did stay up until the "real thing" at midnight.  It was a little anti-climatic as the actual "ball dropping" was not televised at 10...was there a news flash or something...I can't remember, so all but the little ones were happy to repeat it at 12 with the pans and the "ball" and the bubbly drink.

 

There were lots of great snow pictures, but this one of Miles (Mindy's) and Tyler (Ryan's) captures the fun.  Cute boys.  

 

Boise schools started Wednesday, January second, so Mindy and David's family went home and then this cute group of girls returned on Friday as the girls had been given Justin Beiber concert tickets for Christmas (teenage idol!)  Here the girls and mom's paint their fingernails purple (Justin's color) in preparation for the concert.

 By Saturday night the girls were decked out in personalized hats and shirts and had painted the "Beiber mobile" with notes and hearts...the excitement was building!!!!!

 

And here they are just before they go into the concert. I didn't join in the concert fun as the tickets were EXPENSIVE and Justin is not my "thing" (generation gap!) and there were four small children at home needing attention.  But I heard all about it on their return and Justin was the talk and the walk for a week after!

 

(Sophie, Kate, Hannah, Ellie and Sadie)

 

Well, it was a blitz weekend but so fun to be a part of it.  They left on Sunday, then down came the Christmas decorations, a house cleaning, a day at the temple and then off we went to St. George for 10 days of relaxation and sunshine.  The inversion is stuck in our Salt Lake Valley once again with poor air and extremely cold temperatures, so St. George, though chilly, was a wonderful retreat!