February Goings On

I think I post this every year, but don't you just breathe a sigh of relief when February is over?  This last month felt so busy and I doubt that March will be any better, but at least we should be getting some spring weather soon!  Hallelujah!  I can hardly wait!

I already blogged about Great Wolf Lodge and birthdays, but there were a bunch of other little activities sprinkled throughout the month that deserve a mention (and maybe a picture or two)!

BYU had a devotional with Elder and Sister Uchtdorf, so we encouraged Bentley to get there plenty early-- and he ended up with a close enough seat that Craig spotted him in the audience on the livestream!  

One of our youth activities involved playing human foosball-- the kids had a great time, although watching them repeatedly get smacked by (soft) balls was too much for me and I finally had to retreat to the lobby...

(There's Ryder in the blue shirt!)

(And Kendra is in the foreground here wearing an olive green shirt and sweatpants!)

Sarah and I met up for breakfast before she had to get to work, and I busted up laughing as soon as I saw her-- we did NOT plan this!!!!

But seriously, how cute and in sync are we???

We have had some seriously cold weather this winter!  One wet day the temp dropped suddenly and everything was covered in ice-- it looked so cool on Carter Mountain!

From a distance (ie, from our bus stop) it almost looked like the mountain was just fuzzy!

Bentley continues getting himsef to the temple-- how cute is he?

Speaking of temples, we took Kendra to do baptisms and met up with McKinley and her mom, Wendy (who is my new secretary and who I LOVE), so that was a lovely evening out!

I spent a TON of money at Target and now I have all these new clothes I love!  Including this cute dress that was perfect for Valentine's Day!  (Especially since I had to give a talk in church-- I had to look my best!)

Speaking of Valentine's Day, Camille and Peter had organized what was basically a date for them-- they wanted to go to Coldstone and the dollar store (where they each bought something for themself and something for each other), so Megan and I complied.  Colton & Gideon and Ryder & Truman also came along, although not as dates.  I guess?  And Megan and I also got ice cream, because obviously we weren't NOT going to get ice cream at Coldstone!  It was fun, even if I'm a little perplexed by my 10-year-old planning group sorta dates?!

The Young Men were playing Among Us, so Colton decided he needed a funny hat and this was the best he could find hanging around the church.  And I had a cold, so I was wearing a mask.  Remember those?

So we look pretty awesome, the two of us!

That same night for Young Womens we made sock puppets:

Here are our poor cold chickens all huddling together.  We nearly accidentally killed them-- C&C cleaned out their coop and forgot to put the water heater back into their water bucket and then it snowed again and got super cold.  Fortunately Kendra noticed that their water was frozen before they all died, but they were VERY thirsty!!!  It had probably been a few days!!!

My neighbor very kindly sent me this photo from six years ago-- look how little these kids were!!!

Clockwise from the top we have Camille, Colton, Beth, Scarlett, and Sydney

Bentley got a new haircut and had to send us pictures!  Apparently he's trying to look like Brad Pitt from Fight Club.  I guess?

Camille had a field trip to Wintergreen, where she got to go snowtubing with Mara and Mara's mom, Anna (ironically, this got canceled when we had a snow day, so I was glad they finally made it on the second attempt!)!

I totally should have signed up to chaperone this-- I blew it!

My neighbors all got together at Rachel's AirBnb in Afton Mountain for a weekend, so that was fun!  There were seven women total, just hanging out enjoying the fact that no one was whining at us and we only had to clean up our own messes!  (I was supposed to do this last year, too, but had to cancel when I got Covid, so I was especially glad my cold had cleared up in time for this!)  I didn't really think to take any pictures except this silly one of me alone in the hot tub, absolutely enjoying the peace and quiet:

We mostly lounged around in our pajamas eating chips and dip.  We also watched a lot of documentaries about women faking that they have cancer for various reasons (Scamanda on Hulu, and on Netflix, The Search for Instagram's Worst Con Artist episode about Belle Gibson!) and stand-up comedians (I got them to watch Ryan Hamilton and they LOVED him-- although by that point they'd had so much wine and gummies that I don't think it was hard to make them laugh; but Ryan Hamilton IS really funny, soo).  It was a really fun weekend, and I was so happy to get back to my family on Sunday!  The best of all worlds!

The Young Men played gaga ball for their activity

(A couple action shots of my boys, but honestly, based on all the other pictures Craig took, it looks like the leaders were even more into it than the boys!  And the boys were pretty into it!!!)

Meanwhile the YW were having making impromptu puppet shows with the sock puppets they'd made the week before:

And Craig and I had another temple trip, this time just the two of us!  Date night!

I love those enormous lamps!

Have I mentioned how great it is having the temple only an hour away?  I love it!