All Bundled Up

We finally had the sun-shine last week so we took advantage of the nice day and walked around the corner to "boys town" to do some sledding.

Lex & her Diva glasses.

Tanner & his adorable smile.

Cari even took a trip down the hill with them. You can't really see the tree they about took out on the way.

How come when dad rides the snow sinks in 3 extra inches. Overall it was a fun time to get a change from everyday things of life and enjoy time as a family.

It's TIME!!!

Well the Lord sure works in mysterious ways. Some of you may know this but we have been trying to sell our house for the past I think 8 or 9 months. The market here isn't terrible but they have just overbuilt townhomes bad here. Anyway with that being said....there had been some discussion in past months of us moving to Mitch's parent house to take care of it while they are gone on a mission, but there never was a set plan and we orginally just wanted to sell our house and then if it worked out we would move there. I honestly don't know what started the conversation but it was just a few days before fast Sunday and we decided that we needed to fast about renting out our house and moving to his parents house. Well that was a Sunday. Tuesday we started talking about it again and we knew what we needed to do. I posted our house on the school bulletin board for rent on a Friday and Sunday morning I got a call. I didn't think much of it because they were going to "call back" and come see it that night and we would see if they actually called back. Sure enough, they did and wanted it. So we had two weeks to move out. When things are in the Lords hands they just work out.

The two weeks leading up to our move were CRAZY. I didn't want to live in mess for Christmas so I didn't pack much. I had tenants moving in and out of the apartments and it was snowing like crazy, which meant Mitch was plowing snow like 14+ hours a day. Then Christmas came with two trips one to Burley and then one to Utah. We came home and then moved. Thankfully it wasn't snowing so Mitch was great help.

Then when we got here (Mitch's parents house). We had a few "fun adventures".

1. Leaking toilet in upstairs bathroom cause dripping in downstairs bathroom - Mitch fixed, good job babe.

2. We noticed that the toilet and tub in the bathroom downstairs were having problem draining. I was so nervous that one of the kids had flushed a toy or something. We called the Rooter man. Luckily it wasn't our own kids toys. It was a tree root from the large willow in the backyard. This root was in the main sewer line going out to the city. Yes, that's a picture of it. CRAZY!!! 3. One night I go to start a load of laundry and notice the water wont work. (it had been really cold) I told Mitch and he said the pipes in that room are frozen. (this has happened before - so not to worry). We start trying to thaw the pipes and keep the heater on it overnight. The next day he moves the washer out from the wall so he can put a bucket under the pipe and turn it on so when it's starts to thaw it can break through. Several hours later Mitch turns the main water off the whole house so change some valves. Then he goes to turn the water back on and asks me to stay in the back bathroom to watch the valves and makes sure they are off so when he turns the water on it doesn't go every where. The valves were off and everything was great...oh wait...not so fast. Mitch comes in the house and hears gushing...Lexie says "Dad there's water all over." I was in the back of the house and couldn't hear that when Mitch turned the main water back on the laundry room pipe had thawed and was coming out full force. Now we had an about 2 inches of water in the laundry room. All cleaned and no problems now.

These three things all happened with in the 1st week of when we moved in. I guess all things come in threes and hopefully that's it. I am not complaining - I just started to wonder - what are we doing here? We are supposed to be here. Yes! and everything is great now.

*(NOTE: No TV for a week and no internet for 2.5 weeks makes for a cranky Cari. Very long story about the internet getting setup. If you really want to know-I'll tell you someday)
WE are here and HAPPY! Thanks Mom and Dad Johnson for letting us stay at your house while you're gone. We love you!

Late Christmas!

We had a wonderful & very white Christmas. We are so thankful that we had such a white Christmas. Really the two weeks prior to Christmas it would not stop snowing, which was a good thing for the area but when you're one of the ones trying to "clean-up" the snow it's hard to keep up with it. Poor Mitch would plow and not have much of a break. Thankfully it stopped snowing long enough for us to take a short break and go to my parents house for Christmas Eve & Christmas Day and then head to Utah. Then the day we got back from Utah we started packing our house so that we could move. That will be another post, so back to Christmas. We did have a wonderful Christmas. All Tanner wanted for Christmas was a "tanney-tane" (candy cane). Everytime we would ask him what Santa was going to bring him, he would say "tanney tane". I would even give him optoins, cars...trucks... he would just say "tanney tane". I think because Santa gave him a candy cane when we saw him...it was just so cute. Of course out of all the thing Santa brought him the 9 inch candy cane was the first thing he noticed and picked out. One day at church she was asking Mitch how to spell all these things. Mitch just kept helping her spell them and then when he was done she said, "Here's what I want for Christmas and the things down here are what Tanner wants." She had written a "letter" to Santa. It was so cute.

One of Lexie's favorite things was the suprise we had on Christmas Eve. We were all gathered around signing Christmas Carols and reading the Christmas Story when the doorbell rang. We went to the door and Santa's elves had left a great big package with pj's for everyone it. Yes, even Nana, Papa, Mom and Dad and of course the cute jammies you see the kids in above.

Tanner got this camera for Christmas and he would just walk around saying cheese and taking pictures.

Lex got this adorable hat and socks in her stocking and wore them most of the morning.

Lexie was passing out all the gifts to open and was trying to be very helpful...this picture doesn't do her justice or the kick we all got watching her try to carry all three great big bags. I guess you had to be there. LOL

These are pictures from Alexa's Christmas dance performance. They did a little dance to some Nutcracker music (it brought back many memories) and then they had a special visitor. Doesn't she look graceful? :)

NO - we didn't fall off the face of the planet.

Just a quick note-We are still alive and doing well. We had a crazy couple of weeks right around the holidays (we moved, snow, tenants moving, Christmas in Burley and Utah) and then we haven't had internet until Wednesday. It's late now and I will update with more details and pictures tomorrow or Sunday. Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful New Year!