The Young and the Restless

Happy....

We had fun saying goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012.  First stop, Vegas where the cousins had so much fun hanging out together.  Football in the street, hiking, playing at the park, a gift exchange, movies (TinTin had the best animation ever), grubbin' Chinese food, sleepovers and games were enough to make them never want to leave. 

We miss being close to family and it was sad to say good bye, but lucky for us the vacation wasn't over yet as we headed up to Utah for a week of fun.

For the past month Maddox has been talking about the amazing snowman he is going to build when we get to Utah.  The mild Utah winter kind of put a damper on his dreams, but atleast there were a few patches of snow left for him to play in.  We got there late at night and at 6:55AM he was bright eyed and bushytailed standing at my bedside begging me to take him out to build a snowman.

It may not have the cookie eyes and carrot nose like he had envisioned, but he was still content with his cute little baby snowman.

Kylie and Jayci decided to join in the fun.  These two girls are so dang cute together, I think Jason and I went 2 days straight without seeing her at all, they would just disappear together in their own little world.

A snow fort was also on Jayden's list.  There wasn't enough snow for a fort, but atleast they had a flag.  That's the most important part anyways.  Oh my gosh, Kylie was so ticked that I put her boots on Maddox and they got thoroughly thrashed with all the mud.

The view from their back deck every night, breathtaking.

And it's not a Jolley get together without games.   And it's definately not a Jolley New Years party with out games.  Or without food.  And lots of it.  We ate until the only thing we could move was our dice rolling hand.

After mastering the game faces, we set our sites on getting our photo on the cover of the next game box.

The Aggravation victory dance is a long standing tradition carried on through out the generations...for the record, the girls did win the first game, we just didn't take a picture of our victory dance.

This is how Jayden spent New Years eve and pretty much the majority of the week (he and Brenton were so cute together, though!).  They had the old school version of Mario and if he wasn't playing, then I was.  I seriously felt like I was 9 years old again in the family room of our American Fork house wasting away an entire summer trying to save the Princess.  And I loved every minute of it.  Now I know where Jayden gets it from.  The kids not not only made it until midnight, but we were so busy having fun that we forgot to put them to bed until like 12:45, they were zombies. 

Jason also took the kids snowboarding at Brian Head with his brother and their cousin, Ian.  Kylie has really picked up toe edge and can carve down the mountain like it's nobody's business.  Jayden is still working on toe edge but he has definately picked up speed. 

The rest of the week was filled with a trip to Enterprise to visit Grandma,Grandpa, Aunt Angel and some more of our favorite relatives, an adult night out to see Sherlock Holmes, basketball and lots and lots of pickle ball (still trying to figure out exactly what that is), a failed attempt to shop at the St. George outlets which ended up being a memorable day in town, good food, great company, lots of laughter and lots of great memories. We were sad when it was time to go.  Sad to say goodbye and sad to have to spend the next 7 1/2 hours in the car with 4 kids & a baby that doesn't always like to travel.  By the time we ran out of snacks and the batteries had died on all the gadgets and we learned that Rhianna found a love in a hopeless place for the sixth time and my 248,000 score on bejeweled was untouchable....we finally made it.  Cactus has never looked so welcoming before. Home sweet, Arizona home.  (I kind of had a thing for sunsets on this trip, if you couldn't tell).  It's going to be a good year, I can tell already.