Snow Day

The day after Thanksgiving we went up into the mountains to play in the snow. Dave and my brother Aaron took Spencer, Tyler and Hannah skiing/snowboarding at Brighton all morning. They got there before it opened and practically had the slopes to themselves for the first hour. I was amazed to hear that Dave took the boys to the very top of the mountain and had them skiing blues and greens the whole time. He said they did great, went really fast, and only fell a few times. They LOVED it! This was definitely the highlight of the whole trip for them. Dallin didn't want to do it this year, which is probably good because I don't think he could have kept up.

Then the rest of us joined them for lunch - turkey and cranberry sandwiches. At that point Hannah, Spencer and Tyler were done skiing, so they went sledding with the rest of us while Dave and Aaron stayed and did some harder/faster runs. This worked out great, because Dave doesn't usually get to go as fast as he wants. He loved it so much! In fact he said if we lived in Utah, which is very tempting, he'd want to get a season pass.

We drove down the mountain a few miles until we found a good place to pull over and play in the snow. It wasn't quite as windy and cold there, although I'm always surprised at just how cold the snow is. We really had to bundle up. I'll admit it: living in California has made me a bit of a weather wimp. But my 4 oldest boys don't seem to mind the cold at all.

These girls are just so cute.

As I was editing this picture, Levi came up and yelled, "Andrew!" I was impressed that he remembered his name and could say it so clearly.

One day my boys were talking about having a sister and whether they like girls or not (they tell me there are some really annoying girls at school), when Spencer said, "There are some cool girls out there. She could be like Allison, and she's awesome."

This face cracks me up.


We found an awesome sledding hill, where people had already made a few great ramps. They really caught some air!

Brennan went down a little hill once with Daniel. That was enough for him, and he spent the rest of the time happily eating snow. I think he has pica. He eats ice all the time, so eating snow is heaven for him.

I didn't do any sledding myself, but I had a lot of fun taking pictures. They loved it too, and would yell, "Hilary, get ready, I'm coming down!" to make sure I captured their awesomeness. Then of course they'd want to see their picture when they got to the bottom.

Here's Spencer and Dallin flying through the air.

They did races down the hill.

Spencer said it was the best snow day ever.

After they were done sledding they came back to the car and had a big snowball fight - California vs. Utah cousins.

I love that face!

It was hard to say who won - Dallin cried because he got snow in his ear, but Andrew wanted to stop before they did, so I'd say it was a tie.

Notice there are no pictures of Levi. That's because he had no interest in leaving the car the whole day! He wasn't sad or upset; he just wanted to sit in his carseat, hold his blanket and suck his thumb. Whenever one of us opened the car door, he pointed at it and yelled "door!" because he didn't want any cold air coming in. Sabrina was sick that day and fell asleep in the car, so Emily stayed with them for awhile while I hung out with the sledders, then we switched places. It was a fun but exhausting day.