Vitalicious!

Say it ain't so.... January meant time for our 5th daughter and my sanity to go back to school. We never like to say goodbye, but are thankful for Skype and FaceTime.

Where's the Snow

As hard as I tried to stay home for most of the Christmas break, I couldn't resist an offer from my friend to use her cabin for a couple of nights in Tahoe.

Usually a stay in Tahoe in January would include all kinds of winter sports, but not this year. The lack of snow and freezing temperatures had us splashing in the pool and slipping down the waterslide.

It felt like June- not January.

Some of us had more fun at the cabin than others. Poor Ian!

Ok- so we did eventually enjoy some winter sporting activity. But it still felt like June!

Oh- and there was some playing in the snow too....

California post-Christmas part 1

December 26th = trip south to Hollister to party with the big ol' Carter family. My bro Dave and his girls came along.

I unfortunately only for a few photos with my phone.

California post-Christmas- part 2

Gotta love Nor Cal and amazing weather two days after Christmas. Spent hours on the beautiful beach at the end of Ocean Avenue in Carmel.

Sometimes pictures are better than words. See below:

Finally!

After all the waiting Santa finally came. I forgot to take pictures on my phone of our awesome Christmas eve partying - but I have this from Dave

Christmas morn we made the girls wait until 730 am to come down. Santa found our house again!

"Santa brought me a real live bunny!!! I love Santa! Thank you, thank you Santa!" Unfortunately Santa didn't realize mom, dad, and Camden would be allergic to Cocoa Carrott.

Ian's best line of the morning, "Look- Quincee got a Ken Doll. Camden got a Kin-dle."

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

This the season- to go caroling! Every year the Carters and the Walters combine forces to lift spirits and entertain on porches across Loomis. And we alway leave a plate of goodies!

And when you give, you receive. Elder Booth and Elder Jameson showed up on our porch the next day. Pretty funny!

When the Grinch came to San Francisco

My bro Dave and his 5 awesome girls made the trek from Utah for a California Christmas. To start their visit off with a bang we headed into the big city for some sightseeing, cable cars, and ice cream sundaes!

After all the touring we met Grandma and Panda to see the musical How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Golden Gate theatre. It was so much fun and we all loved it!

And just to make the trip more unforgettable Taitum and her cousin Eliza were accidentally lost. Best part- we didn't know they were lost until they had been gone for our minutes!

What happened: our large group left the food court at the San Francisco shopping center to go see the escalators leading up to Nordstroms. We all got a little separated with little groups making their way 8 stories up then down. When the first three made it down I took two to go and get in line for the cable car. I left one adult behind to tell the others to come across the street when they were done. Finally when we all grouped up at the line we realized the little girls were missing. But we didn't start to panic until we figured out the last time we saw them was in the food court!!!!

Three adults ran back across the street and split up; escalators, security, food court. I thought for sure the girls would have been crying and someone would have gotten them to security. But no- the girls didn't not cry. They new they were lost bu went on their own little adventure trying to find us, even avoiding a security guard in the process. Luckily they got tired out about the same time we realized they were gone and returned to the food court. And this is where Dave found them. Hallelujah!

Relief after being found!!

In the spotlight

Taitum gets a little attention every once and a while. She really needs it or she shrivels like a raisin.

First the soccer party for the Shooting Stars so she could get her trophy. It's all about the trophy!

Then she had her performance for her Sing and Dance group. I had lots of people come up to us saying they couldn't take their eyes off of Taitum because she was so good. Sorry to brag- but she was super cute. And being front and center helped.

And she did it all in two different ballet shoes. We couldn't find the right one, my friend couldn't find their left one. Combined forces for a "match". Taitum wasn't too thrilled about it but I wasn't going to buy another pair for one performance!!!