December '11

December brought Christmas programs, parties, and preparations.  Erin was in 2 programs at the school.  She was part of the Christmas choir, and she learned to play the recorder with the rest of the 4th grade. It's great to see kids involved!

John's work had a Christmas party at a fun bowling center this year!  They rented the whole place out for the evening and had bowling, unlimited laser tag and plenty of video arcading included!

The kids loved the bowling, but their favorite was the laser tag! (No pictures of that.)

There was also a very nice Christmas Dinner and lots of cash prizes!!!  John got to give out cash for a while too since he was on the party planning committee.

Christmas was very nice this year!  We had a quite Christmas eve at home with a turkey dinner. 

Then in the morning we opened part of our presents, went to church and then came back again for more presents! 

My favorite part of Christmas this year was the kids' gifts for each other.  I took them shopping at the dollar store and they bought presents for everyone with their own money.  They were more excited about those presents than they were for the ones from Santa!

Christmas afternoon we drove down to Mom and Dad's house. We saw all 3 of my brothers and their families.  And we found out that my youngest brother Richard and his wife Callie are expecting a baby!!! How exciting!!!  Congratulations guys!  We stayed the whole week there at Grandma and grandpa's house and had a great time. 

We spent New Years eve there too.  We celebrated New York style! We let the boys stay up until 10:00 when the ball dropped in NY, and the they went to bed.  Erin got to stay up later with the adults.  We played games, ate great food and had a great celebration!!! 

October '11

In October, John and I went away for a weekend.  We left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa, and went to Park city.  We stayed at a very nice hotel called the Zermatt.

It was a nice relaxing weekend of going out to eat, a little exploring, massages, and swimming in the Hot springs!  What a nice break from our normal chaos!

Later on in October, John's Mom came over from Ireland for a visit.  We decided that it would be fun to take the kids to the Zoo with her.

Sean loved the animals!  He wanted to get right in there with them.

 This is the only picture that I got Colin to stand in willingly!

 John's favorite animal is the Eagle!

It was a cold trip, but it was fun for all of us.  The kids have been begging to go to the zoo for a long time!

 Halloween was fun with Nana there!  And the kids looked great in their costumes.  Erin was a Wolf (which I made), Devin was Darth Vader, Colin was Bat man, and Sean was Tigger.

 Now without masks!

 Sean was this Tigger by default.  I had a cute lion costume that I had tried on him maybe a month earlier, and when I went to put it on him for Halloween, it was too small!!!!  Thank goodness I had this Tigger costume!!!!!  It just goes to show how fast they grow.  He was 11 months old.

August

August was a very busy month! We had 2 major vacations planned! At the beginning of August, we went to Yellowstone with my family. It was so much fun! My parents booked condos for all of us, and we went to see all the sights.

Yellowstone was amazing, of course. Our first day there was very drizzly and wet. We all thought, as we waited for Old faithful in the rain, that we weren't sure this was going to be a great week. But the weather was great after that day!

It was so fun to see all of my family, and to spend the whole week with them! Besides Yellow stone, we also went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone village. The kids loved to see the bears eating and hang out with their cousins all day!

Each evening, 2 families were assigned to cook for everyone, and we would all get together for one big meal. It was a crazy, chaotic time, yet really fun time.

We also all went swimming together a few times. That's what's great about staying in condos!

There were 5 babies born into our family in 2010. This was the first time we were able to get them all together! Left to Right- Evan and Jared Rappleye (August), Alyssa Rappleye (July), Briggs Ford (May), and Sean Doyle (November). It's amazing how similar they all look! They must be cousins.

Over all, It was a great trip to Yellowstone, but best of all was the reunion with my family. The only ones who were missing was Richard and Callie. (They went away for the summer to install alarm systems.) Bottom left corner-Monica and Ruston Ford + 6, front right- Mom and Dad, middle right-Mindy and Lafe + 4, top right- Roger and Tasha + 1, top left-Ryan and Jocelyn + 3, across the middle- The Doyles.

On our way home from Yellowstone, we decided to stop off at the Idaho Falls Temple. It's a beautiful place, and a beautiful Temple!

At the end of August, we went to Lake Powell again. This has become a yearly trip that we’ve taken with some friends of ours. John’s taken up skiing and he’s getting better every time.Erin went cliff-jumping, knee boarding, snorkeling, and swam so much that she came home with swimmers ear. She also learned to ski!!! She’s tried before, but this year she was successful. She loved it. Devin went cliff jumping too! And he really liked knee boarding and the jet ski, but his favorite thing to do this year was tubing. He was always asking if we could go tubing. Colin slept on the top of the houseboat for the first time this year. In years past he’s slept inside with me, but he was a big boy this year! He also just loved going out on the boat and especially loved the jet skis. I was kind of worried about taking Sean to Lake Powell, but he slept great, even for naps. And he was easily entertained by swimming, going on the boat, or playing in the sand. He loved it!

Lake Powell

We had the opportunity again this year to go to Lake Powell with some great friends of ours. We stay on a house boat in the middle of nowhere out on the lake and swim, ski, boat, and relax to our heart's content. This year the big thing to do was the double tube! Sounds dangerous, but they all really had a great time! We also got to jump off the top of the boat this year! Pretty scary if you ask me.

John's skiing has majorly improved this year!

Erin enjoyed everything, Skiing, knee boarding, the slide, and the tubes.

Devin's favorite parts were swimming in the deep water, and riding the water wienie. He also tried the knee board again and enjoyed it, and went down the slide!

John took the kids on a couple of rides on the wave runners too.

Colin discovered that he loves the water. Every morning the first thing he would ask was "Can we go swimming!

He also loved jumping off the deck on the back of the boat. he did this over and over and over.

As for me. I couldn't do all the risky stuff, but I did swim a lot. It helped me cool down and keep the swelling down. I also went on a couple of SLOW water wienie rides.

We had a great vacation. Thank you to our friends for inviting us again.

Since we were down in southern Utah, we decided to drop by my brother's house is Las Vegas. He and his wife just had twins! They were only 1 week old and I can't believe that Ryan and Jocelyn let us stay with them, but it was so fun to see those cute babies! Evan was 6 lbs, 7 oz, and Jared was 6 lbs. 15 oz. Talk about big fir twins! But they were so tiny! It's hard to believe that people can get that tiny! My kids loved holding them! And I got to change a tiny diaper. I'm just getting geared up for things to come! Thanks for letting us stay guys!