Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Christmas

This Christmas stuff is pretty magical. We were flying out at 7am Christmas morning, so a few weeks before Christmas, Bodie talked to the big guy in the red suit at the mall. He asked Santa if he could "swing by a day early when you are delivering gifts to the kids in China," and wa-la, our Christmas came early! Impressive Santa, really impressive.

When we ran out to the front room, we noticed some arrows pointing to the downstairs. I'm pretty new to this stuff, so I looked to my big brother for guidance when my parents asked us what we thought they were for. "Oh, those arrows are just to show us where more balloons are; I can see some balloons at the bottom of the stairs." Sure, balloon arrows I thought, that makes sense. Good point Bodie. So we stayed on the main floor and began opening gifts, then played, then opened another gift, then had breakfast - all the while walking over those "balloon pointing arrows."

I dropped a ball down the stairs and went to retrieve it. As I did, Bodie shouted, "Wait, I can see a toy down there," and raced down in front of me. He found a three-level car garage that Santa had left - it was awesome. So we began to play with the garage. My parents stood on the other side of the room asking, "Who is that for?" We ignored them and kept playing so they asked again. After about five minutes, we both finally looked up and saw a big card that said, "For Gates." Bodie was crushed; I was psyched.
Then he yelled with a smile, "But Santa wouldn't bring just one gift!" and he finally noticed this...it was about five feet from us - we never even looked up. My parents thought it was hilarious. Santa is a bit crazy because he gave my brother a seven foot race track. Clearly he didn't see the size of our house.
Christmas morning we hopped on a plane and headed to Utah for two weeks of fun. Luckily Bodie prayed for snow and boy did his prayer work. They had the biggest snowfall so far this year, starting on Christmas day! We spent Christmas day at my Uncle Rick and Aunt Margo's house. A Lybbert family tradition is to have wacky things on your plate at Christmas breakfast - this year it was bad teeth. I felt oddly comfortable with this group of crazies, but chose to pass on inserting the false teeth for the photo. (may I suggest you click on this photo to enlarge it, I guarantee laughs, especially if you do a close up on my dad and grandma!)
We filled the trip with sledding, skiing, ice skating, friends, and family - does it get any better than that? No skiing for me this year; so I did a lot of socializing in the lodge. We spent a few days out at Last Chance where we usually water ski in the summer. This visit we got to ice skate on the frozen lake and it looks like Bodie has finally mastered the sport!

Two other highlights were movie nights and dinner with the StJeor's and dinner with the Cook/McQueen family (they got a new brother!)
 

Lucky us to have such awesome cousins, friends, and family.


Friday, January 9, 2015

Dear Helmet Companies...

Dear Helmet Companies,
We would like a sponsorship. We promise to actively and positively promote your products. Helmets are an essential staple in our house and have saved our brains from (additional) damage multiple times. Regardless of the season, we are successful at smashing our heads into something and would appreciate free replacement products so we can continue to afford brain protection while having fun.

Summer fun was momentarily halted by a encounter with a metal guard rail (see Brakes post) and most recently, Bodie met a boulder - yes a boulder - head on while snow skiing. Once again, the trusty helmet prevented life-altering head trauma. The boulder roughed the helmet up a bit, taking a chunk out of the front and requiring a replacement (like I said, we could REALLY use a sponsorship).

Bodie's goggles, however, were no match for the boulder and shattered on impact. In almost 40 years of skiing, I have never seen anyone shatter a pair of goggles. And as we went to get replacements in the shop at the resort - a resort where thousands of people ski every day - they too were amazed at the damage done to the goggles...especially by a five year old. Nice work Bodie.

And as for the question you're probably asking about Bodie, he's fine. He was pretty freaked out immediately after, but then said, "I'm okay, let's go," and we skied the rest of the run. He had two large, matching bruises on his thighs and one on his arm with a small scratch on his head where the helmet piece broke off. He was actually pretty psyched afterwards because his replacement goggles have a band with pictures of the Angry Birds on it - so he feels like he got an upgrade. As for me, a dozen more gray hairs and even more gratitude - he continues to beat the odds and he does it with a smile.

So if you know a helmet company that is looking for a spokesperson, we'd be happy to apply - I think the relationship would be mutually beneficial.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Sights from the Season

So my mom decided to do one Christmas activity every day during the month of December. With 24 days before Christmas, this allowed us to enjoy so many of the cool activities that only happen once a year. Even better was all of the fabulous friends who joined us for our adventures.

Our buddy Jackson joined us to visit the trains and lighthouses at the Botanical Gardens, visits with Santa, our friend Liam invited Bodie over to build a gingerbread ski chalet (clearly his mom is awesome!), we went caroling with almost two dozen friends (Gates rode along in our wagon
with a look of confusion as we belted out songs to random strangers), a few hundred of our favorite people filled our home with Christmas cheer at our annual brunch, the notorious Salvation Army bell ringing...twice!, Zoo Lights, the Smithsonian's Discovery Theatre, a visit to the National Christmas tree, and the list goes on and on. Here's are some more of the highlights in pictures....

Some of the more than 350 Christmas cookies just before they were gobbled up at our brunch and Gates perched among the brunch's preparations.
 
Breakfast with Santa and Lori, Karim, and Noah 
 
 
Baking cookies and the decorating cookies with Abigail
Intensely decorating gingerbread houses
 
 Sneaking into the Keenan's house to make them breakfast
Attending the Smithsonian's Discovery Theatre and visiting the National Christmas Tree
 
So many reasons to be merry (and grateful). Our Christmas blog post will be up shortly, stay tuned...