Snow, finally!

Snow, finally!  I think it caught us all off guard, including our HOA {who is suppose to shovel our roads, driveways and stairs}.  At about 10:40 Tara {Gregg's older sister who lives across the street} yelled across the street to Gregg and asked if we thought she could make it to church in her Lexus.  Gregg yelled back from our master bedroom window "yes".  We watched as she backed out of her driveway and slide right into our front yard.  Opps.  She tired and tired and tried to get unstuck with no luck.  Finally Gregg and Dallin changed out of their church clothes and went to shovel her out.  Meanwhile I changed Truman and Bodie from their church clothes into their snow clothes.  After shoveling a path across the entire street and her entire driveway Tara was able to pull back into her garage {by this time about three other men from the ward/neighborhood showed up to help}.

Next they guys headed down the street with a tow rope in hand to help this car ... our neighbor {who is also currently 'investigating' the Mormon church}.  I think she appreciated the good deed.

By the time we had shoveled out everyone who had managed to get themselves "stuck" the plow made it to our road.  We changed back into Sunday clothes and headed to church .. a little over an hour late!

{thanks Dallin for the picture and documenting that we actually made it}.

After church and naps we promised Truman we would go play in the snow.  He was so excited!  We walked down to grandpa and grandma Simons house to plow them out before grandma returned from her trip down south {grandpa is still out of town}.

 Bodie watched all the excitement from the stroller all bundled up!

I think Gregg has plowed his parents driveway more then his dad this winter

{his dad always seems to be gone when it snows}.

Taking it all in - on grandmas unplowed driveway.

I think I know what we will be doing tomorrow!

Girls Date.

 Tiffany organized a Saturday afternoon girls date.  My mom, Tiffany, Addie, Quinn and I went to the BYU Theater Ballets' presentation of "The Snow Queen".  It was really fun to watch how excited Addie and Quinn were. 

Thanks to Gregg, grandpa, Dallin, and McKay for watching the boys.

Etiquette dinner.

Tonight for mutual we hosted an etiquette dinner.  The youth came dressed in their Sunday best.  We started by teaching the men how to go to the ladies house and pick her up, introduce himself to her parents, how to walk her to the car, open the door, etc.

Thanks Bishop for letting us use your awesome car -it makes for a nice ride!

 We asked a couple in our ward to teach our etiquette dinner.  They sat in the middle of the square at a very formal table and taught the kids and answered questions as the adults served the food.

{I seriously love my young woman ... it made my heart melt to see everyone dressed up and excited to learn}

 Too scared to eat - they were so worried about making a mistake!

They started with a salad and rolls.

Lucky Ana had two dates!

My favorite part was when the priests asked if this counted as a date.  My reply was "if you use what you learned and take your date home it will."

 Next it was on to spaghetti ... now that is hard!

I didn't get a picture of dessert, it was fresh berries with vanilla ice cream.

Our etiquette couple! Thank you!

These two informed that they made a "pinky promise" to go on a date together once they are 16!  Like that is going to be hard to keep!

I think the youth had a really great time.  We learned tons and maybe someday they will be thankful to know proper dating and dinner etiquette!

*side note: if you are thinking about doing this in your ward, it was really simple, didn't take a lot of prep and was very well received.  I can email you my planning document.

* Update to this post.  I have included the planning document below because I had so many request to send it out.  If you still have questions, feel free to leave a comment.  Good Luck!!!

Greggs Day.

Happy Birthday Gregg!

A week ago I asked Gregg what he wanted to do for his birthday - he said, "take Truman skiing" - so we did.  We borrowed some skis from a friend and took Truman to Sundance for his first skiing experience {thanks mom for watching Bodie}.

 Going up the tow rope with dad.

 Look how hard he is concentrating!

 Truman liked going "really fast" down the "big hill" with dad!

 He liked having me pull him around at the bottom of the hill.

 {a man walked by with a really nice lens on his camera so I asked him if he would take a family photo for us, this is what we got.  I thought with all his nice equipment that he might know what he was doing ... I was picturing a nice vertical shot with the mountains and ski hill in the back ground, not a chin shot!}

Truman waiting for dad to load the ski's into the car so we could go get a treat at the Sundance shop.

We had a successful first day of skiing, we will see if he wants to go again anytime soon.  The weather was beautiful.  The rest of Greggs birthday was fun and spontaneous.  

Open Gym.

Non of these pictures are great - but I wanted to remember how much fun Truman is having at 'open gym' time on Monday mornings.  This is the perfect winter activity.  We go to a local gymnastics gym for open gym time for a hour and a half on Mondays.  Truman never makes it home awake - he is always exhausted after running, jumping and playing this hard.

I will take my camera again next week and try a faster shutter speed!

Internet Bookclub.

We had our first internet book club discussion tonight {thanks to Google +} with some of my cousins and their spouses.  It worked out really well.  My sister is leading the discussion; we are reading Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman.  I think we had 16 people chatting {including my brother Nate in China via FaceTime with the iphone held up to the computer}.  Technology!  

For those that missed this time our next assignment is chapters 3 and 7.

Happy reading and happy emotional parenting till next time!

Gregg.

Gregg does not get the recognition he deserves on this blog so I thought I would share these new head shots that he had to have for work.  I like they turned out nice.

{and I think he is a total hottie!}