SIt...

We babysat my brother's kids over the weekend and my niece is terrified of our dog. If Mia even looks in her direction she freaks, so I was a little worried what the weekend had in store for us. Well, as you can see by this video, it just took a little time for my niece to warm up to Mia.

Mia was fascinated with baby J, who was equally as fascinated with her. She wanted to be everywhere he was, and she was always keeping her eye on him. When my brother came to pick his kids up, she would strategically place herself between my brother and baby J., like she had to protect him from his dad or something. When Landon picked up J. she locked her eyes on him and followed him everywhere he went... I think she made Landon a little bit nervous. Well, that's not hard since he's the only one left in his family that's still scared of her. :)

I love Mommy the most!

Dusty and Kaden were talking the other day and Kaden told him that he loves me more than Dusty. He said, "Dad I love you 500 and I love mom 600" Yes! And then a couple seconds later he said, "But I love Mia (our dog) a million." Ah dang.

Bear Lake Chocolate Festival

The Florence clan all went up to Bear Lake over Valentine's weekend for their Chocolate Festival. We had never been before but we LOVE chocolate so it sounded like a great way to spend the weekend. Well, when you hear 'Chocolate Festival' you would probably think that it would be a festival all about chocolate, right? Wrong. There was a table or two of chocolate stuff and then the rest was just your run of the mill boutique fair; purses, jewelry, various crafts, etc... We were a little disappointed but that didn't keep us from getting our fill of chocolate!



We had read in the paper that... um, crap... I can't remember the name of the city in Idaho...Paris, maybe?... anyway, a city in Idaho at the other end of the lake was hosting an ice sculpture contest so we thought it would be neat to go check it out. It was about a 45 minute drive and when we got there we all started laughing (in our cars, where no one could hear us) because I guess we were expecting something different than this...

Now that's not to say that whoever did these didn't work hard and do a good job, but it certainly wasn't worth a 45 minute drive.
After the ice sculpture, my brother Landon really wanted to check out a frozen waterfall to see if it would be good for ice climbing. We thought that would be a cool sight, so we all drove up the mountain... to look at a pretty small waterfall. We actually drove past it and then a couple miles down the road stopped and said, "Wait, was that it?"

So, after spending the weekend driving around looking at stuff that really wasn't much to look at (don't get me wrong, we still had a great time) we got to celebrate Valentine's Day. The kids all wrote little notes to Grandma and Grandpa and then we decorated their door when they left to church so they would be surprised when they got home. (We all went to church btw, they just left before us)

It's a tradition at our house to have a special breakfast on Valentine's morning. We decorate the table with rose petals and candles and flowers and then we eat heart shaped waffles with strawberries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and sprinkles. So, we brought the tradition up to the lake and had our special breakfast with everyone! Well, it was actually lunch because we ate it after church. Happy Valentine's Day!

Park CIty Ski Trip

A few months ago we gave the kids a choice for our family vacation. They could pick between Disneyland or a ski vacation and to my surprise they picked skiing. So, we joined up with our good family friends the Lewis' and rented an awesome house in Midway and spent a few days skiing at Park City. We had a blast! The kids are learning to ski so fast, Mady even went down a black diamond run... it scared the crap out of her but she did great! The little kids are fearless, they just cruise down the mountain and I think everyone's skills have bypassed Brittany's and mine. We've decided that we are too old to learn how to ski, we watched some footage of us and laughed our heads off because we look like two grandmas going down the slopes.





We didn't just ski the whole time. There was plenty to do at the house. We had a pool tournament, played various card games, and we played air hockey. One day we took the family tubing at Soldier Hollow. That was soooo much fun. It's great to go flying down the hill and then not have to walk back up it, they have a rope tow that just pulls you back up the hill on your tube.





We also went to look at the 'ice castle' in midway. It was pretty cool... literally.




During our down time at the house the kids got a little crazy sometimes...



They loved hanging out in the hot tub. Especially when it was snowing.



The theater room in the house was awesome! We watched plenty of movies in here and all the guys were excited to watch the Super Bowl on the 'big' screen (when we finally got it to work anyway). Everyone was cheering for the Colts so I decided to make things interesting by cheering for the Saints. Turns out that was a good choice!



The kids just couldn't get enough of the snow, so even when we weren't skiing you could find them outside playing in it.



We can't be at Park City without eating at Baja Cantina and after all that playing there's noth'in like a delicious meal that I didn't have to cook or clean up!