Deep Snow

The reason for going out to Manila (besides the previously mentioned pros) was to get a Christmas tree! 

My family always had a fake tree growing up, and I never had any problem with that.  It was easy, looked the same every year, and looked a whole lot more full than most of my friend's sparse but real trees.

But when my cousins invited me out to get a tree with them in Manila, I couldn’t miss the chance to go out to the grand old town or get a tree in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to a Christmas tree farm, where I actually have been.

We drove probably twenty minutes outside of town.  Here are some views on the way to the “middle of nowhere”

Momma moose and baby moose

Big horn sheep
 

The Catron’s love animal spotting, so it was a pretty big deal to see these animals.  We saw a ton of elk too.  Who knew people could get so excited every single time they see an elk?  Since I can’t really tell the difference between the elk and deer, I rarely got excited and forgot to take hundreds of pictures for your viewing pleasure.

About 20 minutes outside “town” we just chose a random place to stop, parking practically on the highway.

The snow was so deep.  No one really saw it coming until we parked.  Jeremy and Duke led the way most of the time. 

The snow was as tall as Duke was, so he looked like a fish jumping out of water. 

The snow was about as tall as Austin and Ava.  These pictures were taken near the road.  It was even deeper later on, but it also got colder, and the kids got sadder, so there are less pictures later.

Thanks to Jeremy for leading the way most of the time because I struggled when I took a turn.  I was glad that Teresa let me borrow her boots, because mine would have been pretty useless in this snow.

 

The worst idea of the night was when I tried to make a snow angel to make Austin and Ava laugh.  I got so much snow down my back and pants.

After the kids got more tired, Jer and John were nice enough to carry them on their shoulders.

As we went on, and as it got darker and colder, the trees started to look much better.  The ones at the beginning suddenly seemed so full and beautiful!  John and his family found a really pretty one near the end of our trek.

John dragged the huge tree back through the deep snow to the truck.  I tried to help the most I could by lifting up the back so it would drag along the snow better, but I’m not sure I was much help.

They were nice enough to take a picture though, so it seemed like I did a ton.

The kids were happy to back in the warm truck.

Jeremy and Duke.  These two love each other.  Since the trees were in the back, Jeremy, Duke, Ross and I all got to share the front.  Poor Duke had to curl up in a ball on the floor for the whole drive.

    

What a pretty sunset.

Drive to Manila

My cousins live in Manila, UT. 

To give you an idea of how big Manila is, here are some stats:

-the population in 2000 was 308 people

-the population is 379.3 people per square mile

-therefore, Manila is less than 1 square mile.

-there are 401 housing units

-therefore, there are more houses than people

-one of my cousins had 7 people in his graduating class.

-there are 0 stop lights

-there are TWO gas stations though!

Obviously, it’s a hot spot to visit.  There are some pros to living there though:

-they’ve never been turned down for the deer hunt

-to get to the church, market, school etc… it’s less than a mile walk

-the smog levels are nearly 0

-you only have to drive a few minutes to get a Christmas tree, go shooting, or my cousins personal favorite- “elk spotting”

 

I drove over with these cute kids: Austin and Ava

 

It was an extremely exciting drive for them:

Poor Barbara had to go sit with them for a little while.  Their youngest, Tyler was starving so she tried opening this baby formula.  I keep thinking the white on her scarf is a reflection of sunlight or something, but it is a result of the pressure in the formula.

 

I kept asking John if we were in Utah or Wyoming.  He was patient with my annoying comments, and then finally told me that I would know when we were getting to Utah because Utah salts the roads. I didn’t get it until I saw this:

Utah: Throwing it in your face since 1896.

When my geekiness comes out

A friend showed me this today.

You’ll either think it’s very funny, not funny at all, or somewhat funny.

I love Google employees.

Thanksgiving

All you need to know about Thanksgiving is that I ran 5 miles or something like that. And I didn’t even get a red face. That should tell you a little about the time I got when Cydney, Megan, and I finished…

 

Kaitlan’s Birthday

Kaitlan loves her birthday.  Perhaps even more than Kara does/used to.  Therefore Kate and I decided to have an entire weekend of birthday celebrations to celebrate her birth.

Thursday

Her friend Nicole got her an edible arrangement.  Lucky!  Kaitlan has always wanted one, so she loved it!

Kate and I made her a really ugly t-shirt with our faces on it and a dream catcher making kit. And decorated her apartment.

 

Thursday night, her actual birthday, we went to Zupas as roommates and had some friends over to play endless games of Monopoly Deal.

  

Friday

On Friday night, about 9 of us went to this fireworks show in Fairfield, UT.  I was excited when I found out that Fairfield is the town that used to be called Frogtown and was the gentile town where Johnston’s army was stationed in the Utah War. 

The idea of this fireworks show was that a guy in Fairfield has a fireworks factory and so when the police commandeer illegal fireworks, they give them to this guy.  He is one of the only ones in Utah that has a burn permit, so he wanted to have a huge fireworks show with all those fireworks.

We got there right before it started, and weren’t sure we were in the right place, because although there were police cars everywhere (which we expected), it sort of seemed like a family reunion.  I helped myself to some of their hot chocolate and rolls though.  We never really figured out if that was where we were supposed to be, but then the show started and we went out to watch it on the car.  Unfortunately, the other car got extremely lost and never actually found the fireworks show, so poor Lance got stuck with us three girls.

    

   

We loved the fireworks show, but couldn’t figure out if it was any different than a normal fireworks show so we were slightly disappointed.  However, as we were driving away we looked back saw a burning pit of terror.  At first we thought something had gone wrong, but then we realized that these were the illegal fireworks, all being lit at once.

I didn’t get very good pictures, but here’s kind of what it looked like.

 

On Saturday, they went to Divine Comedy while I hung out with Mom and the Hoffmans, and then on Sunday, a whole bunch of people came over to their apartment for cake and snacks. 

I’m glad that Kaitlan loves her birthday so much, because it was so much more fun than my birthday when the activities were fun but I was super lame the whole time.  Thanks Kaitlan!

Callie was always the grandma

Happy birthday Cal Ral!  You are ancient now- 24!

And you were way harder than Jamie and Kara to find bad pictures.  I think you’ll see that I was able to find some good ones though…

“She likes it when you growl back” 

“I’ma gonna havea red beans tonight”

“I’m going to kick your bum. Woohoo!” 

“I’m so strong”

“In my free time I enjoy puzzles, knitting, and looking at the RMYL major requirements”

“Nah uh you love it”

“Good news, saw a dog today”

Best vision in the family.  Or was it the worst?  You judge.

“That’s because Kara was being a fat lard!”

Can’t wait to see what Maggie comes up with!

Happy Birthday Cal! I love you!

And if you don’t think that was quite enough to express my joy for your birthday…

Too far?  Sorry.  :)

Mom and the Moscow Hats

Mom came to Provo early November after Maggie was born.  I love it when Mom comes because we always do so many fun things, and because she always buys us a BYU Creamery Chocolate Milk. 

Kristin was nice enough to get her from the airport because Mom got in right when I had classes and Jamie had work.  For the next few days, I practically had to drag Mom to my classes.  I was so excited for her to come, but she wasn’t nearly as excited about coming to my classes. Lame.

I didn’t get very many pictures because I mostly depended on Mom taking them, but here are some from when we all went to Kristin’s game on Saturday.

When we pulled into the UVU parking lot, we started hearing a weird dragging sound from Matt’s car.  We pulled over to the side and Matt went underneath the car and pulled out the bar.  We have no idea what that part is for- so Matt thinks it was a joke, although I’m not sure what kind of a joke that could possibly be…

 

Matt wiping his hands on the grass.  This one is for Jamie.

Some action shots of Kristin and her team.

Is this a picture of a whale or Jamie?
Jamie was cold so Matt wrapped her up like this.  Then he thought it was so funny that he wanted a picture of it. 

Here is the whole group of people that were there to support Kristin.  The random boys are Kristin’s friends in my ward.  They pretty much ignored me even though I went over there and talked to them like four times until they figured out that I was Kristin’s brother’s sister-in-law.  Then they wanted to be my friend.

Do you like our hats!?  I was so excited because Mom got us some sweet Russian hats when she was in Moscow.  They are the warmest hats there are.  I wore mine all day- even to the BYU football game.  Maybe that’s why those boys didn’t want to be my friend…

This is Mom’s  “ooh baby” face.  Or her, I just got hit by a massive gust of wind face.

Those are pretty much all of my pictures.  It was fun to watch BL with her, go to the football game even though it was super boring and freezing cold, and play card games.

On Sunday we went over to Provo High School and played some baseball even though it was really cold, so that was a lot of fun too.  We all got an up-at-bat, but by the time it was Matt’s turn we couldn’t see anything so Matt would hit it to either me and Jamie and yell our names so excitedly, but all we could see was the ball hit the bat and then we would stare into the sky until we heard a thud within 15 feet of us.

Thanks for coming out Mom!