Happy New Year!

We kind of have a tradition of doing a New Year's Day hike with our friends Dave & Jenny. Adaira & Olivia and Dale & Owen are close in age and get along great - unfortunately we have very few friends with a child Brighton's age :(

We went out to Phoenix where they live and hiked a small mountain near the new Glendale temple under construction.

Brighton's officially got a pre-teen attitude. He loves to hate and find boredom with everything.

 Dale did fabulous at the start of this hike, he went racing up the hill and was ahead of us for a while.
 Love this handsome beast.

 All the kids with the temple in the background. Dale was upset about something and wouldn't turn around for the picture.






Simple pleasures at the end of our hike. The kids could have played on this bike rack for an hour.
We enjoy our time with Dave & Jenny and are sad they live on the other side of town. We are glad we still get to see them a few times a year though.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daisy's baptism day

Today Daisy was baptized by her big brother Brighton. My mom and Adaira got to be the witnesses, grandma Joanna gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, and Dale gave the closing prayer (after Dad has to rush during the closing song to help him put back on his tie and button up his shirt. Brighton was the pianist except for Adaira who played "When I am Baptized" for a special musical number. (A set of twins from another family was also baptized and their kids sang and played the violin). Here is what she has to say about her special day: I felt happy and felt the Holy Ghost. The water was a little cold. At first I was nervous but now I'm happy. I was excited to be baptized and I want to be a kind member of the church. My dad, grandpa Dean and grandpa Dale, great Uncle Dale, uncles Trent, Dean, Don, Duane and David confirmed me. Dad blessed me to seek a testimony of Jesus Christ and of Joseph Smith. He asked her to find quiet times in her life away from screens and devices to be...
Read more
Image
  Memorial Day A couple months ago I told Justin that we should take our kids and both sets of grandparents to the Mesa City Cemetery and tell our kids stories about our family members buried there. I thought it would make a good Sunday or Family Home Evening activity.  I want my children to identify with their ancestors and feel like they can learn from them. I especially want them to feel like they can develop some of the same good qualities or avoid some of the poor ones. They had also never been to a cemetery so it would be a new experience for them. Justin and I never got around to organizing it until today. Justin's mom was planning a lunch BBQ and swimming for Memorial Day and told me she was thinking of inviting my parents and asked about time preferences since she was thinking of doing it around dinner time. The idea of the cemetery popped into my head and I mentioned that I thought it would be neat to do the BBQ earlier in the day and then take everyone out to the...
Read more