At the beginning of February we were finally able to get down to Utah to use our Sundance ski tickets. We were a little worried there wouldn’t be enough snow, but luckily they got snow the night before we skied. It was a great day. Sundance is beautiful!

From the time Liberty was born we have seen the similarities between these two. In February we found another one, thanks to our ability to facetime Cade on P-day. They both make the same crazy facial expressions, from eyebrow waves to these last two pictures.

The first Sweethearts dance that Levi went to was in February. She asked him with this poster:

Between sickness and travel-oh and a blizzard, he took a very loooong time to answer her. But he finally did with this poster. He hid a ways from her house at night with the poster and when she opened the door she had to follow a really loooong string of lights to find him. So cute!!

They had a great time at the dance. It was a western theme and he bought this very nice hat just for the occasion and because who doesn’t want a real cowboy hat. Thanks to Aunt Janie for the cowboy boots! He really wanted to wear my dad’s alligator skin boots, but sadly, they were too big.

No sooner had he gone to the first Sweethearts dance when he was asked to a second one which won’t happen until middle of March. This one was hilarious.

Stay tuned for his answer….

Cade got transferred back to Colorado in February. This time to Wellington, about 20 minutes north of Fort Collins. He’s excited to be back where there are more missionaries close by. In Wheatland he was an hour away from other missionaries and really much civilization. He’s been out almost 15 months now! Time flies.

On the last day of February we went skiing again. This time, I went with Aunt Janie and Penny. And as we were coming down the mountain, Levi and Lincoln were driving up! It was a beautiful day and great to be up there with two of my favorite people!

February was a good month. Now we are just hoping Levi doesn’t get sick a 5th time and that Libby’s mono stays manageable. The weather is getting warmer and coming up in March we will have Spring break and track season.

It always amazes me how fast January flies by. But here’s what we did!

Before Rock’s parents left after New Years, I captured this gem. Like Father Like Son.

Levi has been boomerang sick this month. Off and on since Christmas he’s had some kind of cold/flu bug that seems to go away for a few days and then comes back. No, it isn’t Mono. We checked. 🙂 After his second round he was feeling better so when his childhood buddies decided it would be fun to go camping at Bruno Sand Dunes in 18 degree weather, he went along. Levi cooked them all some yummy steaks for dinner, which he was very proud of, though in the process he cut himself with his knife. It was so cold he didn’t feel it until he tried to write in his journal before bed and got blood all over his paper. But it was so cold he didn’t want to get out of the car to go to the tent to get a bandaid. They figured out how to take long exposure photos and after taking some fun pictures, they went to bed and managed to make it through the night without freezing to death. In the morning after their pancake batter would not stop freezing, they gave up trying to cook breakfast and huddled in one of the trucks until they were bored enough to head home. Levi says he won’t be doing that again.

Rock and I went a to a cooking class for date night and learned how to cook some AMAZING food.

Libby’s Ballet Recital was on the 25th. Now that she’s dancing en pointe she is supposed to dance in all 3 recitals that day; 3 different dances in each recital. She wasn’t well enough yet to dance in all 9 dances but she was able to dance in her pointe class one. It was a long tiring day, but she survived. She was beautiful and it was so fun to finally see her perform en pointe!

For my birthday this year Rock made a very fancy Chocolate Nutella Mirror Glaze cake with edible gold dust. It was beautiful and delicious! And he was very proud of it.

And that was January.

This was another sick Christmas. And I don’t mean that in the modern slang of my children in which ‘Sick’ means ‘cool’. I mean that half of us were sick. Levi came down with the flu, Liberty got mono (yes, her brothers have used every kissing disease joke known to man, but we really have no idea how she got it) and I was recovering from an on again, off again, head cold. We had a sick Christmas back in 2015, but the kids were mostly better by Christmas day that year and I was the one in bed with the flu.

The lead up to this Christmas was also pretty lame with both kids finishing up the semester and crazy busy with finals and projects. We hardly had time for our favorite traditions. Even the Grinch got put off till Christmas Eve.

We were supposed to go skiing in Utah the weekend before Christmas, but I was sick and the kids were wiped out from school and so we canceled the trip.

Christmas morning, the kids slept in till 6:45. Yes, I said “slept in” because at our house on Christmas morning, that is a late start for my insane children. Cade was also up super early and he actually called his siblings and they got to look at their stockings together. You can see your parents when they come to town and you can call your siblings on Christmas morning to do stockings. It’s a new world in the mission field! But I’m so glad they got to be together. He also got to call in and facetime us while we opened presents. With how everyone was feeling there really weren’t a lot of pictures, but here’s what we’ve got:

Reagan’s response to his skis was pretty funny, but I’m too lazy to edit this video. So just skip to 45 seconds in and you’ll be able to hear it.

These next two pics are Rock’s attempt at a food commercial, that, or product placement:

Liberty felt really awful but she soldiered through Christmas morning. Levi’s fever didn’t really hit hard until after presents that morning and both tried valiantly to put together the cool lego’s Reagan got them.

They both finally gave up and went back to bed. Then Reagan decided to eat a hazelnut applet and cotlet even though he is technically allergic to them and had to take a bendadryl because of the allergic reaction. Then HE went to bed. I was not feeling great, so I took a nap as well. Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring except for…Rock.

I got this cool video from Cade on Christmas. This is him and his Zone Leader.

A few days later when the kids were feeling a little better, they were able to finish their gifts from Reagan.

The kids had no energy, so we decided to do a Harry Potter Marathon. We watched two movies every day for 3 days until Rock’s parents came on Sunday. The movies are great, but they can’t fit in all the good details so now Levi and I are reading them again. Levi has spent hours reading and I was reminded that he blew through the series the first time when he was home sick from school for a week when he was in 3rd or 4th grade.

We got Rock’s parents one of the cool mystery puzzles Rock got the family last New Year’s. It was supposed to be something to do to ring in the new year, but they’ve had so much fun, we finished it this morning! (New Year’s Eve)

On New Years, these sweet angels showed up on our doorstep with a “Mono” blanket for Liberty. lol!!! So fun. They visited with my socially starved social butterfly for twenty minutes on the front step. They even brought some sparkling cider! It really cheered Libby up.

She and I rang in the New Year watching the first half of the first half of Harry Potter 7.

Here’s to all the adventures we’ll have n 2025!!

Levi doesn’t love having birthday parties. I’ve tried for several years to get him to do one and this year I decided I was going to do one anyway. So we threw him a surprise party that totally took him by surprise. It was great! He had already been planning a date with some friends so I got them involved. Their job was to get him back to our house after eating dinner downtown. All his other friends came to our house and waited patiently for an hour because Levi was having too much fun downtown and his poor friends on the date couldn’t get him to leave! A grandpa was given kidney stones to get him home. But it was worth the wait. Wish we could have gotten his face on film, but this video is still fun!!

Rather than real gifts, which Levi didn’t want, we had a white elephant gift exchange with a twist. Levi got to steal the last gift and whoever brought the one he wanted, got a prize. The prize winner was a bottle of sparkling cider and a body pillow. lol.

Happy Birthday to a great kid!

Cade passed his one year mark last week! I cannot believe it’s already been that long! It’s been really cool to see him grow during this last year. He’s had hard times for sure, but he’s had really awesome times too. He is more sure and confident of himself and the Lord. He’s developed his ability to accompany music on the piano and he’s used his singing talent to bless those in his mission. He’s becoming a great leader and a hard worker. I’m so grateful to be able to watch it all happen. Congrats on this milestone, Elder Hymas! We love you!

Those two things aren’t related in any way, but it sounded fun. In November I went down to celebrate Sarin’s big 30th birthday and I hitched a ride on this cute stud’s motorcycle. He just drove me from his house to Allie’s, but still-wild ride!

The last time I was on a motorcycle was 24 years ago with a guy I was dating who was, come to think of it, about Reagan’s age. It was really weird to be on one with my kid! Reagan was a very responsible and safe driver and even bought this awesome pink helmet so girls wouldn’t have to go without when he gives em a ride. Which is good, cause when I was on the motorcycle in college, I didn’t have a helmet! Shhh. Don’t tell my children.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We had Cam and Allie this year, so that means…. Smoked Turkey!!!! Thanks again Cam for the delicious turkey. Here are the highlights from the day.

Our day started with two bald men in a kitchen…

Sarin also made a French silk pie for the first time in her life, (for those who missed it, that life is 30 years long now) and that’s just a little embarrassing, so we’re not going to put a picture in. 😉

For dessert we had almost as much food as we did for dinner! 6 pies plus 3 other delicious desserts! It was ridiculous!

We missed Cade, but got to talk to him on the phone. The people who fed him dinner asked for food they liked from home and he said Jello Fluff. So she made this for dinner:

On Black Friday while the girls went shopping, the boys went shooting. Levi was in heaven. Once again, Cam’s expertise was a blessing. After shooting clay pigeons, they shot up some old computers, because why not?

We had so much to be thankful for this year!

Levi finished up his 2024 Cross Country season at the start of November.

Centennial won at a meet in Idaho Falls:

Districts:

His team came in 7th and made it to State! In addition to the boys team making it to state, ONE girl made it as well! She’s super fast and she’s also the one Levi took to homecoming. 😉 Here are some fun pictures from their State dinner.

Levi is pretty proud of these state sweatshirts. He wears each new one almost every day.

State

Levi struggled to do as well as he would have liked this season, but he continued to be a big cheerleader for his teammates. He could be seen at most races running along side the course cheering them on. And at the end of year banquet he won the award for Most Inspirational and I could not have been more proud.

October blew by us this year. Here are the highlights.

First Choir concert ever with two kids in the same concert! Next year they are hoping to be in the same choir!

Libby invited friends over to decorate Halloween cookies and they really went crazy. They named every single one.

Reagan recently read Pride and Prejudice and he and Rock and I had some fun discussions about the male/female mind. When he came up for his birthday, he and I watched the movie and he decided to be Mr. Darcy for Halloween. He bought the topcoat, (which we learned is technically called a “great coat”) the boots, the pants, he shaved his beard and did his hair like Matthew McFadden. He looked pretty awesome!

We had the cousins over that weekend as well. The boys love to go to great lengths to set up these dart gun fights, tearing apart my couch and basement to build fortifications and barriers but the actual fights never last more than 5 minutes. Someone gets hurt, or mad or bored.

Cade has been training a new missionary the last two transfers and is enjoying mission life, learning a ton, and loving the fall in Colorado. This helmet is courtesy of a ward member.

And just so you remember what he actually looks like:

We carved pumpkins this year with friends which was fun.

Levi was in charge of the pie eating contest at the ward party. It was a smashing success. And he even competed.

Levi and Libby hang out in the same circle of friends right now. All of Levi’s friends have younger siblings that are Liberty’s friends and Libby and her friends are all friends with the older kids. So we convinced them to do a Halloween party. We had about 35-40 kids here and it was crazy but fun. They wouldn’t let us plan any Halloween games, (they were too cool for that, apparently) but I snuck some dry ice into the punch.

School started and now that Liberty is in high school, these two are back in the same one again!

Liberty LOVES high school so far. She’s in student council and is involved in what feels like-EVERYTHING! She’s also friends with many of Levi’s friends so the overlap of all they do is pretty fun.

Reagan surprised us with just this picture about a month ago as his way of telling us he’d bought a motorcycle.

His brothers think it’s amazingly cool and though my prayer list has gotten longer because of it, I’m happy he made this long time goal a reality. It helps that my brother in law, who owns a motorcycle himself, has been helping to steer Reagan in the right direction, ie, the safe direction, with the whole process.

And here’s another crazy picture you won’t expect…

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Times are just changing when it comes to mission rules. Rock was in Denver on a business trip, which is about 40 minutes from where Cade is serving and now days there is some leeway on seeing your kids! He took Cade and his companion to dinner.

Also in September, Levi went to Homecoming for the first time. Here’s the poster he used to ask his date:

And here is the ask. Seriously best one I’ve ever seen. Even tops my knight in shining armor prom ask!

She answered back with this:

They did the day date here and it was super fun! Five couples making cakes with one blindfolded and the other handcuffed. It was a riot-literally.

When they were all done, nobody wanted to eat their creations so they stacked them on top of each other and sang Happy Birthday to Levi’s date, who was turning 16 the next day and who, incidentally, is the fastest girl on the cross country team.

This boy planned the entire day date, purchased all the supplies for it, remembered to pick up his corsage, and…forgot to pick up his suit from the dry cleaners before it closed. We had to scramble at the last minute to find pants and a suit coat that would work. Luckily, he was able to pull this off, but there was some very real panic for sure.

Levi spent all summer trying to get his friends to go on a backpacking trip and he was finally successful in August.

These four had an absolute blast up near Stanley for a few days. And other than some car trouble at the end of their trip, it went off without a hitch- for which we mothers were very grateful.

The very next weekend he went camping with another group of friends. They got REAL down and dirty.

Some things never change……