35 Looks Good on You

And Teag brings up the tail-end in the Bayly Birthday month. He started out the day with a little sleeping in, which is something that's a pretty rare occurrence for him. Then I made him some special breakfast sandwiches, which were an experiment but turned out well. After that, he got to spend the day doing whatever he felt like, which involved some Ratchet and Clank on the PS2.

When it was time for dinner, Teag had selected a new restaurant called Taqueria 27. Which is perfect really, given that his birthday is on the 27th. This place, as implied in its name, sells tacos. All kinds of tacos. Some of them sound a little weird, but we were game. We got four different kinds and tried a pork, a fish, and a beef taco. The last one I called more of a dessert taco because it was grilled pears and beets, with goat cheese, and a balsamic syrup. Sounds kind of weird, but it was really good. Probably my favorite.

Then it was time for home and a chance to celebrate with the kids. He got a lot of aviation books this year, both the paper kind, and some digital.

Teag requested yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but we fancied it up with some sprinkles. There were quite a few candles on that cake!

Teag is an amazing man. He has so many skills; he can make just about anyone laugh, and build a mantle out of a hole in the wall. He's an excellent teacher, and a highly skilled pilot. He's also incredibly humble, so he never says anything about this to anyone else. We've spent the past sixteen years building our life together, and it's been such an amazing thing to watch him grow and develop into the man he is. Happy Birthday Beagle! We love you!

Provo Temple Open House

With the Provo Temple complete, and open for tours, Teag and I decided to try and take our family down south to view it. Our kids have never been to a temple open house before, and it was important to me to get them there. And of course, whenever you're trying to do something good, life gets in the way. We had to cancel the original time we had, as Teag had a last minute flight. So we rescheduled. And then he had another last minute flight. Luckily, this one got delayed until the morning after our slot, and we were finally able to get there.

Funnily enough, my parents had scheduled their tickets for a half hour before us. We decided to meet up afterwards and go to dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday. But first, we needed to see the temple, which included putting booties over our shoes to protect the carpet. I tried to get a picture of this, but i was too close to get both the kids faces and their booties.

Finn and Rory both seemed rather concerned by this, but once the video started, all was forgotten.

It was cool to walk around the rooms, to see the beautiful stained glass, the intricate carving, the red marble everywhere. It was a small, but very lovely temple. The paintings in the creation room elicited a lot of excited (but hushed) exclamations from the kids. Finn loved to see all the animals. The baptismal font was also really cool, and unlike any other I'd seen before. At the end of the tour, they had several displays with history of both the building and the area, and a place to take a picture with your family.

Once we left that area, you could move up the stairs to a little anteroom with a scaled down version of the Christus.

The outside of the building is just as beautiful, and especially so as the sun had decided to come out at that point.

I regret not getting a picture with my parents, so that we could remember being there together. Hopefully this post will suffice for that. I'm glad we got the chance to go as a family, and then to make it even more meaningful by being able to share that with my mom and dad.

Ice Castles!

The whole Rogers family decided to make the trip to the Midway Ice Castles again. It's been a few years, and we wanted to give them another go. They did not disappoint! One of the new features they offer are two different slides, built in to the castles themselves! One is much higher, and can accommodate adults, but the smaller one had a much smaller line, and allowed the kids many more turns.

The sheer volume of ice around you, not to mention the shapes they create, is pretty awe-inspiring, but then when you add the lights as well, it feels like a rather magical place.

There was no Olaf this year, but there was an ice throne.

Danyn got to bring her friend Tressa along, as it was shortly before she moved. It was great to have her, and for them to be able to spend some extra time together.

The Ice Castles are well worth the trip, as long as you bundle up against the cold. Chalk it up to another fun Bayly adventure!

And Then There's Danyn...

And she turned nine! Danyn had been asking us to go see the new Star Wars movie, so Teag and I took her to see it for her birthday activity.

Then we went to Tucanos, a Brazilian restaurant where servers walk around with skewers of different meats to try. There's also a salad bar. Danyn loved their Brazilian Lemonade.

Dany is our little meat-eater, so this was the perfect place for her to go for dinner. She was brave and tried a lot of new things, but said no to the chicken hearts. Teag was the only one brave enough to give those a go.

After dinner, we went home and did cake and presents with Grandma and Grandpa Rogers. Danyn was excited for all her presents, including some art supplies, jewelry, and a set of her favorite books.

Danyn is a very active kid, she's always on the move. She's constantly making up dances or trying to perfect new gymnastics moves. She's very tender, and seems to be more aware of people and how they're feeling. She's also one of the silliest kids, telling weird jokes and making strange faces for a laugh. She's lost two of her very best friends in the last few weeks; her best friends Tressa, and her cousin Avery both moved, and it's been hard on her. But I've been impressed with her ability to stay positive and be happy. Danyn gets over most hurts quickly, and is eager to smile. We love this girl, and all her craziness.

Becoming a Young Woman

Maisie had her twelfth birthday! We knew this day would come, but it sort of slipped up on us. She had her last day of primary, and now she is officially a young woman. Which may have somewhat more significance for me than the average parent, as I'm one of her leaders. It's been kind of a weird transition, one I'm still adjusting to, but Maisie loves it and is very excited for this new step. As this was a party year for her, I asked her if she wanted to have a party here with a bunch of her friends, or choose one friend and get a pedicure and go to dinner. She chose the latter, so we went out the day before her actual birthday to celebrate.

Maisie has never had a pedicure before, and was very excited to get one. She loved all the pampering and attention she got there, and being the fact that it was her birthday, she got a free design on her big toes. Extra special!

Then we picked up Teag and the four of us went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.

Once again, Maisie got some special birthday attention.

Maisie told us over and over again how this was the best birthday ever, and she thanked us countless times. It was great to see her having so much fun, and being made to feel special on her birthday. The next day Grandma and Grandpa Rogers came over for presents and cake.

Maisie was very excited about all the clothes and books and jewelry she got, and was once again very gracious.

Twelve is a pretty big year. Not only for the aforementioned transition into young women, but she'll soon advance from 6th grade to junior high as well. A whole lot of changes are on the horizon for this kid, and it's exciting (and somewhat scary) to witness as parents.

Maisie is a strong-minded girl with an affinity for music. She's not afraid to get up in front of people and perform, and even sang with me in front of our entire Stake in December. She's responsible, and thoughtful, and has become a trusted babysitter. She's good at setting goals and accomplishing them. She still loves reading, and does an extraordinary amount of it. She has her struggles, as every human does, but I think she's on her way to becoming an impressive young lady. We love our Miss Mais!

Master Class with Loretta Bates!

Another Zumbathon for the books! Natalie and I were excited to learn that Loretta Bates was coming to our town in January for a Master Class, with Kass! Loretta is another famous ZES, one I've danced along with on my Wii games, and admired from afar. I couldn't wait to have a chance to dance along with her for real. And I love that I have Natalie to go with me to all of these, because they're way funner with a friend than on your own.

Turns out Loretta is incredibly nice in person, and is a really talented dancer. She was gracious and encouraging with everyone I saw her come in contact with, and there were certainly a lot of people vying for her attention. Natalie and I always buy VIP passes to these things because it guarantees you a spot in the first couple of rows, and both of us like that. You usually get a swag bag too, but they're not really much to jump and shout over. And of course, there's always the photo op with the headlining instructor.

I don't have a lot of practice posing I guess, because I look super awkward in this next pic.

We got there early enough that we ended up with a front row spot, giving me a chance to take a few extra pics of Loretta during the class itself.

It also meant that the event photographer got a couple of pictures of me as well.

It was an incredibly fun event, and I'm so glad I got to go. Especially with my Zumba-buddy.

Snow Hiking

Maisie and I will be going on a Pioneer Trek this Summer, and in order to get us ready for it, we've been trying to do some more hiking. So when the kids had a day off for MLK Jr. Day, we took advantage of it, and headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Our original intention had been to hike to Donut Falls. It had only been lightly raining at our house, but up the canyon it turned into a full on blizzard. I hated to just go home, so we stopped at a trail-head further down that was to take us to a place called Lake Blanche. I hadn't had the forethought to dress the kids in snow pants, and it continued to be quite the blizzard, but they all seemed to be pretty mesmerized by the winter wonderland around them.

After about a mile of hiking through fairly deep snow though, things started to get a bit rough. Finn had a hard time walking and wanted to be carried. They were getting cold, and somewhat wet. Lake Blanche was still two miles away. So we turned around and hiked back.

Teag was good enough to carry Finn for most of the mile back, which couldn't have been an easy feat.

By that time, it was past lunch anyway, so we stopped by Apollo Burger and grabbed some burgers and fries, which we ate in front of of our new fireplace. It was downright cozy. Finn has remembered that, and asked if we could have another little fireplace picnic again, so we must have done something right. A few days later, Teag and I decided to head back while all the kids were in school and see if we could make it to Lake Blanche all by ourselves.

We didn't take into account just how much snow fell during that blizzard a few days before, and it was almost slower going than when we were with the kids. Needless to say, we didn't make it to the top in the time we had available to us. It was still gorgeous though, and it has become our goal to make it to Lake Blanche at some point in the near future.