Adam and Heather Hayes

I saved since the beginning of the year to take off for Spring Break and go to Disneyland, and we did it!

Day 1: We left Friday and drove to Layton to get a recalled wiper motor replaced on our SUV.  Then we drove to Salt Lake and had a delicous barbecue at Bethany and Eric's house.  The adults played settlers and pinnochle while the kids fell asleep to a movie in the livingroom.

In the morning we had a scruptious hot breakfast, played a few songs on their piano, (Thanks Eric and Bessy! You're awesome!)

opened some birthday presents and then hit the open road.  10 hours of it,

thank goodness for portable DVD players and books, that is a lot of driving.  We gained an hour when we got to LA, and the power had been off all day and came back on just before we got there.  That was lucky!

So we drove all Day 2, Day 3: went to church with Adam's uncle Ryal, aunt Cory, and cousins Andrew and Evie, and had a barbecue and egg hunt with their local extended family. It was a fun day and I didn't even think to take a picture of it. Nice.  Day 4: we went to the beach.  It started off beautiful and sunny.  These first pictures are the "Before Adam almost drown" pictures.

Adam and Andrew were having a great time body surfing until Adam got caught in a riptide and kept getting sucked back into the ocean.  He swam and swam and swam, but was not getting any closer to the beach.

He tried swimming parallel to the beach but that just took him farther away from me and not any closer to the beach. 

So he called for help and Andrew pulled him in to where he could touch.  I was quite worried by now, and was very happy to see Adam stumbling up the beach to me.  He was in shock.  He asked for any drink that did not contain salt.

I gave him a Capri Sun, he drank some of it, then layed down and didn't move for quite a while.  Then all of a sudden he flipped over and started puking sea water.  I realized how tramatic it really was for him at that point.  I covered him up with all the towels and clothes we had, and let him rest for a couple of hours.

While he was resting, the girls and Andrew and I had a fun time.  Two sand castles were made,

One closer to the ocean than the other.  This first one was too far away to fill the mote with water before it sunk in.

Tons of shells were collected.

White bodies soaked in some sun.

Some bodies were whiter than others.  I do have olive skin like Erith and Tric, I just don't wear a bathing suit very much.  You'll see later that poor Vi has Adam's white freckley skin, we don't know about Clara yet.

Little girls made memories.  This is Clara's first time on a beach.  Vi's first time getting wet on a beach.

I noticed Andrew and Vi had been standing in one spot for quite a while, I walked over and Vi said "Look Mom my feet are gone!"

It was fun to stand right at the edge of the water and feel yourself sink after each wave.  She loved it so much, she and Andrew stood there for almost an hour.  Andrew got a bad sunburn for that one.

When it got close to her knees she started to chicken out, mostly because the water was splashing her face.

We were happy to see Adam back to normal after his nap and some lunch.  Evie and her friend Jerica joined us after a while to do some sunbathing.

Look at all these cuties at the beach.  I thought I had sunscreened everyone head to toe.  But alas, it became apparent that I had missed a couple spots on Vi when I put her in the bath that night.

A word to the wise, don't scrunch your nose while applying sunscreen.  And don't be overly cautious about getting it in the eyes.

Oops!

We've been telling our friend John that we should have his family over for dinner for about 4 years.  We finally set a date and did it!

John and Adam are competative stake sports guys and Heidi and I are the much more relaxed, happy to be there wives.  Our kids are about the same age so they had a blast dressing up together.

Our newest game is called settlers.  We love to play it and always seem to convince our company to play with us.

If we invite you over for dinner, watch out, we're getting pretty good at it! (Or at least Adam is!)

Tricity has been wiggling her front teeth for almost a year now.  She feels really bad that she's almost done with 1st grade and still hasn't lost a baby tooth yet.

I guess all the wiggling of solid teeth is worth it because she lost a tooth the beginning of March.

Then a couple days later Dad notices that new teeth are coming in and feels that the lose tooth next door better get the heck out of there or the new ones will be crooked.  Too late, they are REALLY crooked anyway! Yay, 2 out of 2 need braces....

Wow, it's been a long time since we've written. So here is a catchup blog post.

Erith was baptized in January. Everything went marvelously.

Heather decided to dye her hair. It was a very beautiful red. I took a picture right as the sun was setting with a nice yellow glow which really accented her new color.

We went sledding a lot of times over at the "pit". The girls practically begged every day to go sledding. So when they couldn't get enough from our little piles in the front yard, we'd take them over to the pit and have some fun. Watch the wideo at the end of the post for some of the fun.

Volleyball has begun for me and we just had our first tournament. We won 8 of 8, which made me a very happy coach, including a match where we came back from 8-1 down to win 21-25. I also got the opportunity to go play on a co-ed team over in Driggs. It was a blast. Once I get some nice footage together I'll post a video.

Andi stayed an extra day over Christmas to be there for Erith's birthday.  I'm so glad she did because I sure needed all the help I could get with that house full of girls!

Erith got get ready for baptism stuff from Mom and Dad.

The girls made marble magnets.

They played lots and lots of games.  (Each one took a shockingly small amount of time)  They played musical chairs, pictionary, Jenga, pin the candle on the cake, duck duck goose, and probably a couple more!

Cupcakes for the party and the cake for the family, Erith got her first taste of trick candles!  Erith got some fun gifts from her friends and I think everyone had a fun time.  Happy birthday Erith!

Have you ever needed a break from partying?  That's how December was for me.  Don't get me wrong, I loved getting together with family and friends, eating delicious food and playing games, catching up.  But boy is it nice to sleep in and let the kids make messes again!  Speaking of messes, as you can see, Clara had a spectactular Christmas morning.

Our List of Parties:

Adam's birthday

Ward Christmas party

Elder's dinner party

Christmas eve

Christmas day

Erith's birthday, this was her first non family birthday party.  I can't believe I have an eight year old!  I'm so old!

New Year's eve

New Year's day

Erith's baptism

Dolls, dolls, dolls.  We entered the world of Target made "American dolls" this Christmas.  Tricity paid half to get one earlier this year.  She got a canopy bed for Sophie.  Erith got MaryLynn, and Vi got Jenna, whom is 18" tall but not from Target. Clara got a baby doll that can drink and wet (and 2 potty books).

The girls got up at 6:30 am even after Adam they could get up as early as they want.  (grrrr)  Vi and Clara don't cope with being woken up early very well.

I bought these little baby crib and high chair for Clara, they aren't very sturdy, I won't go the cheap route next time.

I somehow got the most spoiled this Christmas.  I don't think Santa or Adam stuck to the budget.

Adam got lots of painting stuff and a remote control helicopter.

I gave the girls my old tea set so they could use it with their dolls.  One tea cup was immediately broken, I can see why everything is made of plastic these days.

I have to say, seeing the excitement in little kids' eyes sure makes Christmas morning magical!

We had a pretty successful Christmas photo shoot last week.  Aren't we a cute family?  I can't believe it's Christmas already.  Where has December gone?  We have had a ward party, elder's party, 3 school programs, lots of temple work and christmas candy making.  I guess that's where December went. 

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Thanks to everyone who came to help with baptisms for the dead. 

We had 94 names we baptized and confirmed that day plus I sent my cousin Sterling and his wife 20, plus we gave some 3rd cousins of mine in our ward 30 male names a month ago.  It has been a lot of fun, more fun than updating the blog I'm afraid...

As you can see from the picture, we will have a lot of sealings to do once all the individual ordinances are done.