Living the Good Life

Happy 2010! Christmas and New Years were great - so were Thanksgiving and Halloween for that matter. Evan was a silly clown for Halloween, we ate a lot for Thanksgiving and spent Christmas Eve with family in Salt Lake thus avoiding any potential 3 hour commute in a blizzard on Christmas morning (our usual "tradition" for the past couple of years). We spent New Years at our home for the first time in, well, I think ever. Friends came over, we ate a lot, played games and were amazed that all our children (all under age 5) lasted until midnight with nary a crisis. The meltdowns started promptly after midnight. In short, we had a pretty nice "holiday season".

So what do I mean by "Living the Good Life"? How much better can it get than to be surrounded by wonderful family, great friends, live in a warm home with a good husband (he insists he's not great yet) and a 2 year old ball of blessing, and am lucky enough to have found some meaning in life. Weekends seem to slip by in a flash but this weekend seemed to last a bit. We woke up to our sweet boy wrapped in his blanket politely letting us know it was morning and time to get up.

Then off to the tracks. Dad put together a fantastic track design and as thanks Evan shared "special blanky" with him. You know you're something when you get bestowed with "special blanky".
And it's never to early to start capturing those special moments. Evan uses my tripod as a camera and excitedly instructs you to "say cheeeeeeeese".

Then of course, after playing with the actual toy he spends more time with the box...

After a nutritious breakfast of strawberry poptarts (with extra fiber - we aren't completely negligent of our son's health) we all don all the clothing we own to brave the outdoors and head to Hardware Ranch for a day of fun in hopes of seeing the sun. This year we decided Evan was old enough to actually enjoy the sleigh ride amidst the elk and ponied up the money for tickets. This is Evan waiting.

and waiting...
Finally on the sleigh!

We had a difficult time convincing him it would NOT be fun to get off the sleigh and go play with the elk. He very reluctantly agreed to just stand by the chain and look at the elk.

Wow, did you see that??? Blue sky!!

After the ride, Evan and Todd took advantage of the hill, snow and Evan's plastic pants.

Todd, Evan and the outdoors. A combination that will no doubt provide many future great memories.
Yes, I was there and I was warm thanks to the new coat (rated -30 to 0 degrees) courtesy of the mom and Christmas combination.
As always, there's an open invitation to come up and join us at Hardware Ranch. We will provide a warm house and hot chocolate afterward as a reward for braving the elements. I hope your 2010 started off as well as ours.