Red Rocks

Mike and I have a favorite weekend activity. We bought season tickets to the University of Utah gymnastics. There are 6 home meets over the course of three months and it is sooo much fun. The best part is that they are really good (ranked 2nd in the nation)!

Our Weekend

Today I am trying to catch up a bit on my posting. There hasn't been a lot to post on lately, but we've had a few things this weekend:

• Abby really can walk. She doesn't always choose to, and she still is pretty wobbly, but more and more she is choosing to walk more than crawl. Her max is about 10 steps and depending on how quickly she wants to get to her destination, she may fall after 2-3 steps because she is a bit too zealous, but she is definitely improving and close to being a full-fledged walker!
• Unfortunately, walking may take a couple days hiatus because she got sick at the cabin over the weekend. Poor, baby.
• Speaking of the cabin, we went. It was nice, a bit crowded (13 people) and good relaxation. There was lots of snow. This picture is the door to the basement (where Mike, Abby and I always sleep) that my parents and brother-in-law had dug out because the snow buried the door. A few of the steps leading to the main door were completely buried as well.
• Mike and I went horse riding with my sister Kaley and her friends on Saturday. It had been a long time since I'd ridden, but it was uneventful (that's good when you're on a horse) and very pretty. We went in the gully just a mile or two from my parents' house. That reminded me how lucky we are to have such great destinations in our own backyards! We don't have to look too far to find beauty around here.
• We have a new niece to welcome into our family. Yeah! Kalyn Elise Wessman was born yesterday! She is a beautiful baby!

Thoughts on Valentine's

Last night as I was reading blogs, I came across several posts on the merits of Valentine's. I will share mine...It all starts on December 11th (Mike's birthday). Two weeks later is Christmas. Two weeks later is my birthday. A month later is Valentine's and less than a month after that is our anniversary. So in the long parade of gift giving days, Valentine's loses!

Lest you think that we simply ignore the day, we usually exchange cards and have something nicer than usual for dinner. This year we also took Abby swimming at the Murray pool. It had been a long time since she'd been swimming so she got off to a bit of a rough start, but once she got going, she loved it! In fact, she loved playing on the toys in the kiddie pool area. The stairs on the toys start in about 12" of water and she would come down the slide and just crawl over to the toys. It didn't seem to bug her that she was crawling submerged. (It bugged mom and dad though so we discouraged that as much as possible.)

Ronald McDonald House

I thought I'd share a fun project my family did this weekend:

The Ronald McDonald House in Salt Lake City is a place where out of town families can stay while their children are in the hospitals (Primary and Shriner's). These are families who do not have another place to stay or the resources to stay in a hotel. Because it is a charitable organization, their resources don't allow them to do a lot of cosmetic upgrades to the building. There is an ongoing effort on their part to have volunteers to adopt and redo rooms in the house. As a service project, my family redecorated a room in the house this weekend. It was a fair amount of work but we think that it turned out nice and I thought I'd share some of the before and after pictures.


The house is located on the corner of N Street and South Temple which happened to be along the funeral procession route for President Hinckley. We enjoyed going out onto the corner and waving handkerchiefs as the procession passed. We were able to see several of the Twelve as they passed by. It was an emotional moment. (Elder Bednar waved specifically at us!)