Making Waves with the Ryans: January 2013

Blake's Taekwondo Pictures

Blake is still doing Taekwondo three times a week. He is learning some cool spinning kicks right now and doing some jujutsu which we really likes. This is his pictures for the year. He was pretty exctied to see that his pictures from last year made the martial art photographer's posters that he uses to advertise. I am so proud that he has stuck with it for two years now. He never admits that he likes it but he sure does have a good time with his friends when he is there:)

Time to head to sunny skies

We had a great time in Utah, but after 8 days it was time to get back home and get ready for school again. The last two days there was very cold and the inversion was getting bad! Playing in the snow is lots of fun but we were ready to see blue skies again in the city. The kids could not believe on the drive home we hit zero degrees. They all cheered in the car.

They also couldn't believe five minutes later when we hit negative five. They were grateful for a warm car! We made it home by 1am Saturday morning. I was sooo glad we put all our Christmas away and did laundry at my Mom's because Saturday was full of parties and baptisms to attend. Back to reality after a fun vacation!

Shopping at Scheels

Our last day in Utah Madison and Abby spent the day playing with Bryce and Lillie while Todd, Hailey and Blake went to the movies and I did some shopping. We all met up for dinner at The Training Table with Aunt Angie, Uncle Brettt and Grandma and Grandpa then we went to Scheels to ride the ferris wheel in the giant sports store.

They had a bunch of animal displays the kids could take pictures with. Bryce and Abby had fun checking all of them out.

Wow, it stinks!

A bear!!!

It has been very fun to be around cousins for the last week.

A Day on the Ski Slopes

Today we took the kids skiing at Brighton for the day. After finally getting everyone all bundled up and skis rented we were ready to go. Blake took his friend Sara who had recently moved to Salt Lake. It was her first time skiing but she did great! Todd and I had five kids with just the two of us trying to teach two of them, Abby and Sara. We did it though. Thank goodness the other three kids did it by themselves and Sara picked it up really fast. Abby skied last year and did it but she has no fear so she was determined to ride the ski lift and keep going to the top. Todd had to be right next to her the whole time because she loves to go fast and then crash. He would have to race to get ahead of her to catch her. We regretted not putting her in ski school because Todd was wiped out chasing her down the hill!

Todd made sure with Blake that Sara could handle the lift and then the two of them were off having a great time going up and down the hill. Hailey couldn't wait and was off. Blake and her are great skiers now.

Abby was so excited to take the lift!

Madison loved the small hill the most and loved practicing all by herself.

Grandma Newbold had packed us some snacks. Abby loves Grandma's banana bread and was amazed the hot chocolate stayed hot.

There was a lot of snow and the kids thought the huge ice was really cool.

The last our the older three tried to get in as most as they could before it closed. They loved it and Todd had a great time being able to snowboard with them while I was in the lodge with Madison and Abby. Craig Jacobsen and his two boys were there so they all skied for a short bit. They had been in the ski school most of the day so we did not get to see them much but it was fun to see them. Todd and Craig had been snowboarding a couple of days earlier.