New Years and Additional Christmas Celebrations

We spent a day at home after our California trip, giving us just enough time to do some clean up and laundry around our house. Then we were off again Friday morning to see more family. We met up with some of Nate's brothers to play racquetball at a rec center. Then we headed to my parents place to eat lunch and clean up.

We celebrated New Years that evening, since we almost all had 9:00 church Sunday and didn't want to have to get up to be driving off at 7:00 a.m to make it there in time. So, we  went bowling with my family and then had a nice family dinner with them. After that we had another round of presents since we hadn't been around on Christmas to give/receive each others' gifts.

Austin was in a funny mood that evening. He was exuberant about everything, including the new clothes he got. (That was in stark contrast from how he reacted to getting a coat from us on Christmas day. As he grabbed and opened the gift containing the coat, he said, "I really hope it isn't clothes!" Then as he opened the box and saw the coat he loudly exclaimed, "Dang it!")

Austin was excited to get one of his favorite movies!

It was particularly fun to watch his enthusiasm as he opened some new Duplo blocks and a new Magna Doodle.

Abbie with the headband/ear warmer I made her

After we finally finished gifts, we played a game of Pictionary before heading to bed. After a pancake breakfast the next morning, Nate and I visited his aunt and uncle in the area and then went snowshoeing with Allan, Katie, and Ben to the first waterfall along the Aspen Grove Trail leading to Mt. Timpanogos. It was a pretty chilly day, and most of the trail was in shadow, so Nate and I were a bit cold. It was beautiful though.

As we neared the waterfall, the trail disappeared. We walked down to the unseen river and continued up alongside it. The area appeared to be buried pretty deep in snow and ice chunks from a small avalanche.

We soon came to an interesting curved wall of ice and found another group sledding on their backsides down the steep slope by the waterfall.

The waterfall itself though was not that impressive. It was too buried in the aftermath of the avalanche for much of it to even be visible. All we could see were a couple small trickles of water that fell into a very icy deep puddle

 However, the view from the waterfall was pretty amazing and made the trip well worth it.

After snowshoeing, with visited Nate's sister-in-law before returning to my parent's house for dinner. After dinner we played another family game before heading back home.

Nate and I spent the rest of New Years Eve quietly together at home, and celebrated with a bottle of Martinelle that had appeared in my Christmas stocking a week earlier.