A review of 2007-- Picture overload!

We started out the year at a BYU basketball game. :)

This is our St Patrick's Day hike.

Yes, there was still snow in the canyon.

Easter morning.

In April Devin and Emily and their kids got to visit. Here are Josh and Claire with Ethan and Julia. Andrew was around too, but we didn't get any pictures with him.

Later in April we went to Florida! We started out in Orlando and we went to Disneyworld-- Magic Kingdom.

Then we went to Jacksonville and stayed at Derek's parents' house. The beach was a little chilly at night, but was great the next day.


At the beach in Jacksonville.

In June we had more cousins visit-- Tamara and David came to town with their kids. This is Julia, Rebekah, and Amie at the Ogden Treehouse museum.

And here is Sanja, Julia, Ethan, Amie, and Rebekah at the Treehouse Museum.

Julia's preschool graduation.

Here are Ethan and Julia at the Orem Night parade with Hunter and Kaycee, we go every year with them.

In June we also went to Zion National Park. We went on some fun hikes and had a great time. Here's Derek and Julia in the river.

This was on our hike up to the Emerald Pools.

This is the Upper Emerald Pool at Zion, the hike to get here was a bit difficult, and it was SO hot (around 106), so when we finally made it here it was amazing. You can barely see Derek and the kids in the water right in front of the huge boulder.


And this is on our way back down.

Julia was a little tired by the end, but she was a trooper, she did made it all the way up and most of the way down by herself. Our hikes were over 4 miles and much of it on steep, rocky dirt trails that were difficult to climb.




In July we had the Hill reunion. This is Grandma Hill with Julia, Heather, and Mary.


This is also the Hill reunion on our way down the mountain after a little hike.

And one of the kid tables the next day at the reunion.

This is the Pioneer Day carnival in Cedar Hills that we attended with some friends at the end of July. This is Kendra, Julia, Talia, Amanda, Kyle, and Ethan. The kids were in line for a bounce house ride.

And doing sparklers at their house that night, before the real fireworks started.

And Melodie (Rosie's sister) came home from her mission at the end of July too. We were so excited!!

In August we went to Payson Lakes. Ethan tried to do a little fishing, but didn't have much luck.

Julia enjoyed her new canoe.

Here we are at an Orem Owlz game in August. This was the first real baseball game the kids had attended, and they had a great time.

Julia even got a hug from the mascott.

The kids were both in soccer this year, and it starts back up again in the Spring. It keeps us pretty busy since Derek coaches Ethan's team, but they both love it.

Robyn and Eric came to town in September, so Ethan and Julia got to play with more cousins! Here are Ethan and Mierae watching Julia's soccer game.

We went to visit Grandpa at the bakery too, this is Mierae, Grandma (my mom), Julia, Jolie, and Robyn at the bakery.

And a family picture after our barbeque in the canyon.


I started the blog in October, so most of the pictures from the rest of the year are already on here, but here are a few from December that I didn't post.

Our friends came over to the watch the BYU football game, and the kids had a great time. This was right before Christmas.

We made sugar cookies while they were here too.

We also went to Jungle Jim's, which is right by Derek's office in Murray. They have tons of fun stuff for the kids-- a small roller coaster, bumper cars, a carousel, rockets they can fly in, swings that spin them around, etc. We love to go there in the winter when it's too cold to do a lot of outdoor activities.

This is Derek and Ethan in the roller coaster.

And Ethan and Julia in the spinning cars.




Julia on the carousel.


Here's the kids right after church on the Sunday before Christmas.

Hope you all have a happy New Year!!!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year! The kids didn't get up until 8:00, yay! My family made it over to our house by 8:45, though the kids didn't wait for them to arrive before they started opening gifts.


This is right after they woke up, before they had opened anything.

They wanted to open the big box first, from Grandpa Buzz and Grandma Susan, they've been dying to know what was in there ever since Derek brought it home last month.

Quentin, Sharisse, and Charlotte.

My Dad and Mom, Dad just got back from work at 8:00, and then had to wake everyone up to come over.

Julia, Melodie, Kristen, and me.

Here's Julia "swimming" in the wrapping paper at Grandma's house.

We had some fresh snow from the storm last night, so after we were done opening gifts at both houses we went sledding. This is Derek and Julia.

Here's Ethan and Julia.

And here's Julia sledding.

And Ethan sledding .

Derek sledding.

We had lots of fun!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve this year has proven to be an exciting and unpredictable time!

Tonight we made our trek to the annual Hendriksen Christmas party in Salt Lake. Unfortunately the weather didn't want to cooperate with us. We ended up in a blizzard and had awful conditions nearly the whole way up. The snow was coming down so fast that the plows couldn't keep up, which made for scary driving conditions! We went around 30mph the entire way up, on the freeway, and it took us much longer than we had anticipated. We were lucky and made it there safely, but my parents and sisters were not so lucky. They hit a slippery patch of road, mostly due to the amount of slush on the road I think, and this resulted in their car skidding across four lanes of traffic and hitting the cement barricade on the opposite side of the road. Their car spun all the way around and hit the barricade again before it stopped. We are so grateful that everyone is OK!! Somehow, even though there were many cars on the road, no one hit them as they slid across the entire freeway. Mom's car is not in great shape right now though, it has quite a bit of damage. I hope they will be able to get it fixed quickly, at not a huge expense to them. Mom and Melodie had bumped their heads and everyone was very shaken up, but they all seem to be fine luckily!

We did enjoy the Christmas party, though the accident kind of put a damper on things.

Here we are having our Christmas Eve dinner. (Actually everyone had finished except for Julia.)

This is the kids' gift exchange. Ethan and Julia both really liked their gifts.

Here they're holding their new toys.

In their matching Christmas pajamas before we left to go home.

Here's the plate of cookies and milk they left for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. Ethan's note in the picture says "Dear Santa, These carrots are for your reindeer. Love, Ethan" How cute is that?!

They are very excited for Christmas tomorrow, and haven't been able to fall asleep. Hopefully Santa can come soon! :)