Hill Aerospace Museum

Last month we stopped by the Hill Aerospace Museum on our way home from Idaho.

I'd always wanted to take the kids there, but hadn't wanted to make the long drive.

There were some really amazing planes!


I don't think the kids understood the historical importance of most things in the museum, but they did enjoy getting to look at all the different kinds of aircraft featured there.

There was so much to look at outside too, but we didn't really want to stay out in the snow too long so we took a look and left pretty quickly.

I'm glad that we stopped by, since we were already in the area.

And admission? Free! You've gotta love that!

Free country

Yesterday Julia was sent to her room for fighting with Ethan.

I told her to close the door.

She shouted from her room "I don't have to, it's a free country!"

OK, I admit I did laugh a tiny bit, but wow I think she's going to be a challenging teenager!!

(Disclaimer-- she is usually the sweetest person in the world, but she's definitely difficult when she gets mad, lol.)

Idaho Trip

The week after Christmas we headed to Idaho for a big family get-together.

Devin and Emily reserved this awesome lodge for the whole family (thanks guys!!)

and it was amazing how much it had to offer without even going outside!

The drive there was beautiful, and perfect weather.

(It was not so great coming back.)

Out the car window on the way there

One of the first things the kids did after we arrived:

they built this amazing fort from the soft blocks in the bunk room.

Josh, Ethan, and Julia in front of the fort

Ethan, Julia, and Josh inside the fort

They had fun exploring the entire lodge, but I was too busy chatting with the adults to get any other pics the first night.

The next day we headed to the sand dunes to go sledding.

Our group looking for a good hill for sledding

We found tons of different hills. Julia really enjoyed the biggest hill, this one was a lot like a water slide, super steep and tall, and she loved it:

Ethan preferred the smaller hills, but he still had a great time:

A family photo right before leaving

The white rolling hills were beautiful!
And we also enjoyed a gorgeous sunset.

The kids hadn't done so well at bedtime the night before-- they were too excited to be sleeping in the 16 bunk room all together to be interested in actually sleeping.
So the second night we decided to have them watch a movie before bed to try to settle them down. They decided to set up a "movie theater" with a kid-built huge couch to prepare for the movie. (These blocks were so fun!)

Rebekah, Sanja, Julia, Amie, and Ethan, all ready to watch the movie

The kids weren't the only ones having fun, check out what the grown-ups were doing after the kids went to bed:

Derek went down the slide in the garage/gym on a little scooter and ran into the opposite wall, too bad I didn't capture it on video.

This gym really kept the kids busy for huge amounts of time!

Julia, Amie, and Josh in the gym

The kids also enjoyed the climbing wall:

The slide in the bunk room:


as well as the shuffleboard, pingpong, air hockey, fuzeball, and mulitiple other fun activities throughout the lodge.


Julia in front of one wall of bunks

We all had such a great time. It was so fun having almost all of the family together!

Christmas morning

For some reason this is the only picture I took on Christmas.

The kids let us sleep in until 8:00, and then we got a few more minutes of sleep by letting them check out their stockings without us.

They finally convinced us to get up and the fun began.

When we were done at our house we headed to Grandma's house to open gifts and visit with family there. Tamara and David had arrived the night before so we had cousins around again to play with and the kids had tons of fun.

Christmas party and Temple Square

The annual Hendriksen Christmas party is normally on Christmas Eve, but sadly I think that will be changing. This year it was on the 22nd. It was snowing the whole way up and we were a little nervous, but thankfully we all made it up safely.

At the party- Daphne, Ethan, Kristen, Melodie, Charlotte, Rosie, Julia

We headed to Temple Square to see the lights after the majority of the party was over.

We got to see the last presentation of the nativity program; we were glad that we weren't too late to see it.

I was going to get some photos of all of us inside temple square but just as I was ready to take the picture the lights went out. They are definitely prompt, lights go off right at 10pm.

At least the lights were still on at the Main Street plaza just East of the temple.


Our group: Derek, Ethan, Rosie, Julia, Kristen, Charlotte, Andrew
(Daphne in the stroller and Melodie taking the picture)

And our little family in front of the temple.

School Christmas Program

The Christmas program at the school is probably the most attended function of the year, so I try to get there early to get a good seat. This year my mom and sister Melodie were coming to the program with my nephews and niece-- Josh, Claire, Andrew, and Peter, but they needed a ride. I got ready as quickly as I could and went over to pick them up. We got to the school at 8:40, twenty minutes before the program started, and it was already crowded in the gym. Oh well!

I was lucky though, I still had a good view of Ethan and Julia from where I was sitting.
So for anyone who's interested, here's a sample of the program.


These first two are of Ethan, he's wearing a red shirt and is in the bottom row towards the middle.

These second two are of Julia, she's in a red shirt and is in one of the middle rows and her hair is pulled back.

The kids last day of school was the 22nd. I was thinking that was really late to start Christmas break but it ended up saving me since I wasn't able to get anything done until that week because of hundreds of Christmas orders. I was lucky that I had done some shopping online or I really would have been in trouble.

Sledding at the Park City condo

While staying in Park City we were able to go sledding for the first time this winter.

There was a little hill in the back of the condos where we stayed

and that's where we started out.

They finished up sledding here and Derek took the kids to find a bigger hill.

Ethan went down and hit a rock at the bottom of the huge hill and it dented his sled.

He was hurting at first, but luckily he was back to normal before long.

The kids really wanted to play Monopoly while we were there so we finally relented.

We played in the lobby of the condo, which was also the only area where the internet was working, so I was able to be online at the same time.

We were so happy to have a few days to relax!

Olympic Park

Towards the beginning of December we got away from the craziness of work/school/preparing for the holidays, and took a little trip to Park City.



We lucked out and were there the exact weekend of the pre-olympic ski jumping competition at the Utah Olympic Park.

It was amazing to be SO close to the ski jumpers!

The kids had lots of fun playing in the snow at the park.

Did I mention we were SO close?!

Viewing the competition from one of the upstairs decks,

do you see the ski jumper on the hill next to us?

As we were leaving we saw this snow cat:

The driver saw the kids looking at it and let them go inside and check it out.

He said it was the only one of its kind in all of North America!

It was an amazing experience, and I'm glad we were able to go!