In addition to the prizes you can win by participating in this contest you can also win a two day class package to the Digital Scrapbook Memories Retreat in SLC, UT by posting this image on your website. Click here for more information.
I can't sleep so I thought I would look at Flickr some more. Fortunately, I did get a good block of sleep, I just woke up way early.
Here are two more Flickr favorite collages I made. I think they are so pretty. My favorite is still the colorful one in the last post, but I would love to put any of these in my house. By "making them" I mean I logged onto Flickr, saved pictures other people took that I thought would look good in a collage, then saved the thumbnails Flickr provided from my favorites section. Easy.
I think the white one is interesting. I thought it would be fun to make a white collage with bits of color, texture and design. I'm excited it worked out.
Want to play I Spy with some of my favorite pictures? Look for these awesome pictures in the three Flickr collages:
1) A beautiful white peacock
2) A grey and red VW
3) A jumping penguin (there are two, but my favorite is in the colorful collage)
4) A photo shoot set up (white)
5) A heart on a spoon
6) Blue untied tennis shoes
7) A green boat
8) Red raspberries
9) White stairs
10) 6th picture down, 3rd picture over (blue and red... BEAUTIFUL)
I'm now officially in love with Flickr. I can't believe how much talent is on that site. Amazing.
I'm not feeling great today so (as you can see by the amount of posting I've done today) I have spent a lot of time sitting around today. I love some of the Flickr collages I have seen others create and thought I would try and make my own. I love these pictures!!! I need to try and take my own so I can put something like this up in my house.
My friend Barb tagged me. You are supposed to post your sixth picture in your sixth folder, then tag six friends. I've done this tag before with the fourth folder, fourth picture but I'll do it again.
This is my niece whose name starts with N (I'm not sure if her mom would care if I posted her name???). It's a picture from about 4 years ago at a family Fourth of July party. That was a really fun party and I have great memories of my Grandma Park there. Unknowingly, I took her obituary picture that day.
I started to tag some of you, but it takes so long I'm going to tag anyone who wants to do this instead.
I'm not sure anyone else will think this is funny, but I do. I spent some time with some really fun friends who got the brilliant idea to buy Air Soft guns and shoot each other. They got Keith a gun too, but he didn't think getting shot would be much fun. These guys loaded up, put on lots of layers and ran around the yard shooting each other. Apparently some of the shots hurt quite a bit, but that didn't stop them. They had so much fun and the rest of us had a great time laughing at them.
Remember the friend who broke her arm skating with me? Well, she posted a video of me skating. It's proof I'm not very good, but getting better. It's the top video on this post. Please pretend to be interested. Keith thinks I'm like a little kid needing approval. It's true. Also, notice the way Mindee talks. She is so positive. I am pretty positive, but I would have started with the fact that I broke my arm rather than "skating was fun".
Well, then again, skating really is fun.
What family members are going to the Pope Reunion next summer? We'll be there for sure. I hope all of you Foley cousins will be there. All of the Oaks brothers are planning on it, right?
Here are a couple pictures related to that last picture I posted. I had so much fun messing around with my camera and learning how to take these pictures. Can you see my hubby under there?
Before Mindee broke her arm.
Poor Mindee. I feel so bad for her. She lost her balance and was trying not to fall on one of the kids when she broke her arm. She just landed wrong. She is super tough though and didn't even shed a tear. She even tried to help me get the other kids off the ice! I had to convince her I could take care of it and to just take care of herself.
Before Luke and his friend went off Daredevil Jump.
I mentioned this in a previous post. This is before Luke's nose started bleeding because he hit his friend's head. His nose ended up swelling up big, and with in a couple days when the swelling started to go down he had a big green bruise on his nose and under his left eye.
It was so sad to see him get hurt. He was having so much fun and had just been naming all of the sledding runs like they do at the ski resorts. I have now learned that when your kid names a something "Daredevil Jump" you should practice some caution and not let him ride down the hill with his friend. Hindsight is 20/20.
Here is another picture from that day when we were all still having a great time.
Despite these accidents, my kids and I are still in the mood to play hard. Let's just hope all of our accidents are behind us. Geesh!
Keith asked for some help in the garage today while he was working on his jeep. It is typically not my favorite thing to sit around in a cold dirty garage holding tools, but I had a lot of fun today. He told me to cut some thick sheet metal for him. He was just trying to get me involved, I know nothing about this stuff. I didn't really care to try at first, but I did it and ended up having a blast! I felt so powerful. The plasma cutter is amazing. It's absolutely effortless cutting thick steel. I was having enough fun he gave me a couple more pieces to play with. Of course there is no way I would be satisfied with cutting straight so I made a little love note for the garage :)
I got to try the grinder too which was fun. Now I'm waiting to try the welder.
Megan asked to go ice skating yesterday and was so cute and sincere about wanting to go I decided to take her. Normally it's Luke that asks, and Megan doesn't really care about going.
I really wanted to try the ice rink at Solitude so we did. My grandpa Park came with us. On the way up we saw two bull moose! I think moose are my favorite animal because they are so big and remind me of my favorite place, the Tetons.
The ice rink was absolutely gorgeous! GORGEOUS! We even got lucky and got the rink to ourselves. Luke and I had the most fun, but Megan was happy too. After we skated they wanted ice cream. I guess I had them bundled up tight enough didn't I?
Here are some fun pictures. I wish I had my better camera with me. We got there just as it was getting dark and the little camera just didn't cut it.
I have had a blast the past couple months staying extra busy with skating, sledding and skiing but I think the party has to slow down for a while. Last night on our way home we slid off the road. It was a warmer dry day so it was a shock to hit black ice on one of the turns down the mountain. I started to slide a little bit and hoped to correct the car, but I couldn't and we plowed into a snowbank on the side of the road. Thankfully, we hit the mountain side of the road rather than the cliff side. Also, we are really lucky to live where we have the "greatest snow on earth". The snow we hit was totally soft and when we hit we didn't even feel our seat belts tug. We spun enough that I did a 270 degree turn. By the time we stopped, the snow drift we were in was up to the window of my Tahoe. We would have rolled on our side if it weren't for the snow, making me even more grateful we had such an easy stop. My car has a little damage to the lights and running board, but it's ok otherwise. We are so lucky.
My grandpa wanted to get out and flag the cars to slow down but I begged him to stay put. I wanted all of us to stay put with our seat belts on. We were far enough off the road that no one would hit us unless they slid the same way so I didn't see any use getting out of the car. About 10 cars stopped for us at different times. I yelled to the first lady who stopped and told her we were just fine and not to worry about us. I thanked her and told her we would call the Sheriff and be ok. I didn't want her out of her car either. When she left we realized our phones didn't work, but someone stopped within in a couple minutes again and we told them we were fine but needed them to call the Sheriff when they could. I felt bad for all of the people stopping, but was also so grateful. People were so happy to help. The last group that stopped for us also slid, but they were ok and slid nice and straight. I thanked them a bunch of times but told them we thought it was best to wait for the Sheriff. We were on a blind corner and I didn't dare try to get out without the Sherrff blocking the road. They decided to help anyway and drove up the canyon to slow cars down. One guy stayed with us and communicated what the Sherriff needed as he pulled us out. I'm so grateful for him because getting out was really easy thanks to his instructions. The Sheriff was really great. I couldn't believe how fast he got me out and sent me on my way. Phew! Apparently there were a lot of us that night.
I'm not feeling really confident right now. I'm wondering if it's better to stay home and play the Wii where I know we are safe or continue to take the kids to do neat things. Obviously the more you drive or the more you participate in sports the more chances you have of getting hurt. I feel a little shaken right now and I'm not sure I could handle the pain of hurting my grandpa or my kids. This has been a crazy week. Last Saturday I told you how I accidentally took Luke on that blue ski run. I was a bit stressed while I was sleeping that night, thinking of him possibly going out of control. Next, on Monday (I never blogged about this) I took the kids sledding again and Luke bonked his nose on his friend so hard that it has been fat and swollen since. And now this. What an adventurous week Luke has had.
I know I won't stay home. I'll get back out there, but not today. I certainly couldn't imagine staying out of the mountains because of this, but I'm going to be driving slower now. For the record, I never drove fast before (well at least since having kids) but now I'll be going even slower. There is no way I can stay away from Solitude. Ice skating there was beyond amazing.
Amy and I have talked about skating for several weeks (maybe months) and we finally got out yesterday! It was so much fun. I really enjoyed skating with a grown up for a change. Is there anyone else out there who would want to go with me (us)? Amy and I would both really like to take lessons too. When we were skating yesterday we were watching a couple people older than us practicing - they were so GOOD! One guy just started taking lessons within the past year or so (I think). We also saw a little girl taking private lessons and another girl (below) practicing jumps and twirls with a coach. Look at the neat harness she is wearing. It makes so much sense that they use those to train, but I never knew! Wouldn't it be fun to try that?
Isn't Amy's ice skating outfit the cutest? Also, notice my *new* skates. Keith bought them for me for Christmas. They are big and funny looking but they work GREAT and I love them!!
Flowers and tape from the Family Ties CD.
For anyone who wants to learn how to ski or snowboard there are some AMAZING deals out this month. Apparently it's Learn a Snowsport Month. The 13 ski resorts around here are offering "Lucky 13" deals.
$13 tickets
$13 rentals
$13 lessons
Different resorts are offering different variations on this and some require you to pay for all three to get any deal at all, but that is still incredible. I called Snowbird because I was toying with the idea of getting Megan lessons but they require you to be 15 or older. Other resorts may be different, but I'm not sure I'm serious enough to keep calling around.
Here is the link to the info. http://www.skiutah.com/lucky13/ Make sure you scroll down.
Yesterday Luke wanted to go to Snowbird so bad he was willing to pay for it himself. So I let him. I had a free ski ticket to Snowbird that I had planned to use to ski by myself but I was happy to go with Luke. He woke up so excited. It was great!
We studied the trail maps and planned our day. I wanted to make sure I stuck to the easier trails for him. We spent the morning on the lower runs then chose to go up the Peruvian Express to the tunnel. If you look at the map below it's the red line on the left. The idea was to go through the tunnel and ski the green runs on the other side. Then we would take another chairlift up to the tram and take that down. Easy.
Well there were no signs warning us the tunnel had just been closed. We didn't find out until we were on the top. The wind was fierce when we got there and our only way down was an intermediate run. Here is a picture of Luke in front of what would be a big cliff in the summer. In the winter, it's your way down.
I looked at the hill and thought it would be tough but we could do it. I was right. Luke did it. He had to go slow and was pretty cold (and a bit nervous) but he did great. I taught him how to make quick turns on the steep hill and he thankfully he trusted me and learned super quick. It was such a relief to get down and a great feeling to look up at where we had been. We had a few minutes of easy going skiing before we hit the next challenge. Our biggest challenge. The run was as close to black as you can get. It was a groomed run but there was a lot of loose powder that day and lots of bumps because we were skiing over the trees. I'm sure it would have been a black diamond at another resort. I was a bit freaked out at the thought of taking Luke down, but figured if we went slow we could make it. It was just too tough though. Finally after skiing over him once I decided to take off our skis and slide down because Luke was so cold. Fortunately for us this super nice guy (Gunner) stopped and said he would help us down. He carried Luke's skis and followed us to make sure we would be ok. Sliding down on our bums was pretty scary because it was so steep but Luke was able to stay in control. I was pretty amazed. By this time I was so nervous of what was to come. I've skied that way before on my own but it's such a different perspective when you have your precious little boy with you. Here is another picture just before the place we got in trouble.
After a while Gunner took off and we would have been fine but I was so happy to see him at the top of the last steep hill. Gunner told Luke to follow him down the hill and he did GREAT! He stumbled a bit but he did it. This is a picture of Gunner helping Luke one time when he stumbled. The picture makes the hill look flat but it isn't! 
Luke feels pretty good about himself now. I'm still a bit shaken. You know, I hear over and over how much people love Snowbird. I think I finally figured out why. The trails are much more challenging at Snowbird and less groomed (more powder). While I will definitely go to Snowbird over and over again, I am even more grateful for Alta's free Sunnyside lift. It's absolutely perfect for beginning skiers. The lift takes you high enough that you feel like you get to see a lot. It's well groomed and has plenty of paths down giving you plenty of skill options. It's a really fun ride down for me when I'm alone too. I think my heart will always be at the Canyons though. I love it there. It's a huge resort and I know the paths there the best because I have skied it the most.
Here are a few more pictures of Snowbird. I've got a couple videos I want to post later too.
So, as I mentioned in the last post... we had a great time at our friend Lenny's house the other day. Here is one view of his backyard. Isn't it incredible!!! There aren't many hot tubs as inviting as this one are there? I think Lenny has excellent taste in real estate locations :)
I almost didn't take my camera. I'm so glad I did!
Yesterday we had an awesome time at my friend Lenny's house. His house is beautiful and his yard is to die for. He has incredible views of the entire valley. My sister Angie and I took our kids sledding in his backyard. It was so much fun. I'll post on that later.
I took a lot of pictures I liked yesterday but these three are the ones I'm the most proud of. I experimented with the aperture of my camera and FINALLY figured out how to take a decent sunset picture. I'm excited.
I love this picture so much! Doesn't Lenny have the greatest view? We took Luke's skis to Lenny's so he could spend a couple minutes showing off his skills. The hill is actually small, you'll see later when I post more pictures.
This was taken on a quick drive by. My sweet sister knew how bad I wanted a picture of the temple with the sunset so she turned around and found a good spot for me to take a picture. There was no place to park but no one was behind us for a few seconds so she stopped and I took the picture super fast. Luckily I had my camera settings the way I needed them after I took the picture of the Utah Capital shown below.
You've got to check out my friend Kayla's Spink Studio blog. I'm in love with this picture she took.
WOW!!! What an incredible eye for beauty you have Kayla! This picture is incredible! My jaw is still on the floor!
Kayla is a really great photographer and graphic artist. Check out her website too.
I knew Luke was capable of skiing but I figured we'd be on the easiest bunny slopes possible for a LONG time. I was wrong. Today he magically figured out how to ski. I really think that skating lesson helped the other day because skiing and ice skating are fairly similar. He got down the entire mountain only falling a couple times! Amazing. By the second run he wanted to do the hardest of the green slopes (green are easy). He did just fine with those too. I will definitely be bringing a video camera next time! Wahoo!
Here are some pictures from my iPhone. 
I'm on a quest to find fun free activities with my kids here in Salt Lake. I have stumbled on lots of free activities in the past couple months that normally cost a pretty penny. It's made me realize there are a lot of fun opportunities out there if you look for them.
Today I was going to take my kids to the Museum of Natural History because it's free the first Monday of the month. As we were driving there I saw two cars slide off the freeway in different spots and I realized it wasn't worth "saving money" to go.
I did find a couple of other fun things to do this week. I don't think I can go to any of them (except maybe the last one) but I hope some of you can go.
At 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 8th there is going to be a yo-yo show by 1996 World Yo-Yo Champion and Yo-Yo Hall of Famer, Dale Myrberg. It's going to be held at the South Jordan Library (10673 South Redwood Road) I wish I could take my kids to this but I have a meeting... darn it.
At 7 p.m. on Friday, January 9th there is a free full moon snowshoe outing up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Sounds kind of fun. As I mentioned in a previous post I would have paid for something like this. Unfortunately, I my doubt my date would ever go so I'm not even going to ask him.
From 10-3 on Saturday, January 10th there is a free Winter Trails Day. It sounds great! There is free snowshoeing, cross country and skate skiing for 10 years and up. I would have gone to this if they would have let my kids come. I think it's sponsored by REI. They'll be doing some training there too so it's a good day to go if you want to learn any of those sports or just need a good workout. Information is on the same link as the snowshoe one.
Also on Saturday, January 10th is a free Tour with a Ranger program at four different ski resorts (Alta, Solitude, Snowbird and Brighton). It sounds too good to be true so I'm calling on it. I left one message and haven't got a response yet. It sounds like a couple of the lifts are free for the tour and you get to learn more about where you love to ski and snowboard. They discuss local mining history, public lands, watershed and winter ecology while you ski I guess. Sounds interesting. Information also available on that same snowshoe link as well on the resort websites (well... I saw it on Solitude's website at least).
FYI - I found all of these things on UtahMama.com
Yesterday was great. I want to repeat it! First, I volunteered to clean the new Draper Temple in the morning. I got to walk around every bit of the temple. I opened doors, looked into open attic spaces, everything. I didn't get to go in the Celestial room because it had already been cleaned, but they let us peek in there. Wow!!! Wait until you see the light fixture in there!
The temple isn't dedicated yet so anyone (whether you belong to my church or not) can go in there now. You can get tickets here.
They were still putting the alters in some of the sealing rooms. It was fun to see them unfinished but best of all was watching a man put gold leafing on the design of the alter. It was pretty interesting. He let me take some of it home to my kids. It breaks really easy so I didn't get a lot home, but I glued what I had into one of my old paper journals. They glue the 23 carrot gold onto the alter so I figured it would work to glue it into my journal.
If any of you have questions about the temple I'm happy to answer them. Even if your questions start with something really weird you heard. There are so many crazy rumors that people hear about our church, I really like being able to help people understand the truth. Sometimes what you hear and think is weird is really something we do or believe, but a lot of the time it's totally false. There have been a lot of misleading things in the media this past year that make me cringe. Sometimes I wonder why our church doesn't do more to correct these things in the media, but maybe they can't or maybe it doesn't matter. I don't know.
When I got home from the temple we went ice skating at the Olympic Ice Rink. I've never been there before but I will be back for sure! What an incredible facility. Yesterday they had a free learn to skate clinic (I wish I would have called you). The kids went off on their own for a mini lesson and I went off for one too. We all learned a lot in just 20 minutes or so. Megan can now skate on her own! Luke can stop, skate faster and skate backwards. I learned how to stop without using a spin. I usually spin to stop but the way I learned yesterday is much easier and allows me to stop faster. Yay! The rink wasn't that crowded for a free learn to skate program and we stayed until the very end and had about 15 minutes with hardly anyone there. I was able to figure out how to spin in place multiple times as well as skate and spin as I go. Trust me, I'm NOT even a tiny bit graceful but it is still fun and exciting. I also can skate backwards now (I learned that the last time we went). It's so exciting to me.
I left out some pictures from my 2008 in Review post below, but I think they deserve their own post. This was a wild night (just last Sunday). The kids were up until one when I finally put my foot down and insisted they go to sleep. It was wild, crazy and tiring. It was worth seeing my kids have such a great time with their cousins though.
Notice Megan's adorable nightgown. Her Aunt Jill made it for her. Megan LOVES it!
