Sundance and these dear people

This has been an extra busy school year so far, with Abe running cross-country at the high school, and all the kids in more extracurriculars than we've ever done. I think it's all about to get a lot better (the end of the cross-country season corresponding with Abe's birthday and him having his driver's license now, hallelujah!) but it's been an intense few months of driving to and fro, deadlines, double-booked schedules, gulping down meals on the way somewhere else, and hardly having a minute to take a breath between it all.

So, bless my brother Philip and his wife for coming from California, all the way to Utah with three busy boys plus two new baby twins in tow. We got to be present for Philip's priesthood blessing of the babies, and we even got to take our traditional trip with them up to the Sundance ski lift! It was wonderful to be outside in the Fall sunshine, breathing in the mountain air and watching the cousins play—or examine ski lift mechanisms—together. As I've been looking through these pictures I've been thinking about how so many of these connections, all these people I love, weren't even in my wildest imaginings thirty, or even twenty, years ago. How could Philip and I, lying in our red and blue bunk beds giggling as we tried to pretend to be asleep when our parents came in to check on us—how could we, riding our bikes over to the church parking lot or playing "ewoks" in our backyard tree fort—how could we have possibly imagined these 13 wiggling, chattering, poking-each-other, independent little PEOPLE that would become our whole worlds? It fills me with wonder to think about it.

Abe and my mom

Teddy, Seb, and Ky in a rare moment of happy conspiracy (which must certainly be memorialized, blurry or not)!

Ah, my favorite—every color together on a hillside! 

Everyone is so bundled up, it looks like it must have been freezing on top of this mountain! Some years it has been, and Philip always conscientiously puts hats and gloves on us if we don't bring them ourselves! :) But it wasn't cold at all this year. It was a beautiful, warm Fall day! In fact, everyone was getting hot and gradually discarding all their coats and outerwear (and wanting me to carry it all, of course—which I of course refused to do! If there's one thing I have less and less tolerance for over the years, it's this idea that I am the children's pack mule.)

Ah, now you can see their rainbow shirts. Cute.

Birds of a feather Ben and Seb. Fascinated, as always, by the zipline and the lift mechanics.

Mountains stretching back forever.

Hopping on the lift while it's moving (with little people in tow) is always just a little bit scary. But so far we've managed it without mishap.

Dark sky, gold grass.

It was a little windy! Enough to blow our hair in our faces constantly. And to disrupt Ziggy's poik.

Those toasty, golden aspens! I love them!

Judy Lynn and Junie Lark.

Malachi. Not mad. But also very determinedly not cute.

Daniel and Ky in earnest conversation about…rocks?

That bright aspen grove in the foreground surely must be the prettiest place on earth!

Three big boys and one little boy. I hope they are holding him tight!

The bowl behind Timpanogos.

Soldiers marching up a hill.

The Nielson group. ONE of us was not pleased about being forced into this picture. And the whole day was like that, of course. Plenty of fighting and arguing and disobedience and tears. But here we all are, in spite of it. Hanging on together.

Philip helps Adam take a picture.

What a lovely place with the loveliest people. Next year the baby twins will be running all around trying to fall off cliffs! And Ziggy will be helping them! If we are all granted another year, that is. For now, I am so glad we had this beautiful day!