I worked extra hard to get all of my visits done for work early in the week. Mom and dad arrived on Tuesday night and where did we go first...Mom's favorite store, REI. We spent a couple of hours there looking at snowshoes and I bought my first topographic map. We looked at all sorts of things. Kenny has been playing ward basketball and bought himself a new basketball to take to the practices. The other day he forgot his ball and when he went back to look for it, it was nowhere. So that night mom and dad got it was basketball night and Kenny wanted to go try to find it. When he came home from playing he was sporting his basketball on his hip! Yay!
Boise state football was on for their bowl game down in Vegas against Utah...and they beat them...obviously! Dad and Kenny being big boise state fans:
I took mom and dad to kneaders...such a yummy place to eat! The next day we woke up hoping to do something fun outdoors.
We ended up making lots of goodies while they were here:)
However it was raining all day long:( As much as I love the rain, it was sad because nobody wanted to go outside. There was snow all around, but it was getting all wet, so we couldn't ski around the golf course.
The next day we went up to Big Cottonwood Canyon and went snowshoeing up the hiking trail to dog lake. We aimed for desolation lake, but didn't quite make it.
So we veered over to dog lake instead. It was a really fun trip, I think we were all pretty tired after that though!
This is where we sat down and ate lunch, it was a pretty setting with dog lake below us.
That night we ate at Ruth's Diner...super yummy food:)
And then went to Ballet West's The Nutcracker. It was an amazing show! It was the best production I think I've ever seen. I really liked it.
Then we went to the Melting Pot for dessert. Sooo good!
The next day was Christmas Eve, Kenny wanted to run some errands with Tom and Rachel so I took mom and dad cross country skiing up near Tibble fork reservoir, since he's sworn off the sport because of his unfortunate accident last year. I definitely learned my lesson! (don't laugh at someone and make them ski down a hill they don't want to...)
There were quite a few snowmobiles, so it was kind of noisy and all of the tracks we made got ran over by then...ugh. It sure was beautiful though. 
I had to get a scenery shot when we got there, the fog was just in the right area, it was absolutely gorgeous! It was pretty chilly and the sun went behind the mountains early, so the snow started to harden up a lot. 
We ended up going back and forth on the same track that was still in the sun. We had a good time anyways:) 
Then we headed back home, mom drove the subaru and accelerated through the canyon road stating she loves feeling like a race-car driver! Once home, we started making Christmas Eve dinner. We had salmon and all sorts of yummy things. 
It was a lovely dinner! After dinner we started the fateful game of mexican train dominoes. We stayed up until 4am playing! We were so tired, we decided nobody was getting up early! 
Merry Christmas!! We got up around 1130 and I made caramel bread.
Tom and Rachel came down from her family's house and had some breakfast with us and then we opened presents. 
Kenny and I got snowshoes from Santa!!! How nice of him:) 
Rachel sporting her new smartwool jacket!! Awesome:)
I was totally loving dad's shirt. If you can't read it, it says: Coho Ho and Humpy Holidays!
Mom and I made another batch of caramel popcorn and then we headed down to Mike and Tiffinie's for a family night.
The next day we went back up to Cottonwood canyon and tried out our new snowshoes.
It was snowing like crazy on us, but it was so fun. These snowshoes have a heel lift for when you're climbing hills, it really helps out! 
Cute little tree people had been decorating (in the middle of nowhere!), many people were hiking up and backcountry skiing in this area...I was dreaming of having my board with me the whole time, the powder was just magnificent! The snowshoes were fabulous, in fact so much so that my mom had to get a pair en-route back home at the Seattle REI since the Utah REI's were sold out! 
The second day snowshoeing was so much fun, we were in really deep powder which was a huge workout, and then on the way down we ran down the hill and in snowshoes it felt as though we were floating. We had a great time. 
We even saw an old miners cabin, kind of cool and very abandoned.The next day we went skiing to Solitude, it was so fun to be up there...it's just so dang expensive.
Mom worked on her telemarking technique while dad, Kenny, and I enjoyed snowboarding. It was a nice day but we hadn't had much snow recently so it wasn't real powdery....unfortunately :( We still had fun!
We forgot to get a picture while we were boarding...no excuse for me (miss paparazzi!).On the way down from the mountain mom got a horrible cramp in her leg. We were so squished with all of the ski stuff the only place she could put it was...
up :) Don't worry, we did pull over and let her out to walk it out. It was still pretty funny:) Then we met up with Herbie and had dinner with him. 
We did some cross country skiing the next day and it was just beautiful out.
We had such a fun time, we ended up going in the tracks at solitude nordic center.
We had lots of fun. 
Then the trip was over :( we were so sad to see mom and dad go, but had such a great time together! Love you guys so much!Later that night, Tom came over to visit and got stuck while trying to come in our driveway and then got stuck again on the way out. Luckily it was nothing that two guys, one girl driver, and a couple of shovels couldn't fix :) It was snowing like crazy!
They did not appreciate this picture! Merry Christmas everyone!! Sorry the post is so late.
