Two weeks into 2014

The wonderful Lucy, aka Elsa, at the Midway, Utah Ice Castles

Well I had a new year's resolution to try and post a weekly family blog and  am very close to 3 weeks behind.  Time is flying by and there is a ton going on.  Ill do my best to summarize the Kandell's happenings from the past couple of weeks.

Does it get any cuter or chubbier than this?

Love my Ady bug

Skiing with the speedster Max is always fun

The weekends have pretty much consisted of non stop skiing up at Sundance. Even little Lucy has gotten in on the action.  It's so much fun to ski with the kids.  They just love it.  Max is a speed freak and just wants to dive bomb the hills as fast as he can.  Adyson takes her time and does her turns and is cautious.  This past weekend we even got Hailey up on the mountain and she had not been skiing in 15 yrs.  it really is great to be out in the mountains as a family laughing, skiing, eating and whatever else.  We are certainly looking forward to the rest if the winter season.

In addition to skiing we have, well I have at least.  Really enjoyed our church starting at 9 am again.  It just seems like the days allow for more family time, get togethers and sheer relaxing.  

The kids, Ady and Max have started robotics class once a week after school and seem to really like that too.  Ady is in the heart of dance performance time so she is keeping way busy with that.

As you may have seen in the top picture, we spent one evening up in Midway at the Ice Caves and this was so cool.   The Midway Ice Caves are particularly awesome this year due to the hit Disney Movie, Frozen.  They have all these kids believing that Elsa made the ice castles.

Date night at the ice castles/caves in Miday, Utah

They look pretty cool with the lights behind them

Looking up into the ceiling

Well I sure hope to be able to post more of this stuff soon.  Life is great right now!

Share

oops its been over a month

It was October the last time I posted a blog and here I am, now 38 and a few days away from Christmas.  Where has the time gone?  Where has the past year gone?  I cannot believe how fast time just keeps on going.  The only reason I am even finding time right now is because Hailey and I are sitting on an airplane on our way back to Utah.  

We visited Chicago for a couple of days to celebrate my birthday and to do some last minute shopping.  

With the ease of shopping online these days it was actually really nice to spend some time getting stuff for the kids together.  It really helps to put you in the Christmas spirit being all bundled up in a city in the cold and just thinking about your kids and the time of year and kind of putting everything else on hold for a bit.

Putting things on hold has been tough the past few months.  One of our biggest pieces of information is that I left a mortgage company that I was part of for well over 6 years and have now started my own company.  Though this is very exciting, it has come with lots of work and effort and I am sure it will be that way for some time.  

The name of the new company is United Military Mortgage and well, just keep your eyes and ears open because it is going places.  Well, at least I hope so.

So this is our family blog so I want to keep it to that.  We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in our home in American Fork, though we normally head down to St George when it is the Kandell's year.  We had a 40th birthday party to attend for my cousin Weston out in California the day after Thanksgiving so it was easier to stay in AF this year.  Hailey did an amazing job setting the scene for a fun and festive Thanksgiving. 

 The Lovell cousins came over and believe it or not, we even all got in the swimming pool.  We were not in for long, but did spend some time in the hot tub.

Grandpa and Grandma Kandell were in town and Grandma Sue had all sorts of arts and crafts for the kiddos which was nice because it kept them all occupied for quite some time.

  Grandpa Jim and I loved spending time cooking and we smoked a turkey and fried one too!  There was certainly no shortage of food this year.  Hailey made her famous sweet creamed corn, Lisa did rolls and a brussel sprouts and well who knows, we sure ate well though.

Like I mentioned, Hailey and I flew out to California the Friday after Thanksgiving to celebrate the 40th birthday of my cousin Weston and that was a blast.  

We stayed at the Michels home in Encino and it was so much fun and brought back many great memories for me.  When I was first in college and had met Cat, now Weston's wife, I had the opportunity to visit that home many times and it is always so much fun.

Some other things we have been up to the past month or two are:
Family pictures

Adyson's and Lucy have had their first dance performances of the season
Max and Ady continue to do tennis lessons

Christmas programs for all 3 kids at Challenger
My work Christmas party
Hailey was actually in the hospital in and out for an infection she got in her hip. 

Elves on the shelves throughout the house

Christmas tree decorating in the kids rooms

I am totally wishing I had made the time to write once a week like I had been doing so well for a while and who knows, this may be a new year's resolution so that in 2014 I can do much better at writing and documenting what we are up to.  It is always so much fun to go back and read.

Christmas is just 3 days away.  Cannot wait

Share

Where have have the last 3 weeks gone?

I cannot believe how easy it is to miss just one week of blogging and then before you know it, you are almost a month behind.  To be honest, it is not like I have not been super busy, well WE ALL HAVE, so it has not been easy to find the time to share with you all.

Thanks to technology I have scrolled back in my Iphone camera to try and remember all we have been doing.

My very last post was our quick little jaunt down to St George and per the camera roll in my phone here is a bulleted list of all we have been up to.

• pulling all the edible and salvageable goodies out of our garden
• newly discovered Lucy video interviews
• getting in the Halloween spirit at Cornbellys
• Sunday hikes
• Carving pumpkins
• a family trip to Punta Mita
• Max and Daddy BYU football game

I will share a little blurb on each of these with you now.  

Pulling all the edible and salvageable goodies out of our garden

Tomatoes, basil, and lots of herbs

Our family garden was very plentiful this summer and as the fall has approached we have had to put sheets over the veggies (just the tomatoes) and we were able to extend the season.  We picked enough basil that we have bags and bags of pesto and we also roasted tons of tomatoes and froze them along with the pesto.  We are hoping for some gardeny goodness all winter long.

newly discovered Lucy video interviews 

Getting in the Halloween spirit at Cornbellys

haunted hayride at Cornbellys

Here is a nice shot of Hailey and the kiddos all ready to go on the haunted hay ride.  You have got to love that Lucy smile.  Cornbellys is so awesome.  Thanksgiving point has gotten better ever single year and has added all sorts of fun stuff for the kids, corn cannons, mazes, rock climbing, haunted stuff, games, food and much more. 

Sunday hikes 

These guys can be the best of friends or worst of enemies on any given day

As fall has set in we have made a kind of Sunday tradition of driving up the canyon toward the Draper temple and we found a hiking trail off the side of the road and the kids have loved it.  One week it was cold, cloudy and rainy but this past Sunday it was beautiful.

Carving pumpkins

We had a family home evening one monday at the Lovell's house and aunt Lisa did a family home evening lesson on the harmful effects of telling lies and Hailey and I brought pumpkins to have the kids carve.  It was a really fun time and we took seeds home and cooked them up and they were all eaten up within the next day.

a family trip to Punta Mita 

Harris Kids, Noble Kids and Kandell Kids in the Villa Luna Pool

Date night with Hailey at Sea Breaze

Can you believe this picture?

The highlight of October, at least as of now is our family and friends trip to beautiful Punta Mita Mexico.  This is the same house we went to last Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Kandell.  We love it so much we went back and this time took two other families with us.  We went with the Harris family and the Noble family.  It was awesome to have so many kids to entertain each other and we parents had a blast too.  The food was great, the house as comfortable and relaxing as always and we had great weather too.  I feel like Punta Mita will be one of those destinations we will make a family traditional trip/vacation full of memories.

Max and Daddy BYU football game

BYU spanked Boise State this night

Max and I went to the BYU vs Boise State game and had a great time.  Here we are in the cougar store getting our gear on!  Max loved that little ball we bought and we threw it and played catch under the stadium at half time and he thought that was the highlight as there were so many other "older" boys doing it too.  He now wants to go back with his cousins Easton and Zach since they know how to play catch too.

Well as you can see October has been awesome so far and Halloween is right around the corner so we are very excited for that too.

Share