San Diego Sunshine

The girls and I met up with many of the other Springer girls in San Diego the second weekend of January. It was a much  needed respite in the sunshine!

We had one beautiful, warm day to play on the beach before the rain set back in.

 

 On Saturday afternoon the girls all got their nails done while I picked up some snacks at Trader Joe's

Food was a fun adventure, and we ate lots of good Mexican Food (and Denny's was a great choice for brunch on Saturday).

 Ali and I showed up in accidentally matching dresses for church!

We attended church at a beautiful chapel in San Diego. The parking lot was underground!

Sunday afternoon we walked around Old Town San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center.

 And that night we walked on the beach one more time, right at sunset!

 Goodbye to beautiful San Diego!

Love Day 2017

Traditions. It's a big deal. We love our Valentine's Day traditions!

 A few images from Valentine's Day morning.

 Aubrey's cute Valentine's Day school outfit.

Snowmageddon

I'm not using hyperbole - this year's winter was widely referred to as Snowmageddon around here. It was a truly crazy 3 month long series of snowstorms and freezing rain/ice storms which paralyzed the entire community. School was cancelled for at least 8 days in each school district. On a few notably bad travel days, it took unfortunate souls 8 hours in a car to get from Portland to Vancouver. During the first bad snow/icestorm the freeways were literally sheets of ice and HUNDREDS of people abandoned their cars on the freeway and walked to the nearest warm place. We rued the lack of 4-wheel-drive vehicle and pretty much were housebound for many days. It was extremely questionable whether or not we could pick up and drop off our winter visitors (Bailey, Brandon, and Angela) from the airport. My presidency had to meet virtually via Google hangout for several months in a row because every time we planned a meeting it snowed!

These first pictures were after a fairly good snowstorm on December 16th (about the 4th time it had snowed so far during the season), when Bailey was here to play in the snow with us.

We took time to take pictures outside on the sunny, snowy day

And reveled in a snowball fight. 

Made lots of snow angels

And then, as the weeks went on we kept getting snow. And ice. And freezing rain. And more snow. And then on the night of January 10th we watched the winter wonderland get even whiter and prettier.  Over a foot of snow dropped that night.

The next day we measured about 14 inches of snow, and snow kept falling all day long. Not surprisingly, school was cancelled.
 
 And we ventured into the winter wonderland

Joseph helped get heavy snow off of trees, bushes, and the basketball hoop.

I had Joseph pause to take a re-creation picture because this snowstorm reminded me of the big storm of 2008, when Joseph was 3 years old. The amount of snow that fell was pretty similar.

 Now and then, Aubrey's has always loved to eat snow. But now she puts the snow in a cup with flavorings!

Joseph spent hours creating pretend worlds out in the snow

 And we sledded day and night until we were entirely sick of it.

We were actually glad when the weather turned to rain! Because at least we can drive on rain and the kids can GO TO SCHOOL.  But it's definitely not as pretty!

Elf the Musical

The week after Thanksgiving 2016 Aubrey starred as Jovie in Elf the Musical, performed at a beautiful historic theater in Longview. She was radiant and funny, with an angelic voice!

Backstage, before the opening numbers.

 My furtive phone shot of the final moment of the play.

 Afterward, with her admiring fans. 

 The girl below on the right cried crocodile tears when her parents said she had to leave before taking a picture with Jovie.  Aubrey had to hug her for awhile before she calmed down enough to pose for the picture.

 About 35 friends came to support Aubrey in the play. 

 Aubrey and her friend Calvin, who did an amazing job as Buddy the Elf. 

 Aubrey's Christmas ornament this year was a great quote from Elf!