The Grubers: January 2017 - Jason’s Birthday and Snow!

We’ve finally made it to 2017! Only a half year behind, but still pushing on.

As I mentioned in my Christmas post, the Spencers stayed an extra week so we got to spend some fun time with them. We went swimming with them again back at the Provo Rec Center, this time just us (me, Charlie, and Colson), Spencers, and Grandma. It was a Thursday afternoon and hardly anyone was there! It was seriously awesome! After a fun time swimming, we went to Swig (Alli had never been but had heard a lot about it from friends). We got cookies and drinks. It was delicious; the kids AND adults were in heaven.

Friday night we headed back to Alpine for pizza and to hang out before the Spencers left the next day.

Saturday morning was the Primary Picnic and PJs. I am the 1st Counselor in Primary and have been amazed at how many little activities and events the Primary actually puts on. This one was the first week or so in January, giving the kids a chance to meet/get to know their new teachers for the year a little better. We provided muffins and the new classes played get-to-know-you games. We also did a teacher training immediately after.

We celebrated Camry’s birthday with my family with a Sunday dinner.

Our friends, the Lovells, have two kids near Charlie and Colson’s ages (Karrigan and Teagan). There have been a couple of times this month that they have invited Charlie over to play while Colson took his nap, which provided me with an amazing two hours to myself. So great! It’s amazing what you can get done while the children are away. We have traded off, giving Mindi some nice alone time as well. I love this arrangement.

I have also started taking the boys to McDonalds every now and then as an opportunity for them to eat and play while I utilize their free WiFi on my iPad and work on my blog. I link my bluetooth keypad to the iPad and it works great. I am actually at McDonalds writing this very blog post on my iPad. Generally, I can get them to play for about an hour. They have a blast and get a lot of energy out, and I get some peace and productive time to write without much interruption. I’m quite happy with this discovery.

Another season of the Bachelor started. Camry would come over (generally Wednesday nights) and watch it with me. It was really fun and I really looked forward to it! Definitely not my favorite season of Bachelor, but still very entertaining. Kim even came a couple of times (her first experience with The Bachelor); it was fun having her join.

Jason started another season of indoor soccer. His work partner, John, started joining as well. Their team is called the Steam Rollers.

Jason turned 31 years old! For his birthday, he went skiing at Snowbird with Rich. He said it was the BEST snow day he has had since high school. It was absolutely amazing! That night, Kim came to babysit and we went to dinner at Tucanos. Then we went and saw Fantastic Beasts. We loved it; it was a really fun movie. That Sunday we celebrated his birthday with the Grubers at our house. We had Brandalee’s Chicken, rice, Rhodes rolls, Nancy brought a green salad, Karl brought ice cream, and April brought Cinnamon Roll Cake. It was delicious!

We had a fun date night with the Thackerays. We had dinner at Happy Sumo, then came back to our place and played a fun game called Suspended. We also excitedly made more plans for our trip to Cambodia in March. It has been fun spending more time with them.

The snow didn’t disappoint in January. One weekend it snowed a ton and we spent the Saturday playing in it! It was a blast! Dad helped the boys build a big snowman and he built a huge slide in our backyard using old crates he had collected on the side of the house. He made a slope with them and packed it with snow. The boys loved it. It was perfect!

We had a date night with Kerstin and Alisha and husbands; we went to Texas Roadhouse and then saw Alisha’s new townhome in Herriman. Kerstin and Alisha actually live within five minutes of each other now.

Speaking of Primary events, we also put on a Baptism Preview for all of the kids turning eight this year. It was a nice and simple program.

Later in the month we had Jason’s birthday dinner with the Arbons. Again, we had them over at our house and we had honey lime enchiladas, chips and salsa, green salad, rice, and oatmeal cake. It was very good! We also had a good time playing Psych and Watch Ya’ Mouth. It was especially fun because my cousin, Ashley Littlewood, was able to come as well. She is living in Utah right now for dental school while her husband, Connor, is back in Idaho.

Jason went with the YM on their Snow Camp Out. After a jerk ruined their plans of camping at the cave up AF Canyon, they resorted to camping on the snow near Aspen Grove. Luckily, they still had a good time. They especially enjoyed the sledding!