Dancing with Daddy

Troy sometimes gets in these Latin dancing moods and will put on Freddy Fender music and usually grabs Maya, picks her up, and dances around with her in his arms or on his shoulders. This is one of those times.

Sports

Zane just wrapped up his first official season of hockey (with games and travel to places like Bountiful, Logan & Park City). We aren't too sad to see it end because it was a lot of work for us as well as him, but he sure loves hockey. Zack and Zane posed with the Utah Grizzlies (Utah's hockey team) mascot "Grizzbee" at Zane's post-season party - all the family got to skate for free so we all got out on the ice and at least gave it a shot. Troy and I are still pretty hesitant but all three of the kids are naturals on the ice. In fact, Maya was taking turns pulling Troy & I around on the ice. I'm proud to say that neither of us fell once...it pays to stick close to the sides. Maya has started playing soccer which she is really a natural at. She has scored a goal every game she has played so far! She is the fastest one on her team, so that helps too. We are so proud of her.

Zack's 17th B-day

Zack turned 17 on February 4th. His main present was a new cell phone - his old one was very old; he was still using the basic one we got him when he first got a cell phone like 3 years ago. We made Zack go on a treasure hunt for his gifts too, but he wasn't quite as excited about it as Maya was. I think he still had a good time though. I can't believe he is 17 already...he is taller than his dad now but still as sweet and mild-mannered as ever.

Maya's 7th Birthday

Maya turned 7 on January 24th. We played it pretty low-key this year but we've started a new tradition with birthdays...we make the kids go on a scavenger hunt to find their gifts. They start with a clue and the have to follow the clues to find each present. Maya LOVED it. It made it so much more fun and memorable! Her big gift was a new bike, which she really needed as she had definitely outgrown her old one. I am attaching a couple of pictures of the hunt and celebration. Maya's second favorite part of her birthday was her dad's very sweet idea. We told Maya that she could pick any game she wanted to play and we would all play it as a family. She told me that what she really wanted was to play school with her being the teacher, but she kind of said she knew that was probably not going to happen, so she said we could just play a board game instead. When I told Troy about this conversation he arranged for all of us to be in Maya's school class, but surprised her by setting up desks for each of us in Maya's room and having the boys seated at their "desks" when she came in her room. She was so excited! Actually at first she was embarrassed and was being all shy, but it didn't take more than a minute for her to get into it and start teaching class. It was so cute! We even had P.E. - we went downstairs and Maya made everyone dance to the end of Mamma Mia - for anyone that has seen that movie, they sing and dance to a couple of songs at the very end of the movie - anyway, Troy even gave the teacher an apple... brown-noser.