Nichols News 2013 Edition

Ellie is turning 3 in just a matter of days. She loves going to preschool each week and playing with her friends. She loves singing and is getting quite the repertoire of songs. She had her own tumbling class this fall and LOVED getting on her leotard like her big sisters. The hardest part was getting her to sit still to listen to directions! Ellie loves to set the table and dress herself, and is learning to hold her own with her two big sisters.

Amanda started kindergarten just after her 5^th Birthday. She is an excellent reader and loves it! She is a great helper to Mom and Dad. Amanda loves to spend her mornings playing with Ellie, going to story time, helping at preschool, and having play-dates, before spending the afternoon at school. Amanda is excelling in her gymnastics and amazes us with her progress.

Katie is in her second year (2^nd grade) of Chinese Immersion at school. This year they are focusing more on reading and writing the Chinese characters. She is doing well and her teachers rave about her. She has entered the world of Legos (they now have girl Legos!). She is also in gymnastics and taking piano lessons. Katie is a social butterfly and loves to organize play dates whenever possible. Katie is preparing for her baptism this next summer when she turns 8.

Wendy continues to work in clinics in Salt Lake and Provo. She takes turns teaching Ellie’s preschool and volunteers in Katie and Amanda’s school classes. She’s learning to juggle two sets of homework and keeping everyone up on chores. Sometimes the house gets cleaned, but at least the family gets fed every day! J

Brett continues work with his business law firm in downtown Provo. He celebrated the completion of a successful case this fall. He keeps busy with his church calling, maintaining home and yard, taking his girls to baseball, football, and basketball games, and has even read a few books this year!

We miss our Disney trips, but this year we headed north to Island Park, ID. We had a great time at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, sledding, and exploring West Yellowstone.

May you be blessed this season as we rejoice in the glorious birth and life of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Love, The Nichols Family

Haunted Heber Creeper

 We totally recommend the Pumpkin Festival at the Heber Valley Railroad, especially if you find discount tickets! Ellie loved the "Train Station".

 Of course, we went the day it turned cold, but at least the rain and snow stopped while we rode!

 The haunted car--spiders and too much fog! The two little ones clung to Mommy. Where'd Dad go?

 We even chose a pumpkin in their pumpkin patch (a 20 ft square fenced in by chicken wire).

 Someone's old enough to safely handle the camera!!

 Dancing the monster mash. These "train helpers" later brought us each a cookie.

 See? It really was a scary ride!

 Not sure why we bought seats. They did this the whole time!

The girls were disappointed we didn't make it to the lake to see if we could find Grandpa there. We turned back at soldier hollow--the engine "shoved" us all the way back!

Tuacahn

The October cold snap followed us south! We got rained on and it was very cold for the girls first trip to Tuacahn. They liked it anyway! Especially when Dad went and bought them warm churros and nuts! See how he works?
We went back the next (sunny) day for pictures. We only got there by the skin of our teeth after Katie's early out day and a quick drive south. (Which is the reason we finally found for loving being at the south end of the Wasatch Front!)

 See how much we like the sun we finally got? :)

We hope to go again next year to see The Little Mermaid!

Happy Haunted!

 Ellie Loved the plug in pumpkin face! Every time she goes by it she laughs and says, "There's my Silly pumpkin that I made!"

We let Katie pretty much carve her own this year. Scary, I know. She broke the tip off my knife, but otherwise came out unscathed. Phew!

 Katie had a full-dog halloween. Her pumpkin is a dog paw print (not a cougar, but. . . ) and she enjoyed being led around on a leash by Cruella. Maybe she doesn't remember how that story went!

 We loved Boo at the Zoo! Amanda met a fellow ballerina. Katie showed off her own Jack-O-Lantern smile. Ellie just likes any day that she has wings!

Our Summer

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Independence Day 2013

 What a weekend! We partied for four days until I, personally, had enough! I was an awesome celebration, though, and we had lots of fun and even learned a few things about our nation's roots.
We started with the Freedom Festival parade on July 4th. Brett went out the day before to set out a blanket just outside his work. It was a mad house! People are zealous about parade spots, and partying all night long! We just left a blanket and slept in our nice comfy beds and came back to see the parade in the morning. It was pretty funny that some of those people that partied all night while holding their parade spot--dozed through the parade and left early!!

 Rowdy parade go-ers!

 Also on July 4th, we all went to see the movie Epic. Just last week we saw Croods and Ellie did great. Apparently Epic isn't so captivating for a two-year-old. We hit 7 Peaks on Friday afternoon. We had time to play in the kiddie pool and go down the tube slides about 4 times before we fled before the coming storm. We got home and changed clothes just as an AWESOME storm broke open over Provo. I didn't take pictures, but we sat under our carport for an hour watching tons of lightening and down-pouring rain. The thunder and lightening was so great, but it unnerved the girls a bit. Ellie still reminded us days later how she heard the thunder and saw the lightening (and her eyes are the size of saucers as she's recounting the experience).  We drove downtown for dinner at Los Hermanos. Lots of other people were ducking into the restaurants from the rained out carnival downtown. It seemed to wreak havoc on the outdoor festival!

 We tried to time things so we didn't have early mornings following late nights. We went on Saturday morning to see the hot air balloon launch--but from continuing effects from last night's storm meant the launch was cancelled. Boohoo! I wish we'd known that before we woke our kids up for the sunrise launch! Smokey the Bear tried to salvage the event by giving out free Frisbee and there was tons of Frisbee play for about 30 minutes, and then the field cleared in an instant when it started to rain!  Ellie was terrified of Smokey. She clung to me and when Smokey put his arm around me, she about lept out of my arms to be sure he didn't touch her!

 We spent all day Saturday at the Walk of Freedom in Orem. We each got to choose a name of an immigrant (given to us or created by us if we were familiar with our ancestors) and we went through 10 educational stations to learn about experiences of early immigrants and core principles of our government, etc. It culminated with a mock oath of citizenship. We also watched a musical program that depicted some events surrounding the creation of the United States. I can't help but feel again how blessed we are to live in this nation, how grateful I am to so many who have sacrificed to preserve it, and how mighty the hand of the Lord is in guiding the events of our history. We have much to be grateful for and much to protect.

 It was pretty cool, but lasted longer than we anticipated so we were pretty tired and hot and ready for a break.

 We got lunch at Wendy's, then I took Ellie home for a nap while the other's continued on to the Colonial Festival at the other end of Scera park.

 This is the best time out ever! :)  I guess that depends on your perspective!

 Boston immigrants--they made rope, washed clothes on a board, hauled water in a wooden yoke, watched a candle making demonstration, and more. So much to do and so little time!

I don't have pictures, but we also watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks while eating sno-cones. This was my first time having a sno-cone with ice cream in it. Pretty good!

It's HOT! June Update

We had such a temperate and nice May and June. I missed most of May working too much and end of school activities. June was fun and went fast. Now we're melting and trying to stay cool. I miss being outside but how can you cope with temps over 100 degrees? My kids are hot and red faced after half an hour. We're now hibernating during those hot afternoons and just trying to play in the morning and evening.

 Duckling races at the Utah Lake Festival

 Fish wind socks and fishing for coupons.

 Hay ride

 Someone learned to ride her bike without training wheels!  Great Job Amanda!

 Visiting the Provo City Center Temple site.

 Slip N Slide! We haven't taken the camera to 7 Peaks yet. . .

Here's how we tried to stave off boredom in June. We've also been to ONE HOT Owlz game and the Dollar Movies to see Crood. It was FUNNY!  :)  

PS-In the time it took to write this post (minus the pics) my two-year-old snuck into the storage room and grabbed a handful of un-frozen otter pops. I'm sure she knew she was naughty because she hid under the table in the family room table to bite open the red one. . . you can imagine how it went from there.