Playing in the snow, and new cousin Kaiya.

We finally have snow and the kids are just loving it. They want to get all their gear on and go play in it all the time. Frank is really happy too, he loves the snow and the thought of maybe getting to go snowmobiling.

Brad and Michelle had their first baby on December 18. She is so cute! Her name is Kaiya. Ava just loves her so much and wants her to be big so she can play with her. We are really excited to have her in our family!

This is Karson, Ava, and Koben.

None of them would smile for the picture.

Visit to Temple Square

We went to Salt Lake for Frank's weekend off. We went shopping, ate at our favorite resaurant (La Luna) and took the kids to temple square. They loved seeing the lights, but they didn't like how cold it was outside. We had fun.

Headline: Ava turns 3, says she is still not a Lillywhite

Tomorrow, November 16th Ava is turning 3 years old. We celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese and having family over for dinner and cake. We can't believe we have a three year old, but we are sure glad we do have her. She is so much fun and can entertain us for hours on end. One thing she mentioned that made us laugh for a long time is that she is still not a Lillywhite, just Ava!
Ava had a special request for a pink princess castle cake, which Amy happily provided at the expense of an entire day of "building" a cake. Ava loved it though.

Can you tell this girl loves Disney Princesses? This is one of many Disney princess items listed below:

Belle teapot, Two Cinderella dolls, princess jacket, princess bedding, Princess stickers and stamps etc.....

This picture is for Andy. She loves her new snow gear, and it's so cute on her!

The paper was flyin'!Ava, Koben and our neglected child Chuck. (He's the one with the dental prognathism.)

Ava's New Haircut

Just thought we would show everybody Ava's new haircut. We realized we needed to cut it shorter after we had to cut pine sap out of it when we went camping. Koben got a haircut too, just not so dramatic. What do you think about them? (Yes we are fishing for comments. We're not actually sure anyone reads our blog:)

The Deer Hunt (Emphasis on HUNT, not find)

The annual Lillywhite deer hunt has come around once again, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during the day so we only have campfire pictures. But that is what it is all about anyway. Sitting around the campfire eating greasy chicken and fries and talking. If those greasy chicken and fries just would have stayed down or in me all night it would have been even better. It is interesting how normally one might be afraid to stand in the middle of the forest at 2am and be 50 yards from from the camp, but under certain circumstances you just don't care! A lot of thanks needs to be given to Dad for all of his efforts to make the trip a lot of fun for everyone. We know he put a lot of time and money into this. Thanks Dad.

We were going to play a guessing game about what this actually is............ but we decided against that since most of you probably know what it is. Amy had her gallbladder taken out on October 8th because she had so many stones. As the ultrasound guy so eloquently put it: "You have so many stones you could make a necklace out of them." By the looks of this bean bag you could make quite a few necklaces. Amy is feeling much better now despite a rough couple of weeks. We have had tons of help from Amy's mom and Adam and Jessalyn. We are so greatful for their help.

This is Ava's way of preparing to go camping. She has been sleeping in her tent in her room. (That's her legs hanging out) She loves it but insists that we close all the windows and doors in her tent and makes us get her a sippy cup of water to keep in there all night. She loves it.

Conference Weekend

Well it was rainy and drizzly in Utah this weekend so we know that means it is conference time! We invited Keith and Danielle and Fred and Sara down to our house and we "Watched" conference. (See attatched Photo) I was very impressed by the messages shared and especially noticed that even though several of the speakers mentioned the current economic conditions, they were not overly worried about it. Rather, they urged us to follow the council we have been given so many times before and to not fear if we are prepared.

Amy and I also watched the special they had about President Monson. I am not sure when it played on TV but it is available on KSL.COM in the conference section. There is a reason he is the prophet and it shows in his long history of service to everyone around him. I would recommend that anyone watch it if they are interested.

As for the rest of our conference day, we grilled some hamburgers in between sessions and Sara brought down some fantastic cheesecake for dessert. We really enjoyed having some family around during conference, it is a great time to get together.

Since Andelyn came home briefly, we dragged her to Thanksgiving point and made her walk our kids around in the horse poop. Thanks Andy, I didn't want to get my new shoes dirty.

Hee Haw

Isn't this kid a stud! Saddle up pardner!

Fall

Even though it doesn't really feel the like fall around here, all the signs are there. We have tried to take advantage of all the outdoor activities we can before the snow flies.

We drove up Payson canyon last week and took this picture of Ava. As you can tell, Ava is working with her smile to find the best one. Some look crazier than others! I think the reason she looks crazy is because we tell her to keep her eyes open. We tell her to keep her eyes open because she has that Walker trait that makes her eyes close whens she smiles, but we are working on it.

After once again nearly returning to the bottom of Tom and Dani's blog ticker we will make another flurry of posts and then drop into oblivion again. Things have just been moving right along, I can't believe football season is back and that the summer is winding down.

Our early fall activities have included riding a toy stroller with nothing but a diaper on, a weekend trip to St. George/Snow Canyon, and riding stray tigers at Hogle Zoo.

Koben is really starting to talk a lot more now. He mainly says "No." My favorite thing is when he is attempting to move or reach anything he grunts like he is lifting a boulder. Half the time he hasn't even started to lift, he is just grunting and hoping the object will move by itself.

We hear it has been a hard summer for Mom and Dad (Lillywhite) especially Mom. We are sorry she has faced so many problems lately. She is always so strong through it all though.

Otherwise we can't complain, things are going very good.

The third port we stopped at was in Skagway. One of the best things on our trip was the helicopter ride. We took a 20 minute flight up to the middle of a glacier. They gave us ice boots with metal cleats on them and we took a walking tour. The bottom picture was taken from the helicopter obviously but it looks like we getting close to the ground when actually we are still very high up. The dark lines on the ice that look like tire grooves are actually streams of boulders that the ice has pulled off the mountainside as it slowly crawls out of the mountains. I will post another picture that show just how big those boulders are that make up the lines.

This shows the size of the boulders a little better. Another cool thing we got to do on the glacier was drink some of the water that was flowing just under the ice. The ice looks dirty on top but it is crystal clear underneath. The tour guides estimated that the water we were drinking was frozen prior to the year 1700 and prior to the industrial revolution which brought so many pollutants to the air and water. This means it was really good water! Of course, there is probably a three hundred year old bear terd thawing in the ice right above where we were drinking, but oh well. Another fascinating fact a tour guide told us was how to catch a polar bear.

First of all you chop or drill a large hole in the ice. Then you go to the store and buy a bag full of peas, not frozen or canned peas, they have to be fresh. You then take the peas and line the egdes of the hole with the peas. Then you wait very patiently. Finally when the polar bear comes to take a pea you kick him in the icehole! ;)

The second place we stopped was Juneau. In the morning we went to see the Mendehall Glacier. It is hard to describe how incredible these things are. They are just massive. The deep greens in the mountains and bright blues from the glacier are so contrasting. Any picture you take is usually pretty good.
After seeing the glacier we then took a bus back to the outskirts of town where we ate some fresh grilled Salmon. Amy and I don't usually even like fish unless it deep fried and battered but this was pretty good.
The picture that is sideways shows how fun it was to get back on the boat. I took the picture from the boat and the line went all the way to shore, through the covered entry and all the way up the gangway.

Cruisin'

Our cruise to Alaska was amazing! We really loved it! We did so many things that it is hard to pick a few to tell you about. These pictures are from Ketchikan where we went ziplining through the Alaskan rainforest. The lines are stationed in the tops of very tall trees and you go from platform to platform in these trees. Not only was it fun to be zipping around, the scenery was spectacular. Later that day we went to this lumberjack show where they compete at various logging tasks using axes and chainsaws. Some of you may have seen these guys on ESPN. They put on a pretty good show.

There are so many pictures we would like to post to show everyone but we realize they are just probably not quite as exciting for you as they are for us. Here are a few anyway.

Seattle

Unfortunately we are back from our vacation and I guess we should post a little bit about what we did. I have to admit I'm feeling a lot of pressure to post with Tom and Dani's new blog ticker:)
As for our vacation we spent two day in Seattle prior to getting on the ship. We really enjoyed our time there especially because it was sunny and 75 degrees for both of the days we were there, which is really unusual.
The first day we were there we ate at a great place right on the water. We ate some fantastic fish and chips and clam chowder. It is so good when it's fresh. In the evening we went to the space needle and watched the sunset. It is a little crowded at that time but it was still fun.

The second day we went to the Pike Place Market, as pictured above. This is not your typical flea market/swap meet, it is in my untraveled opinion very unique. It is a couple city blocks long and is filled with lots of handmade jewelry and art as well as high quality products from overseas. There were also tons of flower shops selling huge arrangements of fresh cut flowers for 10 or 15 bucks. The main attraction of the market is the fresh fish. One shop in particular draws quite a crowd. Anytime someone buys a fish they throw it clear across the place to the person at the counter who then filets the fish and throws it back. As you can imagine not that many people buy fish so there are always a hundred people standing around and the poor fish throwers are saying; "You all know we're open right!" Eventually they talk someone into buying a fish and everyone gets entertained. I will see if I can post a video of this.

Lastly we went to the locks and watched them move ships in and out of the higher lakes out to the ocean inlets. You can also watch the salmon jump up the fish ladders when it is the right time of the year, but we didn't see any when we went.

Seattle is a great place to visit if anyone gets the chance, I would highly recommend it.