Winter Fun with the Jewkes Fam

We did a few fun things with the family over the winter.  I went on the "Jewkes Annual Brian Head Snowboarding Trip." Yes, it has an official name. Every year when mom and dad go to the Cooper Tire Convention in Mesquite, they drop Tayler and T off at Ty's in Cedar City. I meet the kids at Ty's and we stay there for the weekend. The first year, I was still living with Ty so I didn't even have to drive "down to Cedar" to make it.  I instruct my parents to bring back my annual Cooper Tires shirt.  I swear to you, they are always the best t-shirts.

So we had a lot of fun hanging out the first night, playing X-Box and laughing.  As usual, my "adopted" little brother Mark came with T for the trip.  We watched funny videos on YouTube. It's tradition. Tayler stakes out the twin bed in the guest room, T and Mark pick their respective couches or the floor. This year, I skipped the floor and brought the $10 queen blow up mattress we got with an RC Willey purchase when we bought our appliances. That little guy is worth the ten buckaroos we spent.

In the morning we woke up and got all ready. We loaded Ty's truck and...it wouldn't start. We had to maneuver the car out of the garage, then back it in so the batteries on the car and the truck would be close enough together to reach for a jump.  Then we had to push the truck into the driveway so that the car backed into the garage, and the truck (now in the driveway) were nearly bumper to bumper. It was great engineering on our part.  We finally got the truck going and off we went.  We had a blast, except for the time I almost broke my neck. I ate it really hard and did what I like to call a "triple back flip." It sounds less embarrassing that way.  All-in-all though, it was a great trip.

Beautiful view of the valley at the top of one of the runs on the Brian Head Resort.

My baby SSEEESTER!

Beanies have always been a good look for me...not!!

The other thing we did with the fan over the winter was snowmobiling.  My parents bought a trip at a ward auction.  Troy Winters and his family donated the trip along with a delicious lunch and my parents bought it.  We had a blast! We went up Huntington Canyon by the state road buildings.  It's really close to the top of the snowboarding run there, so we had to bring our boards and go down a few times!  It was Tayler and Teigen's first time going. We all had a ton of fun and it was a beautiful day!

What's with the parents? Trying to keep up with the styles a decade behind? :)

Say what you will about those boots, but I've already claimed the "Moon Boots" in the will.

My sister and my dweeby little bro

First Valentine's Day

Since Zach is in the young men's, he had his boys doing a Valentine's activity.  He had them write their mom's a note about why they love them.  He wrote a letter to me. His boys were making fun of him because of how much he wrote to me and he said, "Well yeah, I want my marriage to last!"  That was Wednesday night and I knew the boys were writing the letters to their mothers, but I had no idea he had written one for me. Valentine's was the next day (Thursday) and I couldn't find my car keys anywhere. I thought, "Oh he must have driven my car to young men's last night and left my keys in it."  I went out to my car, and sure enough, there were my keys on the driver's seat, next to this...

What a sweet husband I have!

I was really lame and gave him a talk on tape about marriage from Deseret Book called "For All Eternity" by Dr. John L. Lund.  I gave him two tickets to do the zipline in Provo so we'll be doing that in the summer.

Then, I got home to find this:

AND...a belt for my belt buckle with my initials on it!

What joy marriage brings to our lives. I sure love my Valentine!  It's not secret that I don't really care much for the commercialism in holiday, especially Valentine's, but don't jump to conclusions too quickly, I did participate in the romance of the holiday by creating this little diddy and sending it to him in a text message randomly during the day!