Beginning of 2016

Huh, it's May. Time to start blogging about 2016. Jeez. :)

I'm glad for a place online to record our days, even if it isn't in real time.

New Year's Eve was low key, as it always tends to be at our house. The kids and I drank bubble milk shakes and the girls and I played Go Fish and danced around. Seems Chad had somewhere else to be that night but I can't remember what it would have been.

We spent New Year's Day outside sledding at the Murray Park, which was marvelous.

That night, my mom and siblings and spouses got together for some Mexican food and conversation. My sister brought this new little girl (Kaylee) with her:

Also in January, the girls and I did lots of fun activities (our best cleaner of the week chooses an activity).

The Jungle at the Utah Fun Center in Sandy:

Riding horses at Gardner Village:

Ice skating at the Murray ice rink:

For a week in January, I attended the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) and learned more about using DNA in genealogy. Chad, Grandma B, and our babysitter, Helyn, helped extra while I was gone. Chad loves painting nails with the girls.

SLIG was great - it was my first venture into the genealogy community in a long time besides RootsTech, and was way overdue.

Here's the DNA classroom with lecturers Blaine Bettinger and Angie Bush at the front.

My seat neighbors were Janet and Kim Hovorka, who own a genealogy charts business and are also partnered with MyHeritage and other companies (similar to Legacy Tree). It was great to get to know them - they've become really good friends now.

This is me with Dick Eastman - he runs a widely-read genealogy newsletter and is one of genealogy's famous people. :)

Other fun stuff of the month - sleeping in a tent in the living room, hugging the dog (seriously one of Haven's favorite things to do), sliding down the stairs, and making things - Jozie made this desk out of cardboard!

I'm lucky to get to spend a lot of my time with these great people.