The Hill Connection

Congratulations to our nephew Justin and his new wife, Kelli!! What a beautiful event! We had a blast! Hunter was dancing like crazy and having fun with everyone. Especially Jada. “I wanna hold Jada” he was saying. He loves his cousins so much he greets them all with lots of hugs and kisses. It is adorable! His outfit is thanks to Natalie!! We love it! EVERY SINGLE person we came across commented on Hunter’s 3 piece suit.


Let’s DANCE

One of Hunter’s Christmas gifts….
Here’s the story, we went to a neighbors Christmas party on Dec 12th. Hunter had a complete melt down as we were leaving because he had to give William (age 5) his Buzz Lightyear back. This is after Hunter carried it around all afternoon/evening. Hunter could not bare to be separated from this Buzz Lightyear. So William’s parents kindly said that Hunter could borrow Buzz. Over the next two weeks we told Hunter he would have to give Buzz back to William and he would say, “No, my Buzz”. And we would remind him we only borrowed it. So as a last minute gift we had to run out and purchase Hunter his own Buzz Lightyear so that William could get his back. Thank you to William for letting Hunter borrow Buzz for 2 weeks!

Our first Christmas in Park City!!  The festivities began December 23rd, with the 4 generation dinner at Gma & Gpa Hill’s, over 40 people/children were there.  The grandchildren and great-grandchildren performed the nativity.  Hunter was a shepherd and actually had his costume on for approx. 4 min total.  Much longer than we expected.  He also was very excited to give Baby Jesus a dump truck.  PS.  These pictures below were taken on my iPhone.  Sorry!  We forgot the real cameras….

Justin and Kelli (above) getting married Jan 15th 2010!!

Christmas Eve: a traditional Turkey dinner.  I worked half day and then started baking pumpkin pies.  Daddy made a yummy cranberry/pear sauce to go with the turkey.  Garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, yams, green bean casserole, rolls, butternut squash soup and almond/date/prosciutto appetizer…. YUM!  Gma and Gpa Hill came up for Christmas Eve dinner and stayed overnight at our home.  It was fun to set the table and dinner was delicious!  Gma & Gpa had been up in Logan visiting Shane, Tonya and the kids, and while they were there stopped and picked up a blue cheese spread that was amazing with their home grown pears.  All the food was delightful and we all ate WAY too much!  Thank goodness we had extra hands helping us put together Hunter’s Christmas gift.  About two hours later, presto, it was all assembled.  I guess this is what we have to look forward to each Christmas Eve as parents.  (Note to self: remember to look and see if assembly is required, BEFORE purchasing it!)  It was very nice to get some one on one time with Gma & Gpa Hill, even though we are blessed to live nearby, it seems like this one on one time is rare.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it!  Christmas morning Hunter opened his gifts quite neatly and walked across the room to give Gpa the torn wrapping paper.  Thanks to Hunter’s efforts, the room wasn’t a total disaster.  Daddy cooked amazing Eggs Benedict for brunch on Christmas morning.  Gma and Gpa left around noon to visit other friends/family.  After Hunter’s nap, Lane, Kerry, Justin and Makayla came over for a visit.  Perfect timing as cinnamon rolls were just coming out of the oven!  It was truly a special holiday this year.  We made banana bread for our neighbors and Hunter had a fun time delivering it.  Our neighbors, Ron and Dale gave us a Gingerbread house and we had fun decorating it, although I’m sure Hunter ate more candy than he placed on the house!

With all the snow outside and Christmas in the air, it seems like our trip to Hawaii was ages ago! Here are the underwater photos I promised. The sea turtles and the white tip reef sharks were my favorite. Sorry it has taken so long. I hope all the nephews and nieces enjoy!

It started snowing yesterday, and it hasn’t stopped! We have over 2 feet of snow and its still coming down…. PS. I have a sledding video, I’m going to try to post too!

Hunter turned two on Nov 17th! Time is just flying by! We planned a Monsters Inc. birthday party for him, but he got the stomach flu from his flu nasal spray vaccine. The doctor said he was likely contagious….so we had to cancel the party…. Huge disappointment for him! So we had a quiet celebration at home. We’ll do cake and ice cream for him on Thanksgiving with the extended family.

Let’s see, his favorite book right now (that’s easy) is Curious George and the Aquarium. We have to read it 3-4 times each night before he’ll go to sleep. His favorite movie right now….. Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Most common sentences…. “I need that,” “I want to go zoo,” “hold me,” (not because he wants to hold you, but because he wants to be physically higher to reach the item that he needs)  ”I want to go D’s house,” (D = Uncle Lane, a nickname that Hunter came up with and we have no idea why) “I want treat now”.  While in Banff he told the waiter “I want noodles now”.  His favorite toy…. hmmm, that’s tough, he carries around “George” stuffed animal Curious George, and Sully (from Monsters Inc.). Enjoys helping Daddy shovel snow off the driveway and even has his own miniature shovel. Hunter is now on the “official” growth chart for weight, weighing in at a whooping 24lbs 4 oz, he is tenth percentile. Our little guy was setting his own curve (well below the chart), so yes, we have some sort of satisfaction that he’s now on the “official” chart for weight. His height has always been fine, sixty percentile. He is a very good eater, and will eat many different types of food, noodles, cheese, peaches, peas, corn, mickey mouse chicken nuggets, eggo waffles, pears, cashews, any kind of cereal and snack food. Those are among his favorites.

Anyway, you can see in the pictures below he’s not feeling 100%. A toy police car with matching T-shirt, tools and trains were the loot this year.  Thanks to Gma Gibby for making the banner and providing the Sully cake topper!  Happy Birthday little buddy, we love you!!

I went to the Canadian College of Medical Genetics meeting, Signature was a sponsor so I was at the table giving demos and information.  I did not want to leave Hunter again for another week, so the boys came along!  We decided to hire a local Banff photographer and do a family photo. Here are few of the images… saving the best for our Holiday card, so you’ll have to wait for that!

Just wanted to give you a quick teaser of photos from Hawaii.  We are all flying to Calgary, Alberta, Canada tomorrow, I have a convention in Banff.  Hunter is getting excited to go on an airplane.  He doesn’t remember being on a plane, because its been over a year since we flew with him.  Anyway, one of my best friends, Serenedy, was in Honolulu for a conference just before my conference began, so we overlapped a day and had breakfast with Serenedy at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu…

While I was at the conference working, Barry went to explore the Big Island.  I will post photos of this later.  He got some great shots of the live volcano & lava crossing a road.  You’ll want to check back for this one in about 2 weeks.  Once the conference was over, our vacation began on “The Garden Island” Kauai.  We started staying at a GEM of a Bed & Breakfast called The Palmwood on the NE side of the island.  We highly recommend it.

We took a “doors off” helicopter ride the first day touring Kauai from the air.  This helped us decide what to go see and where we wanted to prioritize our time.  It was an amazing ride!

This photo below was taken from the helicopter…

Some random shots from the north side of the island.  The “rainy” side.  It did not rain on us at all.

Barry trying to get the money shot of sea turtles below…

My photo of a turtle swimming, he was eating sea grass…

We swam in this lava pool called “Queen’s Bath” on the NE shore near Princeville.  We also jumped from the rocks into the pool.  It was very fun!  Periodically, a wave from the ocean swept into the pool.  I think it was about 20 feet deep.

This is the last look out at Waimea Canyon, overlooking the Napoli Coast…. this is taken from a hiking trail (not a helicopter)…

After 3 days at the north side of Kauai, we moved to the south side, Poipu Beach.  The “sunny” side of the island.  It rained on us while we were here.  This is our hotel The Koa Kea.  Also very nice.  Totally different experience than the North, but very nice as well.  While here, we went scuba diving and a sunset boat tour of the Napoli Coast.  Those photos to follow later.

Barry and I will be gone for Halloween. A work trip for me to Hawaii for a conference, and then staying a week for vacation. Gma & Gpa Gibby will be entertaining Hunter at their home in Sparks. Mommy and Daddy are looking forward to their first vacation without Hunter! So Daddy decided to build a set in our livingroom for Hunter’s Halloween portrait.  Since Daddy went to all that trouble, we decided to invite friends and family over too! It was really fun. The props… thanks to our neighbors: The Reeds! A big shout out THANK YOU!
This little monster has quite a ROAR!

We had 25 kids come, 11 families… It was a blast. We’ve decided to do this every year as a tradition!