More of what's been going on..

For my birthday back in January, I really wanted to go skiing, so I let Rivers skip school and we headed to the slopes.  It was such a fun day.  There were about 20 cars in the parking lot so we had the whole mountain to ourselves almost and it was so warm and sunny that I didn't put my gloves or coat on for over 2 hours.  Rivers never put a coat on and she totally got it this time.  I love that she found a run that was challenging for her, said "I'm doing this hill until I make it down without falling", and we did it over and over until she zipped down it without any stumbles.  And when I say zip, I mean zip!  Towards the end, she just tucks and goes straight and I can't catch up to her.  Little speed demon!

We got up early, early to leave for skiing and this was the beautiful sunrise just as we were leaving. 

I love that they're always full of smiles in the morning..



Handsome dude

So, as I was stopped at a flagger for roadwork, the person behind me decided not to stop and slammed into the back of us with all 4 kids in the back.  It totalled our Acura MDX but everyone was fine and unharmed.  I've always wanted a Eurovan (if we ever had to go the van route), so we searched and searched (since they quit importing them in 2003), and finally found a nice one up in Portland.  It's actually a really fun bus to drive.

We got the bus on my birthday, so I guess we can count that as my present.  Here is the cheese and chocolate fondue party Rivers put together for my b-day.

Valentines Day Breakfast....rose petals (fake ones) led them from their beds to the table.

Valentines...with their Lovebirds and rose petals
 and new long johns :)

Dreyton will not stay in his seat to eat and for some reason he likes to try and squish into Reagan's seat with her.

Dreyton has the long, curly locks and it looks like we might actually have a child with straighter hair with Reagan.  She has a serious mullet that we try to disguise with pigtails.  I've had two people ask me if I cut her hair that way because the top just seems to get shorter while the back grows. 

Cousin Cassidy.  All three of the munchkins love this little chair and at least one of them is sitting in it at all times.

For Cassidy's 1st birthday party Whitney made us all wear fake mustaches of all different sorts.  They look a little too real in this pic.  Freaks me out a little.

We finally got a snow day.  Of course everything closed so we got to just hang out and play in it. 

I know I have lots of pictures of Reagan on this post, but she's always smiling and posing for the camera.

The girls

I found this super old school BYU t-shirt on a stuffed animal at my Mom's and it's a perfect fit on Dreyton.

He is 1/4 Mexican :)

I love this pic of Rivs and I love that she loves to hang out in my apple tree.

Superbaby taking a walk...I like that you can see Reagan and Carlos bringing up the rear.

I figured out where the rain that was supposed to fall in January went.......to March.  We have lots of puddles and splashing in them is the favorite thing to do lately.  I love Reagan in this 'crushers' sweatshirt.  It fits her determined little personality.  She is so feminine and smiley and sweet  but shows no mercy when it comes to getting what she wants.

After church, in her dress, she bolted to the middle of the big puddle when I made the mistake of putting her down to get something.  She refused to come in, so I switched from her soaking wet dress shoes to boots and

we had fun exploring around together.

She is such a fun little buddy.

I'm glad I had my camera with me - I love the bright greens and yellows this time of year. 

Some New Zealand Fun

 OK, here are finally some pics from our New Zealand fun.  I really didn't take many with my camera because Amber and Tyler were the designated photographers and videographers for the trip, so they captured all of the incredible beauty that New Zealand is on their really good camera.  It was nice to have the pressure off to get a picture of everything.  They put together a little movie about the trip that premiere's next weekend when Tanner and Alissa come to town.

So, this is a pic from our crazy glow-worm underground rapelling, zip-lining through a cave full of glow-worms, jumping off a cliff into an underground river, floating through the cave listening about the weird lifecycle of a glow-worm, swimming through the underground river and finally climbing up waterfalls to get out.  This pic was before we rappelled down about 130 ft. into a cave - they gave us a quick lesson on rappelling.

 This was right after we resurfaced into daylight after being underground in the water for about 4 hours.  It was fun because the group was just us...plus two Brits.   This might have been my favorite thing we did in New Zealand.  It's one of the only places in the world with glow-worms and it felt like zip-lining through outerspace - the glow-worms looked like stars in the cave.

 Here we are on the long flight - the twins did marvelously thanks to these handy bassinets that hooked onto the wall in front of us.  They slept most of the way...so we could too.  Reagan the poser poked her head up and smiled for the camera.

 Our layover was is Fiji!!  The babes loved listening to the Fijian music that greeted us.

 We left the airport and drove to this horse ranch way out in the crazy beautiful countryside.  This is a picture of the guy rounding up the horses for us.  I didn't get to go on the horses, but they went for two hours over the mountains and down to this awesome black sand beach that Carlos and I walked to through the guy's pastures. 

 We stayed at some really cool holiday parks where you rent little bunk cabins.  Wish I had a picture of the outside of them - so cute.

 We had Christmas Eve dinner at a traditional Maori Hungi.  First we went through a replica of a Maori village and learned about the culture, were entertained with their singing and dancing, and then chowed down together on roasted pig and other Polynesian cuisine. 

 We stayed that night at a cool house out in the country by a lake.  Nights looked like this because we packed so much in every day that we literally crashed before making it to our beds. 

 Reagan loves little chairs - here she is chillin on Christmas morning.  That morning we rafted the largest commercially raftable waterfall in the world (so they say).  Amber has a pic on her blog of it.  We actually went down a lot of waterfalls on that trip and the scenery was incredible.  I love fern-wood trees!

 We have a hill like this behind my Mom's house that is the opposite with trees on the bottom and a bare spot on top and it's called Bald Hill.  Carlos named this hill Hairy Hill.  This was Christmas morning by our house.  Those are the Bushnell reunion sweatshirts.

 Some of the holiday parks had cute little baby baths.

 While the others went canyoning in Wanaka, Carlos, my Mom and I rented bikes and rode around the lake.

 Reagan sustained the only injury on the trip.  She wiggled her foot in a space on the bike seat so the tire rubbed the bottom off.  She only cried for a minute, we rode back to town, found a pharmacy and I got her all fixed up.  It looks terrible but it healed crazy fast. 

 We took a trip down to the fjords and this was a valley carved by glaciers.

 We rode on a boat out into the Milford Sound and it was INCREDIBLE.  There were even dolphins swimming next to our boat.

 We went kayaking and the babies didn't want to get out of the boat afterwards. (They babies weren't kayaking with us...they stayed with my Mom on shore)

 This was a little stream you could mine for gold in, but we ended up just running on the trails around it and playing in the water after. 

 Don't go to New Zealand for good food....unless it's at Fergburger!

 The babes were such troopers.  I was a little worried about taking them, but I'm so glad we did!

 On our way home...thumbs down by Ty, Tann, and Alissa...I'm smiling because I'm ready to go see my other two kids, and Jason is looking GQ in his colorful sweater.

 Another layover in Fiji!  This time we got a taxi and took off for the beach for a couple of hours!

 The boys let their beards grow the whole 10 days - looks like Tanner and Carlos won the beard growth contest.

 The girl shot.

Back at the Fiji airport the ladies in the shop went crazy over Dreyton and totally freaked him out. 

Last, but definitely not least, Amber and I bungee jumped together at the site where commercial bungee all started - the Kawarau bridge.  She did a good job of descibing it on her blog.  I tried to take a picture of the picture we bought but the flash ruined the first one and without the flash you can't see how blue the water was.  Anyway, it was so dang fun!  I wish we could have done it a few more times though because it goes so fast.  I'm hooked.  This continued mine and Amber's "partnership".  A few people thought the twins were mine and Ambers instead of mine and Carlos'!  The little yellow raft in the river gets you down and to the side. This was on New Year's Eve...great way to send out 2010...we partied in Queenstown with thousands of others to ring in 2011. 

I stole these three pics off of Amber's blog because they're some of my favs.  Love those little guys so much.

New Zealand is one beautiful country!

Early December

(I was looking through my pictures and noticed a bunch of random ones like this one of edamame shells and realized Dwight got a hold of my camera. I really like this one though). This year Christmas for Carlos, the twins, and I was spent in New Zealand with the Bushnell bunch! Rivers and CD got to go to Utah to spend it with the Nuno clan. So, we don't have the typical Christmas pics this year. Here are a few from early December. I'll post some pics of New Zealand later but for a great little synopsis of our New Zealand fun (and some great pics of the twins), check out Amber's blog.

I had Jason and Diana's family for Christmas this year and put my crochet skills to use. 

One of the favorite things to do around here is put on rubber boots after a rainstorm and go play in the ditches.

Even though we weren't here for Christmas, we still couldn't pass up the Christmas tree hunt.

Carlos scored a couple tickets to the Civil War game. Such a fun day. I'm a beaver believer, but by losing, the Beavs actually made 3 million dollars because the Ducks went to the National Championship game.