Missing the Girls

Hi everybody, its Kyrstin! Lately Ive just been thinking about how much I wish it was summer.  Why? Of course I miss being tan and going swimming and wearing Summer clothes but the biggest reason is I want to go to Cedar City with the girls.  SO BAD. So I figured I would post a little bit about it!

Get ready for a little picture overload.  These are some pics from past years just to give you an idea of what its like to go on the best trip ever with the greatest friends you could ever have.

Mal and Kates during Katie's first year of Cedar City


Getting Dressed up for the plays:

Riding on the carts (still a tradition)

Dennys!!!

Carly and Savannah. Still as spunky as ever.

All of the girlies!

Matching mint jeans

Katie and her beloved Cholula Sauce

Dennys again! I think we look a little bit older than in the other Denny's pic.

After dancing in the pouring rain :)

You call it MADNESS, we call it FAMILY

Facials night

Milts restaurant!

Bulloch's (Poor Carli had to leave a day early so we held up her shirt)

Pics behind Milt's

The Older Girls

And of course all of us just being plain silly :)

I can't wait to see of the girlies again and I'm so grateful for the great memories that we have all had together!!

The Girls are Back

Back to school that is.... I'm not sure how everyone feels about it yet. I can quote Katie as saying, I've never not wanted to go back to school more in my entire life.  I, on the other hand, am quite excited for a new start. (but I'm in college and Katie's in high school so.....ha.)

Before school started, we decided to run away for a little bit. It was time for another girl's only vaca to our second favorite place in the world; negative ten degree Star Valley, Wyoming!

Aren't we so adorable in our mismatched snow clothes?

There are more pics on my personal blog, but I'd thought I'd share this little gem with the world.

Carli thinks stealing my camera and taking ugly pictures of herself is funny. I think its funny to post them to this blog. (Ha! Take that Carl.)

Happy school time everyone!

Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care

And fit us for Heaven to live with Thee there.

Black Friday

Hello everybody, since Mal gave you a quick preview of our freezing Black Friday adventures, I figured I'd give you some more details.

But first, let me introduce myself! 

My name is Kyrstin.  Mal is the main writer on the blog.  I'm the little sister that designs everything, but I thought I'd try posting something today. 

As you know, my cousins and I love spending every second with each other.  I'm so very excited to see all the girls this weekend.  So. Excited. Why am I so excited?

Because....

We turn shivering into the "cold dance"

We visit the North Pole on thanksgiving

We have a traditional family card game

And we can make waiting in line for hours to get a discount on spankies not only bearable, but desirable.

We had a lot of fun playing card games, texting boys, and catching up with each other while waiting in line.  Katie and I had a nice chat about boys and Carli, Brynn, Sam, and Mallory played progressive. Or at least attempted to until it got so cold that holding cards was impossible.  Overall, it was a pretty great adventure.

This was our last Thanksgiving together for a few years.  We all have big changes coming up in the near future and who knows where moving, college, and missions will take us. But, we made some pretty great Black Friday memories for a last Thanksgiving.  

Old & New

Christmas is coming. For us that means Grammy's homemade treats, sleepovers in the living room, and lots and lots of much needed girl talk.

Something like this (below) will probably end up happening because it always does. (Do you think we've outgrown sleeping on the floor yet? We don't think so.)

Last time we got together, we camped outside of Sports Authority on black friday.

 It was freezing and crowded, but the ten dollar gift cards were worth the wait. Katie, the lucky duck, got one of the one hundred dollar gift cards.

Family can make even the coldest, most crowded experiences turn into a blast!

Challenges

Everyone has them. Some of us are dealing with harder one's than others, but it just seems like a challenging time in life right now. Is anyone else feeling the same way?

First, the announcement lowering the ages for missionaries in the LDS church has made a big difference on everyone's life plans. Kyrst and I are planning on giving a new meaning to the term 'sister missionaries' when we leave together this upcoming summer.

 I'm sooo excited to go, but sometimes I wonder if I'll come back to find my whole world a different place. Its just normal fear I guess, but its hard nonetheless.

Second, Katie is writing a missionary.

She's expressed the difficulty of writing someone while still in high school. Everyone expects her to give up on him and its hard to find the balance between being supportive and being distracting. I'm sure many of you ladies know the feeling.

We all think he is adorable and are secretly crossing our fingers that they end up together.

And hardest of all, we found out recently that Carli and Brynn will be moving to Idaho with their family this summer.

We are so proud of their dad for getting his dream job as a professor at BYUI, but I know for sure that there were at least five tear stained pillows on the night that they made the announcement. They've promised to come visit at least every six weeks, but change hurts no matter what and we know that things will be different from now on.

We'll miss weekly pool visits during the summer time, and attending Carli's softball games. Brynn won't be able to be my running buddy in our annual 5k race and Pleasant Grove will be missing out on one stellar family.

Some Housekeeping

Hey there. I'm Mallory. 

Just to make everything a little bit more clear, I will be the author of this blog unless you are specifically told otherwise. I know its been a while since you've heard from us. We are still getting use to this whole  idea of having a blog for ourselves, but so much has been happening in all of our lives that I'm sure we will post more regular. More coming soon! 

Merry Christmas, and a happy finals week for all of you college kids out there!