Chloe's First Day Skiing

We have been nervous to take Chloe skiing knowing that we'd only have one shot to make it enjoyable or we'd never get her up again.


Turns out we shouldn't have worried a bit. She absolutely loved it and progressed from the first run between Dad's skis to solo speed records in little less than 3 hours.


We had to peel her off the mountain and on the way home she asked if we could go again tomorrow. Granted tomorrow is Sunday, but for the joy it brought to both of us, I might consider going "inactive".

Typical Winter Morning

Some families get up and exercise, eat breakfast, brush their teeth or even read the scriptures. Nope not mine. Its straight to the heater vents!

Candy Canes - a family favorite

Back in 1997 we picked up a Christmas tradition from some friends in Colorado - Homemade Candy Canes.

Since that time we have brought new families into our tradition by sharing a night of homemade candy cane making. This year we had three rounds of candy canes! Even though it's a big, messy process, we look forward to it every Christmas!

Our great next door neighbors, the Stephenson's had no idea what they were getting into when we invited them over to make candy canes. I believe one of them thought we were going to take a "cookie cutter" to punch out candy canes from dough.

These candy canes are actually made by boiling the candy to soft-crack, pulling it like taffy and shaping it into a brick. Then we wrap green and red stripes of candy around the brick and begin twisting off a long strip. Cut off pieces and give to the kids for shaping them into crooks, hearts, circles, initials and even a few cobras!

Homemade Christmas

Homemade gifts are the tradition at the Nielson family Christmas.

For several years now we have avoided the commercialized convenience of the shopping mall to produce hand made 'gifts of love' for our family members. Brian calculated the cost of time whittling his tooth at his hourly work rate and our soon-to-be-Dentist Uncle Leo could have received several iPhones.

Noah made cousin Jared a chalkboard that he can keep

track of BYU Football with.

Emily made nephew Joshua a bright orange fleece hunting vest

for his deer hunting trips.

Brian learned a new skill and whittled a tooth for Uncle Leo,

we expect to see it in his new dental office!

87 hours ago, this was a block of wood!

While it is always a chore, we sure enjoy this fun tradition of 'giving' at Christmas time.

Noah 'the BYU Fan' visits the Las Vegas Bowl

Noah and Brian took a trip to Las Vegas to root on the

'Cougars of BYU' in the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl!

How did this kid get to be such a HUGE BYU fan?!

Living in Utah has been great fun for Noah because he gets to be close to his cougars! He made it to almost all the home football games last fall and knows just about all the Cougar football players names, numbers and stats. So when the opportunity to go to the Pioneer Bowl came along, Noah was thrilled and the boys hit the road for Las Vegas!

While we suffered a defeat, we had a great time being with cousins and seeing the Cougs up close and personal at the Ritz Carlton where they were staying.

The highlights of the trip were not the game, but the pre-game face painting and the hour we stayed after the game to get autographs from all our favorite players.