Merry Crazy Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 started like most of them in the Lindhardt household--early morning awakening by the kids, too many presents, coffee cake and pears and an extended family gathering in the afternoon.  The kids got everything they hoped for and Santa even pulled off a surprise for Cooper, which is a nearly impossible task.  His nickname should be Snoop!

Probably Kaiya's favorite gift--a homemade wall plaque to hold all her medals.

Decided she kinda likes Uncle B, too.

We knew we wanted to try to get to Utah that night instead of trying to get up early the next day, so we finally headed out around 5pm.  That's when things got interesting.  About 20 miles west of Laramie in subzero weather and snow packed roads, Doug noticed that our tire gauge was showing low tire pressure in one of the tires.  Since it was below zero, I figured it was just the cold temperature.  We were not so lucky.  Slowly, the tire pressure number on the left rear tire fell from 31 to 25 to the teens.  Time to pull over.  The second Doug's opened the door, I heard a strong hissing sound.  Seriously?
So, here were our choices.  1) Stay on the side of I-80 and try to put a spare tire (not a full spare, mind you) or 2) figure out how to limp back to Laramie.

Doug knew we had passed a gas station about 10 miles ago, so we found a place to turn around on I-80 and literally hobbled into the gas station.  It was closed, but had free air hose.  We inflated the rear tire from 5 back up to 38 and then watched it go from 38 back down to 3 as we pulled into a Laramie truck stop.

We must have had Christmas angels watching over us because we had two amazing encounters in Laramie.  The first one occurred when the guy at the truck stop whom I had called ahead of time (love my iPhone!) put the spare tire on for us for no charge while we ate dinner at a greasy spoon.  Doug watched as the car slipped off the jack and nearly crushed the guy, too.  After dinner, we settled into a hotel across the street and then found a tire store the next morning.  Turns out, we had hit a large bolt in the road.  The tire shop was able to patch the tire and again, NO CHARGE for their time or labor.  It really restored my faith in people.

Souvenir bolt

Once we finally got there, we had a great time in Utah.  We were able to attend the wedding of Doug's niece on a beautiful, snowy morning and the kids played until they could play no more.  Kaiya had to come home early for gymnastics and she made flying alone look like no big deal.  We really missed her, but she enjoyed a fun weekend with my mom and was able to get herself ready for her back-to-back competitive seasons.

LOTS of snow at Grandma's house

LOVES running Grandpa's snowblower

It just doesn't get any better than being pulled on the sled behind Grandpa's 4-wheeler

This pic takes my breath away.  Spencer looks fantastic and I love the relationship these two boys have together!!

Kaiya & Maiya--her newest cousin

Looking pretty with Corinne at the wedding luncheon

Ready to board the plane and looking way too old!

Bear Lake on our way home

In the two weeks before Christmas, we enjoyed having Bennett home with his fiance, Casady.  He proposed on Dec. 8th and I hear she said yes.  The kids love having Uncle B and Casady home and they made the most of it going to an indoor trampoline facility and out to dinner while Doug and I got a date night.

Perhaps the highlight of Bennett's trip home for Kinley was when he and Casady came to school to have lunch with her and play at recess.  She may have mentioned to the boys in her class that her uncle was a minor league baseball player and she may have made sure they all knew he was pretty famous.  He ended up spending the entire recess playing catch with the kids and then had to sign about 30 autographs before he left.  Kinley pronounced that she is now the most famous 3rd grader ever.

Signing autographs at Kinley's school

A lot of good family time.  Love all these boys. 

Celebrating Jay's big 5-0!

Bennett's first night home--getting reacquainted. 

OK, I like you now! You're just as goofy as me. 

Love this picture of all 5 guys

Their fun night with B and Cas

Excited to have a new aunt!

 We also celebrated Sydney's 1st birthday on the 22nd and she was absolutely priceless, digging into her cake and shoveling it in her face.  Too bad we don't love that girl.   Enjoy the photos!

I'd like to order a birthday cake for myself, please. 

Lighting up the court

Kinley was super excited for basketball season this year.  All girls, full court and a 10 foot hoop (oh, and dad as her coach again).  Only 7 girls are on her team, so they get a pretty good workout each time they play.  She has scored in every game (in one game, she had half of the team's total points) but one and really hustles out there.  She is learning that it really is a team sport and the win is more important than the personal goals.  Their team is 2-1 and with a former Utah State Aggie (how cool is that?) professional player as the dad of one of her teammates, Doug has plenty of coaching help.  :)

In her last game, she scored 6 points (and had 3 fouls playing aggressive D) in her team's 16-5 win.  She is consistently the high scorer and is really loving this sport.  The biggest bummer is that her games are almost always in conflict with Kaiya's new level 7 meets.  Hate missing either one!

She has just two games left and then has to figure out what sport she wants to do next!

Level 6 State Championships

What a difference a year makes!  Last year, Kaiya narrowly missed qualifying for the state meet and this year she qualified in every meet and then went on to earn a silver medal on uneven bars.  

The state meet was in Colorado Springs, so Kaiya and I made a weekend of it.  As luck would have it, Kinley had her first basketball game of the season and since her dad is her coach, that ruled them both out as spectators.  I hated missing Kinley's game, but am grateful that each kid had a parent there.   

The state meet was broken into 3 sessions and Kaiya's was the first one on Saturday.  We then stayed and watched her other teammates and enjoyed a night in a very nice hotel with one of her old teammates and her mom, which was such a treat to reconnect with them.  Kaiya's team placed 5th overall, so they were quite pleased because the competition was stiff!

Kaiya started the meet on bars and did a beautiful routine.  It wasn't until the very last rotation that someone beat her score of 8.95, so she earned the silver medal.  She did very well on floor and vault and stumbled a bit on the dreaded beam, but had a good meet overall.  Considering she was in a cast from June until Sept, I am totally in awe of how well she did.  She learned the true meaning of hard work and what it meant to put blood, sweat and tears into something. 

And, now there's no time to waste.  She was told early in the season that it just didn't look like she would be ready to move from Level 6 to Level 7 right away (the seasons are back-to-back).  She cried herself to sleep after hearing that and then had tears many nights to follow.  She then put her tears into action and worked as hard as anyone I've ever seen.  We decided to revisit the issue with her coaches and they couldn't deny her progress.  The answer became "maybe".  So she worked harder.  The answer became "probably".  So she worked even harder . . . to the point that her body ached from head to toe.  And then the answer was "Yes!" and I've never seen anyone so happy.  She is not sure if she will be ready to compete by early January when the season starts, but I wouldn't put it past her at this point.  So proud of this young lady!!