Christmas break

Christmas traditions of Gingerbread men.
And Houses
Kaden's Santa car


Tanner is going strong in soccer, his team is about half and half with wins and losses. He was asked to play in a tournament during Christmas break with the varsity players but refused because he thinks he is not ready to play at that level, I wish he would of played, he is doing awesome.


Kali was part of a performance team this holiday, she performed at a mall, retirement home, and at her school, She is a great performer, and had a great time. she told me she now wants to volunteer at retirement homes and help the old people.

Thanks to Pinterest I am the mom of the year with my Santa and reindeer pancakes:)


Christmas is interesting with big kids. Still fun but different.
Kali's stash
Tanner loot
Kaden's stuff
We had cousins over for Christmas eve, soup bowls and all. Sorry no pictures. And we had Kim over for Christmas day. We went to the dog park and had ham for dinner, as you can see the dogs are waiting patiently for some ham to drop.
The weather was perfect over the whole break. We took a hike up Superstition Mountain on the Lost Dutchman trail.
A view of Four Peaks


We took a break to have a picnic

Kali wanted to plank, so silly




Kevin was invited to play in a Marcos De niza 1980-2011 alumni game on new years eve day. His team won.


We were so excited to go to Prescott for New Years. We have not had a party for new year in 5 years or so. Brittney (who I have known since 4th grade) recently moved to Prescott about 2 hours from us. We drove up there after Kevins soccer game. The kids were kind of shy at first but they eventually had a great time with each other. Kali and Shay had a beauty shop all night with pedicures and hair do's
We all were looking so beautiful by the end of the night
Midnight finally came, Hip Hip Hurray!!!!! we get to got to bed.

early the next morning we went to Out Of Africa about an hour from the Carvers house. We all hopped in the Burb and headed out.
We took a tram to the animals
These animals were beautiful. And you got to get so close.
They were way more active than any animal at any zoo I have been to.
We took a Unimog tour while we were there, that was probably the highlight of the day.
Our tour guide would get out and feed the animals.

This giraffe was so cool. We got 4 biscuits before the tour started so we could feed the giraffe and the camel.

The kids fed him from their mouths


There was a nice string of slim as the giraffe backed away.
We were told not to get close to the zebra's.
cutest baby zebra
The zebra getting a little to close for comfort.
This ostrich was very curious, our guide told us not to touch him or we would get bit. The boys wanted to let him bit them. silly boys. They all had bruises and cuts when he was done.
Tanner making out with a camel
I would hate to carry these around all day

Most of their animals were rescues or were born there.
These hyena's were so cool but creepy. They would moo just like a cow, our guide told us that is a friendly greeting, if you hear them laughing you don't want to be close. We did get to hear them laughing when they fed them at the end of the day. It was hilariousness.
They had a show called Tiger Splash. The trainers would run and jump into this pool and the tigers would jump in right after them.
crazy how high they would jump
Kaden got chosen to hold this snake, a reticulated python, I would of gone for the tail too. We all got to go in there after and feel it, way cool.



We went back to Brittney and Tylers and had carne asada's that night and then went back to the hotel to get some sleep for the next days adventure.

We went on a hike to Watsons Lake, It was so beautiful.

Tanner thought this rock was funny, I wonder why?
The kids were great hikers, there was some pretty steep things we had to hike up and down.

Planking:)
I love me some Kaden
Kali and Shayna are so strong, these girls were great buddies.

A heart puddle


We took a snack break and tried to start a fire, no luck:(
Tyler even got in on the action.
As we were hiking out Tanner was ahead of me, and told me to watch out because there was a water moccasin in the water. HaHa
After the hike we went swimming at Tyler and Brittney's, then went home. Thanks for being great hosts, we had a great time.