Happy birthday dear Esther...

Jed's 30th - Post #1

Check out this venison roast!

Esther Made Her First Christmas Ornament

Our Little Helper

Esther loves to help us cook. A couple of weeks ago she helped Mom make and decorate some christmas cookies.

The other night Sara left Esther home alone with Dad for the evening. When she returned at 9 o'clock Esther was still awake helping Dad with some cooking. Esther was eating the sugar stuck to the inside of the measuring cup and saying "Mmm..good."

Notice her attire...

Beatrice Playing

Our Big Road Trip

The Deans took a 'little' road trip to Wyoming for Thanksgiving where we stayed with Jed's aunt Marcyes for over a week. The girls got to meet lots of relatives for the first time as well as spend time with their grandparents, which always makes them happy. They got to see all kinds of farm and wild animals as well as snow! We all had a great time. We took about 5 days driving out. Our friend Tyson came along for part of the road trip. The pictures below from the drive out are almost all from him, and you will notice a distinct drop in photo quality after he leaves. Enjoy!

We stopped to stretch at Tenaya Lake in Yosemite National Park. Here Jed is trying to get Esther to test out the lake for a swim, but she knows better than to get in a High Sierra lake in November.




Our first stop east of the Sierras was at a mining ghost town called Bodie.



Tyson took this great picture of Esther eating lunch outside the car at Bodie.



Here are Tyson and Jed in front of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States.



Next we spent the day in Death Valley. Here is a view of Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. The first picture is down in the basin while the second one is from 4000 feet above it. That white stuff is all salt. Pretty cool.




We stopped at Valley of Fire State Park outside of Las Vegas. Esther walked most of the way on a short hike to Elephant Rock, although she did need Mom to hold her hand sometimes and to carry all the interesting rocks she stopped to pick up.



Our last big stop on the drive out to Wyoming was in Zion National Park. Mom went for a run up to Angel's Landing while Dad took both girls on their own hike to see two waterfalls. Here's a self-portait.



We finally arrived in Wyoming at Jed's aunt Marcyes' house. Here are the girls with their grandparents. They are sure excited to be out of the car.




Esther loved Marcyes' cat Orange Juice. As you can see from these pictures, Orange Juice is a very gentle and patient cat. I don't think Esther has ever been more excited in her whole life than when she got to hold a cat.



About half way through our stay in Wyoming it snowed! Look how nice Marcyes' yard looks in the snow.



One night it dropped all the way to 0 degrees. Rudy took this picture to prove that Sara was able to walk outside at such low temperatures. She's from California.




Esther has been practicing jumping lately. Here she is showing off her moves in Aunt Marcyes' kitchen. Judge for yourself how close she is.



We visted Marta and Kirby (Jed's cousins) and family for dinner one night. Here are Esther and Bea sitting on their dog. He was very patient.



We spent Thanksgiving with about 25 family members from the Dean clan. Marta and Kirby hosted. Esther loved their house, their toys, and especially their kids. Here she is doing her favorite thing: running around the staircase pushing Wyatt on his police car. If you look closely you'll see they are chaing Garrett on his fire engine.



Here is Beatrice with her second cousin, Elena. Bea never falls asleep when people are around, but Elena had the magic touch.



The drive home was beautiful as well. Here's a view from the car of the mountains in Montana.



During the drive we listened to a book about the building of the transcontinental railroad beacause our drive took us along the route of the original railroad. Here's Esther at Promontory in Utah where the line from the West and the line from the East were connected with a golden spike in 1869. Esther is just so excited to see a piece of the history she learned so much about!