Geodesic Dome Greenhouse

Back in August, Grandma Lewis headed to Alaska for a month, so grandpa decided he'd build a greenhouse to fill his time. It is a geodesic 4V dome.

Here is the photo progression of most of the different phases.

PVC pipe from the plumbing store...measuring and cutting.

Prepping the base of the dome, making sure it's level.

The gluing begins!

Grandpa speeding through.

Almost complete.

On to painting - green was the chosen color per Kaden's request I believe.

Look at that concentration!

Sawyer was a BIG help :)

Break Time

Getting set up to wrap the dome in plastic.

All smiles before the shrink wrap began...

George and his shrink wrap 'gun'.

The first go round we didn't have one piece of plastic big enough for the whole dome, so we were trying to meld plastic pieces together. This didn't work very well. Here George is pondering what our next move should be.

Grandpa ended up buying a piece of plastic large enough to cover the whole dome. That worked much better!

Grandpa and Grandma Lewis melding the plastic to itself around the bottom of the dome.

Sara's turn using the 'gun'.

David and Abbie, pictured above, sealing off the bottom of the dome with foam piping.

A glimpse inside the dome.

And here it is...the geodesic dome greenhouse! It's a fun structure to have in the backyard, and I think the dutch door adds a nice touch.

Everyone in the whole family got in on this project, although grandpa lead out and got 'er done.

Now it's really winter and this is what the igloo looks like :)

O Christmas Tree

December 1st came and brought with it snow and colder temps...just in time for Christmas! We had a small day excursion up second left hand canyon to find a Christmas tree for Grandpa and Grandma Lewis. We also enjoyed some sledding and a nice walk.

Great gully for sledding.

Grandma with 'the tree'

This is how Sawyer sleds :)

Watch out, here comes Kaden!

Uncle Chris and Sawyer. I was spoiled with all my family in town because I never had to carry Sawyer.

I didn't get a very good 'after' photo of the tree, but we had a good time decorating. It was fun to see ornaments from our childhood that I hadn't seen in years. Sawyer has been pretty good keeping his hands off the tree and ornaments. I think it helps that the tree is poky.

Thanksgiving & Bryce Canyon

Sawyer and I kissed George goodbye on Thanksgiving day and flew back to Cedar City. All of my siblings (minus Alethea who is off playing in NZ) were gathered at my parent's home. We arrived around 4 p.m. and were so excited to see everyone and eat up the thanksgiving dinner leftovers. It felt like summer too with clear blue skies and temps in the 60's.

Mac & Steph's dog, Bug, decided to take the day and have an outing of his own. So after dinner we went out on walks trying to find him. Unfortunately we didn't have any luck, but prayers were answered and when Sara & Joe were driving home from the festivities around 9 p.m. they saw a police car in front of the doggie jail, so they pulled over and sure enough they were just bringing in Bug. That was awesome timing!

George has been working so hard (80+ hour weeks!) and we're so grateful for all he does for our family. I feel so blessed to have him as my man. I hope he knows how much we love, appreciate, and respect him! He is such a great example for Sawyer, and will be for our next little guy.

The train set provided hours of entertainment. Sawyer was unsure of the trains at first and was named 'Babyzilla' because he would come crashing through and rip the trains off the track before it could get too far. He is quite advanced now and goes for the controller instead of the train, and he says 'choo choo choo choo' over and over in a frantic tone.

On one of our many walks in Cedar - this is the sheep tunnel that goes for an amazingly long way under the streets of Cedar. I asked the group to throw signs to go along with all the graffiti...look how gangsta they all are, we got bunny ears and everything!

A couple days after Thanksgiving we headed to Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park. Somehow I've managed to never visit this park, even though it's only a 2 hour drive from Cedar. I've been missing out! It was amazing. I'll never tire of beautiful red rock. It helped that we had perfect weather.

The whole gang at Bryce - sadly David had to leave us before we went exploring.

The Grandeur!

These two are such great buds, I love it!

The trail we took was between Sunset and Sunrise Point. On this particular section there was a lot of Oregon Holly Grape Bushes - we even found three berries.

Thank you for the crossed eyes Maccy.

Awww the cute Alaskans :) Chris loves getting his picture taken.

You can see part of our group on the trail to Queens Garden.

I have SO many blessings in my life. What a neat holiday, to celebrate gratitude.

Snow Family

On Sunday afternoon (Dec 4th) we headed out to Joe and Sara's house to play in the snow.

For the most part we all had a good time.

Although there were a few tears!

Here is our snow family, complete with a snow bunny.