The Rest

We got to hang around in SJ for a few days after all of the Christmas fun was over. The weather was gorgeous and we spent a lot of time outside. Spencer still didn't feel well so he had to stay in and rest though. Mason loved helping Grandpa in the yard. When Grandpa turned on the sprinkler to water the grass, Mason thought it was summer and begged to take his clothes off and run through it. I let him, but he didn't last long. It wasn't that warm. ;) We also went hunting for cool Arizona rocks out in the field. Their rocks are very different from Oregon's!

I was able to meet up with my friends from high school one morning. Cassandra and JoElla both live in SJ now and are amazing women. It was so fun to see them and their growing kiddos!

We made a trip out to Patterson's Pond that afternoon. Lindsey has recently taken up fishing and was good to let all of the boys take a turn with her rod. Turns out that she shouldn't have let Alan have a turn though - he promptly broke her line. Haha! It had been a few years since I had been out to Patterson's so it was my first time seeing the nice trail and benches around the ponds. It's so pretty and serene out there.

Credit goes to Lindsey for these last three pictures:

It's always SO hard to say goodbye at the end of these visits. I dread it every time. We packed up and headed out on the 28th though. We decided to try driving home through Nevada this time and stayed the first night in Vegas and the second in Reno. We stayed in casino resorts both nights and it would have been a lot of fun if Spencer and I had been feeling better. As it was, it took forever to find parking and even longer to unload our car and lug all of our suitcases about a mile to our rooms. After that, plus a full day of driving and leaky diapers, I had a migraine and didn't feel like doing much. We ate at a buffet in Vegas and then went to bed early.

We were feeling slightly better the next night in Reno so we got some pizza and then went swimming. I wish I had taken a picture of the whole pool because it was big and really fun. The boys had a fabulous time and were completely worn out by the time we dragged them out.

There was a lot more high elevation driving than we expected in northern Nevada, but we were lucky and didn't see a single snowflake fall. It was a really wonderful trip, but we were glad to be home and done with driving for awhile. Thank you for a great Christmas Mom and Dad! We love you and we cherish the time we get to spend with you!

Christmas!

I have always looked forward to Christmas Eve almost as much as Christmas Day. As an adult, I like Christmas Eve better. It's full of family time, fun traditions, and lots of anticipation.

Christmas Eve was on Sunday this year. We went to a nice Sacrament Meeting and then came back home to put together our gingerbread houses. There was no shortage of candy! Mason and I were on a team this year. I made a graham cracker house for him because his attention span isn't long enough to build and decorate a house. Everyone else used real gingerbread though. Alan has taken on the job of making the real gingerbread each year. I had a hard time getting Mason to put any candy on our house. He just wanted to eat all of it!

Lindsey took this family picture just before we went to Church. We really missed Elise's and Katelyn's families!

These next two photos are from Lindsey. The house in the middle with the Necco wafer roof is Spencer's and Alan's.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and helping Mom in the kitchen. It was a beautiful, sunny day so some of us went on a walk.

Everyone was nice enough to go along with one of my favorite traditions of having a simple "Shepherd's" dinner. We ate Naan, hummus, olives, cheese, jerky, grapes, cucumbers, and carrot sticks by candlelight. Some people were skeptical at first, but I think everyone liked it in the end.

Then we had our usual Christmas Eve program. I mostly took videos and only got this one still shot. Michelle and Lindsey performed "Away in a Manger." Spencer played a piano solo, Mom and I played a duet, and Marc shared some insights into the scriptures. Afterward, we loaded up in our cars and drove around town to look at Christmas lights.

Marc was nice enough to share a room (and a king size bed) with Spencer during our stay, so I don't know how much Spencer slept on Christmas Eve, but he was up and ready to go nice and early on Christmas morning. Santa did not disappoint. Spencer loved the Harry Potter Wand Santa brought and carried it around with him most of the day. True to his typical self, Mason didn't love any one thing, but had a great time bouncing around from one new toy to the next all day.

Mom and I tried experimenting with a couple of different cinnamon roll recipes for Christmas breakfast this year. We were not impressed, but everyone still ate them. ;)

Present opening took a long time with all of us and Mason got tired and bored. Under the tree was a good place to rest.

Mom making her traditional lemon meringue pies.

Michelle mostly wants Celtic Thunder dvds for Christmas these days. She spent most of the day watching them on her portable dvd player.

Lindsey gave us a fun, new game called Qwirkle.

Ending the day with some classic Christmas movies. It was a good day!

Poor Marc started to come down with the flu that evening. Spencer was fine when he went to bed, but wound up getting sick and throwing up all over in their bed twice in the night. Marc was such an awesome uncle and cleaned it all up himself (while he himself was sick) without even coming to get Alan or I! We had no idea until the morning. Marc wound up getting really sick for a week or so. Spencer's wasn't that bad, but he was a little under the weather for the rest of our trip. Thankfully, Mason and I didn't catch it until we were back home in Oregon.