Christmas In Utah

We left for Utah on the 20th.  We had great weather the first day.  That was one of my biggest concerns on driving with the kids.  The roads between here and Utah can be ugly during the winter, but we had great weather the first day and decent weather the second.  We did have some snow blowing and drifting onto the road over Wyoming, imagine that.  Then it rained from Evanston to Salt Lake but at least it was only rain and not snow.  We arrived at my parents house in the early evening on Sunday.  It felt so go to be "home"  although I am really starting to think of Minnesota as home, nothing can or will ever take the place of Utah.

We arrived into a bit a chaos with my extended family.  My sister's husband (Lisa and Ben) had a major heart problem and ended up spending the days leading up to Christmas in ICU at St Marks and having surgery to have a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted in his chest.   Thankfully he is okay now has a great doctor to help keep him and his heart healthy.  I spent the first few days watching their kids while they were in crisis at the hospital.  All of the kids had a great time together.

Playing with baby Elise

Christmas Eve fun

Some of my favorite pictures from our trip.  Skipping with Rhett's family in Texas.

Myles loves Grandpa.

Present time!

Santa found us in Utah!

Two visits from Santa in the same year.  Must be some pretty great kids!

Olaf!  Myles was so excited 

The day after Christmas we loaded up the car and headed for Vernal to visit the Grandparents.  

Myles riding the horse downstairs and Grandpa and Grandma Taylor's.  Sadly this was the only horse ride that we got on this trip.  

I climbed this same tree when I was a girl.  

Myles with Grandpa and Grandma.  He wasn't afraid of anyone on this trip.  He gladly climb up on all laps and gave hugs and kisses.  

A few shots with Grandma and Grandpa.

We also go to see and spend a little time with Heather and her girls.

It was a fun day trip.

Somehow I forgot to take my camera into my other Grandparents house so we didn't get any pictures there, but we did visit and have a great afternoon there.

We also got to visit temple square while we were in Utah.  I was super excited about taking the kids to see the lights and for a while it didn't look like we were going to find the time to go down there, especially with everything else that was going on, but we managed to squeeze it in, snow and all.  

We also spent an afternoon with Erick, Heather and Riker in Logan but again no pictures. And an afternoon with BJ and Holly who just happened to be visiting from Hawaii at the same time, we also went to see Jake's Grandma Jenkins with BJ and Holly.  

I am so grateful that we got to go to Utah and see family.  I have really missed spending Christmas with family. 

We left for Minnesota on New Years day and had a another two days of good driving weather.  Then we got to spend the weekend with Jake before having to face the reality of real life. 

Christmas in Minnesota

The power plant has not has a very good winter so far this winter.  It seems like something is always going wrong and therefore the plant has been in outage......a lot!  Don't worry it's not going to be a disaster or anything, but it is a major pain in the but for us.  Well, the plant was in outage over Christmas so the kids and I went to Utah on the 20th.  We had a great time and more about that later, but first we celebrated Christmas as a family on the 17th.  Santa Claus made a special early delivery for us while the kids were at school.

Abbie got an indoor garden.

Myles got a strider bike

Opening presents

Seeing what Santa brought for us.  

More presents...

Ashton got a bow. 

Abbie and Ashton got kindles from Santa!

There were no pictures of me, opening my presents which were a new camera and accessories for it!  I was super excited about getting it.  

After opening everything and playing for a while we went out to dinner.  Although a little unconventional, we had a great holiday.  It was probably my favorite part of Christmas.

November/December Update

My poor neglected blog.....

So much happened in the last two months, and I didn't keep up with any of it here.  So I am going to try and hit most of it.

November
Ashton had a music concert at school.  It was all patriotic music and it was really good.  He was actually looking forward to the concert.  He did a great job, everyone did.

Here we are playing around before the concert started.

Ashton getting ready to sing.

We were so far away that we didn't get many pictures but it was awesome.

Abbie lost another tooth.  Two actually.  She pulled them both out by herself.  

She got gold dollars from the tooth fairy.

The day after Thanksgiving Jake took Lexie, Ashton and Abbie to a parade downtown.  We were all going to go, but Myles ended being sick (again:/).  He had two ear infections in November and he actually threw up while we were at dinner(fun times) before we were going to go to the parade so I stayed home with him.  

We had a super cold November with no snow and a warmish December so this was one of the first times the kids got to play in the snow.  

December

The kids have always loved to build gingerbread houses or trains or whatever so I got one early this year and they had a good time putting it together.  

Myles had to be totally involved in the decorating, imagine that he is two!

Good job!

Jake had his National Guard Christmas party.  His last official one since he will be retired.  I guess he can always go to them if he wants but this was the last one.  We got to get all dressed up and have a yummy dinner at the casino.  It was a fun night, especially since we don't get to that kind of thing very often.  

We had a wonderful and very different Christmas celebration, but that will get it's own post!