Christmas Vacation Part 2

On Saturday (December 22) we went to Princeton Hot Springs with Jim's family.  It was an enjoyable day.  We beat everyone up there so we checked into their cabin for them and then headed to the pools.

Here's my one and only mountain picture.  My camera was SO not a priority during our trip.

 The cabin was pretty nice; it would be fun to stay there sometime.

I swam with everyone in the pools and even got into the hot pool for a few minutes here and there.  I was a little nervous about that, but I was careful not to come close to overheating.  I'm sure a lot of people were impressed to see a very pregnant woman swimming at the hot springs.  :) 

When everyone went down to the river to soak in the actual springs, I decided I was done.  No way was I climbing down those rocks!  Everyone enjoyed soaking down by the river; they were down there the longest I think.

Cami didn't swim, but she climbed down to visit with everyone.

On Sunday after church we finally had a chance to spend time with my mom.  Up to that point we'd hardly seen her even though we were staying at her house.  We had a Christmas Eve Eve party.  It was a family party (plus our adopted grandpa, Bro. Ferguson), so we also finally had some time with Sarah and Dave.  We ate junk and then played games until everyone was tired.

On Monday we spent the afternoon and evening with Jim's family.  We really had a nice Christmas Eve over there.  We visited, snacked, had a nice meal, and opened presents since our time was going to be split elsewhere the next day.  Audrey made our family a really beautiful nativity blanket and gave it to us that night.  I'll have to take a picture of it; I really love it.

Present and stocking time at their house:

Cami

Annie and Terrance with Zada their new puppy

A handsome fellow

Elisa

The kids were playing chess with Elisa at one point that night.

Audrey and Jim Sr.

Jim's grandma (Audrey's mom) 

Alex lived on rolls, juice, and milk most of our trip...his grandmas sure spoiled him.

Our gift to his family was a game called 'Bubble Talk'.  I highly recommend it.  It sounded like something their family would enjoy because it involves choosing funny captions for funny pictures, and Jim's dad is famous for making up that sort of thing.  It was also great for different age levels; Logan was able to play quite competently!  We had plenty of laughs while we played it that night.

Christmas Vacation Part 1

 The reason I'm so behind on this blog is because we just took a three and a half week vacation to Colorado!  It was fantastic!  I probably could have blogged some of these pictures during the trip, but I didn't want to announce publicly that our house was empty during that time.  :)  So now here come several posts.  I'll try not to make them too long.  :)

In preparation for our trip, I did everything I could think of so I could forget about the business of our lives.  We were prepared for Christmas rather early, and we even made and delivered Christmas cookies before we left!  

 We made the 14 hour drive in one day.  The kids were wonderful!  Logan was content the ENTIRE drive.  Annie only whined twice for about a minute.  Alex had a few rough moments, but really did well considering he didn't understand where we were going or how long it would take to get there.  The poor little guy was pulled out of bed before the sun was up, put in the car, and it was bedtime before we arrived!  He just couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, so he cried for the last hour.  We'd ask him if he wanted a cookie, "NO!" or if he wanted Grandma, "NO!"  When we asked him if he wanted to get out of the car he pathetically started crying, "Get out of the car!  Get out of the car!"

The dog had the best time of any of us on that drive because he was able to sit/lay anywhere he wanted the whole time, and he had all sorts of crumbs to catch from the kids.

The kids were thrilled to get out of the car when we arrived at my mom's house, and they played hard until we went to bed.  We were very tired!  The next day was Sunday, so we went to church with my mom and then had dinner at my dad's house.  That was a nice relaxing visit and the kids were so happy to see their Papa!

On Monday we spent the day with Jim's family.  His grandma is now living there, too, so we were really glad to visit with her this trip.

Alex was so funny using Grandma as a table for his Legos.  She loved seeing her great-grandchildren.

Annie and Alex helped Audrey (Jim's mom) make bread that day.

On Tuesday we visited my dad again while he was at work.  This was a short visit, but fun.  He works for the city utilities, but part of his job is to oversee some farmland that the city owns, so he takes the kids over to the farm when we visit him at work.

There were some new baby goats while we were there this time.  They were so cute!  The kids enjoyed chasing them around and Logan picked them up several times.

We can't pass up an opportunity to get on a John Deere tractor!

Jim felt rather betrayed when the kids wanted to climb on this New Holland tractor.  :)

That evening we met up with Ben (Jim's brother) at the mall because we hadn't seen him yet.  We visited in the play area while the kids ran around.  Then we went upstairs to check out a train that we'd seen driving through the mall.  Ben decided to take the kids on it for a ride.  It drove all around the mall and was rather expensive, but the kids were in heaven.  Alex is especially in love with trains.  We would have never paid for it, but that's what makes uncles fun!  

On Wednesday we had a snow day.  My mom and Josh were working, so we just hung out at her house by ourselves the whole day because the weather was bad.  Alex had his one and only nap for that week; the funny thing is that he had one nap each week we were there and they all fell on Wednesdays.  So we'll call it his Wednesday nap.  :)

On Thursday and Friday Jim and I celebrated our 8th anniversary.  We dropped the kids off with Jim's family, and headed up to Denver where we did a sealing session in the Denver Temple.  This is how we traditionally celebrate our anniversary because it reminds us of the covenants we made when we were married.  I love visiting the temple for our anniversary.

After the temple we checked into our hotel and relaxed for a few hours.  It was nice to just be alone.  I was SO ready for that kind of a break.

I took some pictures of our hotel room because I thought it was awesome.  We stayed at a really big, but somewhat run down hotel.  It had two restaurants, multiple large lobbies, conference rooms, and a library.  Our King suite would have been $240 had the hotel had enough business to stay busy, but because of it's inconvenient location it wasn't busy and we had the rooms for $62.  Yeah!  It was almost as big as our apartment in Colorado and plenty comfortable.

After relaxing for a few hours we had an interesting dinner date.  We'd previously chosen a restaurant to visit using a restaurant.com gift certificate, but hadn't checked out the part of town it would be in.  That was a mistake!  We pulled up to the restaurant to discover it was in the worst part of town and it had bars on all the windows.  We decided to try it anyway since we had our coupon.  Inside the only other customers were several teenagers that were being served liquor by the bucket-full, and taking turns smoking weed in the bathroom.  We were overdressed having been to the temple that day, and stood out like a sore thumb.  Upon looking at the menu we realized we'd need to order a large appetizer, drinks, two entrees, and two desserts in order to use our coupon.  So we then made a spectacle of ourselves by ordering a ton of food!  I didn't overeat, but Jim sure did!  It was rather amusing in a way, but those kids were watching us closely the whole time as they became more and more intoxicated.  When we finished, we paid our $13 (the coupon really paid off), grabbed our large bag of leftovers, and locked ourselves in the car.  We both took a deep breath once we were on the road!  I don't think I want to visit that part of Denver again!

The next day we availed ourselves of the hotel's breakfast buffet which really had a great variety, and then visited IKEA.  Jim hadn't been to an IKEA before, so I wanted to take him.  He thought it was neat (though probably not as much as me) and we had a good time walking around in there.  After that we took our time heading back to get the kids.

Airplane Ride

I know it's January, but I have a LOT of catching up to do, so I'm going to attempt chronological order as much as possible.  :)

Back in NOVEMBER, the kids had their first airplane ride.  This was pretty awesome because Logan had been saving his money for almost a year to go on an airplane ride, but hadn't saved enough.  One of our friends has his pilot license, and for his son's recent birthday they had the party at a small airport complete with airplane rides.  It was a very cute, creative party!  Because they knew Logan had been wanting to fly for a long time, they planned to take our family up first.

I didn't go up, but Jim and all three kids did.  I thought either Alex or Annie would be nervous at some point, but they weren't!  They all loved it.

I snapped this picture as they headed away; I was trusting our friend with the lives of my whole family!  They were perfectly safe though.  The kids thought it was neat how small everything looked from the sky.

Kids Say

Annie, "I'm going to wear my blue dress because the girls in my class might not like my red dress."  She REALLY doesn't like red.

Alex when I was touching a Christmas ornament, "Don't touch the tree Mom."

Logan, "Colorado Springs is very lumpy because of the hills and mountains."

Logan randomly after talking about Colorado, "Tiger sharks really are the meanest."

Logan, "I can sit in mid-air."

Alex's prayer, "...In the name baby Jesus, amen."

Logan while teaching himself the words to Silent Night, "Mom, what does virgin mean?"

Annie's prayer, "...bless us to go to bed faster than Mom and Dad..."

Annie's prayer, "...please bless us to go to bed safely..."

I asked Logan what it's like to be six years old.  His first response in a robotic voice, "I don't know cause I'm not a person."  His second response, "It's like walking around and talking and shaking hands."

Alex's Stocking

I FINALLY finished Alex's stocking!  Woohoo!  His was no where near as detailed as Logan's and Annie's, so it was less time consuming, but I really struggled with the patience to work on it.  I guess I need to make the next one when I'm not pregnant.  :)  I'm just glad I finished this one in time for Christmas. 

 

Alex is thrilled with it and doesn't like his siblings to touch it.  The neat thing about his stocking is that the drum has a music chip in it, so it plays 'Jingle Bells'. 

I also wanted pictures of all our stockings. 

Last, a picture of the tree with presents underneath. 

Christmas Kickoff Party

We had our annual Christmas party a little early this year (December 1st) because our month is going to be so full.  It was a great night!  The only thing that would have made it better is if our house were big enough to invite ALL of our friends.  (Not that I'd want a bigger house on any other day of the year...)  Anyway, four families came (making 10 adults and 15 kids) and we had an enjoyable night complete with dinner, gifts, games, and conversation.

 

For dinner we did a potluck salad bar complete with meats, nuts, veggies, fruits, etc...; I'm sure all the husbands thought this sounded pretty lame, and maybe it was for them, but I sure enjoyed it!  I thought it was a fantastic meal.  :)  After dinner we had a white elephant gift exchange.  This was a true white elephant meaning that no one was allowed to spend any money.

 

We did the gift exchange in three parts.  First the girls did theirs.  They passed their gifts around in a circle until I stopped the music.  The oldest girl (age 11) ended up with some baby toys which was pretty ironic, but she was a super good sport. 



The anticipation built for the boys as they waited for their turn.

I tried to take a picture of Lynnette with her girls when her son took a flying leap in front of the camera.  It's funny because this totally captures his personality.

The boys had their turn second.  The ages were a little less spread out here.  I kept the music going for a long time for the boys.

They passed and passed those presents...

Finally, I stopped the music and they opened their gifts.  Logan ended up with a Santa hat and he has been wearing it CONSTANTLY.  I guess he liked his gift.  :)

The adults did a slightly more complicated white elephant exchange.  We sent the little kids downstairs to run wild play.  The adult exchange involved the ability to steal gifts and the gifts were opened one at a time.  There were some amusing gifts this year and we had a fun time.  My favorite was a Michael Jackson VHS. 

After the gift exchange we had dessert and then sent the kids downstairs again.  I know the kids had a fun time running around in our big basement, but the adults possibly had a better time.  We played a simple game called 'Take Your Pick' which fostered good conversation and lots of laughter.  I think we were louder than the kids!

Thanks everyone for a fabulous night!