Christmas

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Finally getting around to blogging about our holidays. We had a fabulous Christmas. We always prefer to stay at our house for Christmas morning and just be together for a little while before we head out to see extended family. We had a great morning. I won't bore you with a long list of every gift, but the favorites were: Trent-iPod Touch, Kacie-gorgeous new coat and scarf, Gavin-iPod, Ryker-skateboard and Saige-Hannah Montana electronic journal. We got ourselves a new video camera as an early present, so we kind of neglected the regular camera. 

The plan for this year was to head to Castle Dale by noon, which we actually did, but got detoured to my parent's house as the roads were absolutely horrible between our house and Lehi because of the storm. So, we spent Christmas Day at the Powell's constantly checking road conditions on Hwy 6, hoping that we might be able to get to Castle Dale sometime that day, but it didn't happen. We took ZERO pictures at my parents house, but we had a really good time. We had a delicious dinner, opened presents, played ping pong and sang around the piano. We were grateful that we could spend the day with family; even if it wasn't the family we had planned to spend it with. We left first thing in the morning on the 26th and the roads were still pretty bad, but it had stopped snowing so at least we could see. Once we got to Price the roads were much better, so Trent had to make up for lost time by going 80 mph. We got pulled over when we were just a couple of miles from our destination. Of course, Trent managed not to get a ticket. (I picked up some pointers on how not to get a ticket the next time I get pulled over.)

We had a great time with the Keele family. We did some sledding, went swimming at the new pool, ate too much, played games and watched bootleg movies (thanks, Sam!). Once again, we didn't even touch our camera, so thanks to Jaime and Samantha for the pictures. Even though the vast majority of us left the Keele house with the stomach flu, we still had a great time. The last count I heard was 12 out of 17 having gotten sick, but the flu passed and we wouldn't trade being together for anything.

We had to rush home on Sunday morning because I had to give a talk in church. (I didn't get sick until Sunday evening-what excellent timing!) We spent a couple of days playing with our new toys at home and then the kids and I went and stayed in Lehi for a few days. We had a blast sledding on the pond behind my parent's house. We tied a couple of sleds behind a four-wheeler and took turns being dragged around the pond. The kids and I got a particularly memorable ride when my mom thought she would drive around the edge and then send us up the bank. Instead, we all fell off our sleds and after a moment realized that for some reason the edge of the pond wasn't frozen (I still don't get that because the middle was solid). We got a little bit wet, but the worst part was the smell. But, it made for a good memory. The last day we were there Grandpa came home from work with a monstrous new sled, so of course we all had to have a turn in that. This is the way to go sledding! No hills to hike up while dragging multiple sleds and you can go inside to get warm anytime you want. We did get plenty of pictures of our ice sledding adventures; my favorite is the one of Saige next to the swampy mess we landed in. 

The kids and I also spent New Year's Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Powell's because Trent had to work. We were really grateful that he didn't have to work Christmas Day this year-we sometimes have to get creative with Christmas, so we enjoyed having him home with us. We had such a great holiday break. The presents were fun, but the best part was being able to celebrate the birth of our Savior with the people we love the most.