Home for the Holidays

We headed out to Utah for this year's Christmas (okay, I guess it was last year). Brendon got two weeks off of school and Overstock gave me two weeks off from work (if they didn't, I was seriously considering quitting, knowing the job wouldn't last much longer). We had a fun time with our family.

After looking over the pictures, I couldn't help but smile and laugh. I learned a valuable life lesson: take more pictures! It helps with my memory recall and we had more fun than what can be included in this post.

Here are the highlights from our trip home for the holidays:

Seeing extended family...
Christmas Eve was spent with the Jardine family. We had a lot of fun catching up with cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma. We had our traditional feast and enjoyed our gift exchange and the "mystery ball" game. The ball was wrapped in streamers and filled with gifts (everything from an eraser to $20). Brendon & I scored $25 together!

The day after Christmas we visited part of the Gibson family and enjoyed our catch-up time and games.

Christmas Day...
Christmas morning we woke up and Brendon was the first person downstairs to peek (note to self: post about Brendon's peeking habits). Thank goodness Santa's onto Brendon and had everything wrapped or in a bag.

We finally had Mom's Christmas wish come true which was to be snowed in on Christmas day. Unfortunately, we missed the Woodworths, but we enjoyed our day with the family.


Visiting Friends...
Brendon & I were able to visit a few friends, two of which have had babies since we left (Sevys & Burnetts), we played volleyball with "the boys" (Scotty, Reed, & Steve), and I was able to catch up with Jamie & Melissa.

Nintendo Wii...

Just about the coolest Nintendo console. We filled our Christmas day (and many other days) with Wii Fit (with Brendon beating everyone of Austin's records he had time for) and Mario Olympics.


Spades (& other games)...
Spades is our favorite card game! One that we always play with the family. Unfortunately, not everyone can play at the same time so we also enjoyed Catch Phrase.


Movies...
Another common family outing when we're together. We saw Bedtime Stories and Bad Dog, Marley! Both really good movies. We laughed, we cried (some of us did anyways), and we laughed some more.

Snowboarding...
Brendon wanted to teach Austin how to snowboard so before heading to a resort, we went to the local junior high and snowboarded on mini bunny hills. Austin felt confident after that, so we headed to Sundance.

This was my first time snowboarding in four years and I've only ever snowboarded in powder (not at a resort). For the record, skiis are much easier for getting off of the lift. I heard a lot of, "Are you okay?" everytime I got off the lift. On my last trip, I almost successfully made it without falling at all.

We saw a lot of this...

...and this...

...and a little bit of this:


By lunchtime, Austin had had enough and was going to take a nap in the car. We were going to be a few more hours.

On the first trip down, I had a couple of nasty falls on hard, frozen snow (practically solid ice). Cried. And said I was done. I wanted my bruise on my knee to be oh so bad, to show the pain and that I was not a wimp. Fortunately, the bruise came. And it was big. (No picture, though.)

All in all, Brendon, Austin, & I had a fun time together and all of us want to snowboard again some day.



Creme Soda...
Brendon said to me last night, "I miss reaching for a creme soda whenever I want."

Family...
And last, but certainly not least, family! It never seems like we can get enough time together. This was our last time with everyone together in a loooong time. Brittany (who I failed to get a picture of) is going on a mission and leaves February 2nd. Mindy & Tyler will be moving to Florida this fall. And we are back in Missouri.

We were able to spend time with some of the Pitts and Brendon's mom as well (more to come).

We are so grateful for the time we were able to spend with our family. We had a blast with everyone!