The Holidays

I know I'm way behind so to catch up here's the reader's digest version. We had a great Christmas in Las Vegas with the Pooler, Duke, & Bell family. We have a tradition of getting together for Christmas Eve to have dinner, read Christmas stories and sing songs. My mom had us all sing a song that we haven't sung since we were little kids and it was so fun to start it the new generation ( Connor & Wyatt). The song was C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S. The theme of the song is that sometimes we get stuck on Christmas meaning presents (giving or receiving) that we forget the true meaning. It goes through each letter of "Christmas" each one standing for part of the Christmas story. Ex: "C is for the Christ Child, born upon this day" and so on. I decided to share that with the primary kids in our ward this year as well. This Christmas Eve we also exchanged gifts since Ben's family was coming the next day.

















Brooke asked us to get the boys clothes and both Ben & I were thinking, "How boring!" These guys were so excited that it was only a matter of minutes before they were out of their old clothes and into their new ones! Connor was loving his "Karate" shirt and had to show all of us his moves. Wyatt already had a hoodie on, but wanted his new on over it. He must have been sweating, but he didn't seem to mind.

On Christmas day Ben's parents, sister & her husband (and their 6 month old little girl) flew in to spend the rest of the week with us. Ben's other siblings live in the Salt Lake area, so we took the opportunity to drive up and spend time all together. While we were up there we visited Temple Square to see the lights. I forget how cold it is up there! I'm so glad we don't live in the snow. We were waiting for the rest of our group to show up, so Ben & I wasted some time trying to take a good picture of us in front of the temple. Some really nice older people came buy and saw us struggling with the camera and asked if we wanted them to take a picture for us. Ben said, " No, thanks. We're just board." They said, "Oh, okay," and laughed at us while walking away and shaking their heads. It only took us four tries to get a half way decent one!


When we got back in town we took his family to see the garden at the Bellagio and to the Ethel M chocolate factory to see the lights. I think we sometimes take it for granted all the great free stuff we have near by.








































We had the best time! It was so wonderful being able to spend time with all of our family this holiday season! We're so grateful that Ben's family was able to fly in and spend time with us. It is hard, especially during the holidays, to be away from family and this year we were spoiled!


I need to back track here a little. The week before Christmas I had finals for school. Talk about stress! I haven't studied like that since my college days at Dixie! It totally paid off though. I passed my exams with an A and received my Certificate for completing the Freshman portion of my schooling. That's one-fourth of the pie gone! I was so ready to move on to actually working on clients and not just on manikins. I have had a blast getting to work on friends and family members. We had to come up with a list of 10 people to work on before we get to start working on the general public.


I'd like to give a huge shout out to my mom, for being brave and letting me color, highlight, and cut her hair! She is the best! Thanks also to the guys I work with, my dad & Mandy for letting me get some practice in. You guys are awesome!





Whew! I think I about covered everything!