Sunday, January 6, 2019

And then it was Christmas 2018!

We started our Christmas rounds with the Randalls on Christmas Eve. Grandma, James and Bean joined Paul and I for that visit.  We usually visit them on Christmas Day, but there was a chance of snow that we didn't want to deal with.  



Supe and Auri joined us for Christmas breakfast and some visits.  Beacher had to work the morning shift at the hospital.  


A visit to the Smiths.  Colony's kids spent the holiday with their dad, so we missed them.  

Auri was fascinated with Kaebri's Christmas tortoise Sheldon and loved pestering Roxie and stealing her bean bag chair.  


Kai kept us entertained at Moss and Christie's!  


The Borrowmans were next.  They entertained us with Gaige and Koen's new segway.  


The Weaver's came down for a Christmas dinner with Lance's family and stopped by for a Christmas visit to us on their way!  


The northern Lillywhites sent darling videos to let us share a little Christmas with them!  



And when Beacher got off work She and Supe joined us for lunch and some Merry Christmas!


It was a wonderful Christmas made most wonderful by the blessing of knowing that because of the greatest gift of all -  our Savior  -  and the knowledge that through that gift we can continue loving and enjoying family life together always!  

And then it was Christmas Adam - dinner and games at the Smiths!

When our kids were little they decided that the night before Christmas Eve should be called Christmas Adam!  This year they wanted to get together and celebrate and the Smith's were nice enough to host this gang for dinner and crazy fun games! 

As a group we made parts for a clay Nativity and put it together.  Brenden made and added the most important and last piece...Baby Jesus.  Then we divided into 4 teams and played our crazy games!  




After the games Paul and I opened some of our gifts from the family!  

YSA sucess story - a life together begins!

Paul and I serve as Ward Clerk and Member Coordinator in a YSA Ward.  It is a wonderful calling.  One thing we do is call on ward members who are less active and invite them.  Sometimes it helps.  In this case it did and in the process it brought two ward members together and they fell in love and got married!  We felt privileged to be asked to serve as witnesses at their wedding!  Leslie Ferguson and Bobby Fulsom - Mr. and Mrs. Fulsom!  



Saria's debut in Once Upon a Time!

Sarai decided to be brave and try being in her 1st play!  She was a fairy - Iridessa and looked beautiful and did a great job too!  So proud of her!  


December birthdays...thick and fast!


We started of with breakfast with Brynnli - she's our oldest grand child and this was #19!  How can she be that old already!  

Then Grandpa and Noah shared a little celebration!  #10 for Noah!

And then Grandpa celebrated again...#66!

And then it was time for Gaige to turn 13!  We love them all, young and old!  

Kicking off the Christmas holiday with The Christmas Carol

Brady and Ellie did great jobs on their parts in The Christmas Carol ala Western Style!  it was a fun way to kick off the Christmas holiday!  Ellie was NOT happy that she had to hug a boy!  Brady played the Spirit of Christmas Present and Ellie played Mr. Scrooge's sister Fan. 


More fun over the Thanksgiving holiday...and Zion's birthday!

 The duck pond never disappoints!  
The Desert Garden and the Red Hill are also a hit!  

We did Girl's Night at Capelletti's and played crazy, fun games afterwards! The men did a night at George's too, but got no pictures.  


And we visited the "Crazy Park!"
We also celebrated Zion's 4th amid all of this fun in the sun!  


Saturday, January 5, 2019

Thanksgiving 2018!

This year it was the whole group party!  We missed 10, added 2 and enjoyed a wonderful day.  We decided to try it at the church again and this time it worked really well.  We went to our YSA building and the gym has a big door you can close in the middle of the gym.  We used one side for eating and the other side worked well for basketball!  We ate, played board games, had a concert by the grand kids, plays by the grand kids and badminton for young and old!  We spent pretty much all day there.  Before when we got a church we had to share half of the day with another family and that was not nearly so successful.  Hopefully we can do it this way again when we have the whole gang coming!  

























So thankful for all of this wonderful family we have.  The thing I'm most grateful for this year would probably have to be Bean's blessed recovery and rejoining of the family.  That is a glorious blessing that we will always be so grateful for.  He was so lost to us...and now he is back.