Christmas time

This years Christmas was in St. George with the Larson Family. We got down there around 9:00 p.m. on the 23rd. It was so nice to finally be HOME! We decorated some gingerbread houses and caught up with the family until LATE! It was so great.

On the 24th I spent most of the day in the kitchen decorating, cooking and cleaning for our fancy Christmas Eve feast. I also did a little hair cutting for my brother, I turned him into a Prince from a Pauper like that!


That night, everyone got together and we ate, had a story and opened our new Christmas PJ's. We took lots of fun pictures in front of the fireplace before the nephews had to get into their beds so Santa could come.

Christmas morning we didn't get up until 8:30. We all got some hot chocolate and cinnimon rolls and headed back downstairs to open gifts. My dad had to work at the Fire Station all day but was able to come home at 9:00 for a couple hours to open gifts.

Orrin with his new Sig P238 and me with my 50 mm lens! We both LOVE what we got!

My family all seemed to really enjoy their hand made gifts! Whew! There were lots of really meaningful gifts this year some of them include:

1. Mom spent months uploading old family videos to the computer. She burned them all onto DVDs for all the kids. Now we have our very own sets to watch whenever we want!
   
2. Temple pictures.. Cassidy got us one to go with our Christ picture.. I have the most lovely grouping on my wall now!
3. Sams Sandy Acres sweatshirts. My dad just got some new land down by the river that he has spent countless hours at. He built corals, a couple sheds and more. We call it "Sams Sandy Acres" and Sami made a brand for it and made us all sweatshirts with the logo.
4. Mark Marbys new book with pictures pertaining to the Book of Mormon. Stunning and priceless photography/stories. Thanks Jer & Les.
   
5. When my mom was getting married, my grandma wrote a little poem for her about her life and meeting my dad. Josh took this poem, had his friend paint watercolors to go with the story and put it together like a childrens book. It's priceless and beautiful.
   

Heres my dad with his meaningful gift. A large TV to go in his bedroom. Dont you just love the picture of him with a big tv in front of an even bigger tv? I wonder where his priorities are!


After the gift opening and after we all consumed LOTS of food, some of us headed out to shoot some guns. We shot some small guns at first, Orrin was so excited to finally shoot his new one.
We headed out a little further to this stunning spot that overlooked the Virgin River and we shot some clay pigeons.

That evening we went over to the Fire Station to visit my dad and play some games. Josh taught us a lot of "Mormon Games."


We ended up being there for quite a while. It was way fun and I was surprised I hadn't even played any of these games before.

If this picture isn't adorable I dont know what is. How oposite can you get with a Vietnamese lady and a little red head? She loved these kids.. helped them eat with their chopsticks, gave them mints and even bought them candy out of the machine. Then, one of the cooks brought them all paper cranes!


That afternoon some of us went to Sherlock Holmes.. it was a really great show. After the movie we went over to see the newly finished home of the Hulets. They just got their certificate of Occupancy the day before Christmas and were thrilled to show off their new pad.

That evening they came over for some game time! We started things off with a few of the "Mormon games" and then enjoyed some Balderdash followed by Pop 5. We finished things off with a wild game of Nerts, a personal favorite of the Larsons.

Steph & Karlee, Best Friends from High School, and now.

It was a fabulous Christmas!!