Finally, Our Christmas Adventures

I know it's February and I'm finally writing about our Christmas, but life throws you curve balls and those have made it a little difficult for me to get on top of everything I need to do. So, for a short sweet version of what we did this Christmas!

I flew to SLC and had a little Christmas party with my family. Too bad Aaron couldn't be there! The next day, I drove up to Canada with Aaron's sister, her husband, and their two kids. It wasn't as rough as I was told it would be. The boys were very well behaved most of the time. When we got to Aaron's Mom and Dad's house, it was a full house which is always the best! Everyone was there except Aaron. The day he was supposed to fly in, he missed his flight and was on standby for the next one, which he also missed. However, with a stroke of genius on Aaron's part he finagled a ticket and got to us that same day. Good thing too, and after all was said and done, it was probably a blessing we missed that flight because he probably would have missed his connecting flight in Chicago and not been able to get here.

Glad to have my husband back with me, we really enjoyed ourselves. We went shopping in West Edmonton Mall (huge mall with an ice skating rink, a sea lion tank with a life size replica of the Santa Maria ship, theme park, water park, hotels, and a whole slew of fine dining restaurants, and awesome stores). It made last minute Christmas shopping fun. Especially since Aaron and I only had each other to finish up buying for. We played a lot of cards, Roach, Scum, Rook; I one Roach, but it was one of the most heart racing tension games ever! If I messed up once, all my work would have been for naught. It looked like that might happen too, but I pulled through by the skin of my teeth. We also took family pictures since it was the first, but hopefully not last, time we were all together for Christmas since Aaron's brother came home from his mission.

Another memorable activity was the sleigh ride we went on Christmas Eve. Some members in Aaron's ward own a horse ranch and have two huge Clyde's Dale horses. They were beautiful! They had teh sleigh bells on them and everything. Bro. Seely let us drive the wagon too! man it was difficult to handle those huge boys! It was so fun though! Afterwards, we had hot chocolate and chatted. Christmas eve night is the snack dinner tradition at Aaron's house. Oh, Joanne (Aaron's new mom) went all out (like she did every night for dinner) and we had a snack feast like you wouldn't believe. My favorite items were the buffalo wings (I've been a spicy fiend lately) and these cereal cookies Joanne made, Yummy! We also did a live nativity for the little boys. It was really funny because Levi was Joseph and Jillian was Mary. Jillian was walking on her knees to try and make herself more Levi's height, but he thought that's how he was supposed to walk.

Christmas was a first for me, because Aaron's family goes and plays ball tag in the halls of Aaron's high school (his dad is principal)! So after having a lazy morning with a huge dinner, we went and worked it all off by running around a school. Don't you love it when you can do something you were never able to do. How often do people get to run in the school, really? We also played floor hockey, and basketball. It was quite the workout and I don't know if any of us could move the next day.

After Christmas, Aaron's grandma and Aunt came to visit too! Now the house was really full! I love Aaron's grandma and aunt (I love his whole family!). After they came; Megan, Seth and the boys headed home and the house was a lot quieter! We did a puzzle which was amazingly hard because the pieces could look so much like they fit in one place, but really belong somewhere else! It was difficult, but we got it together in the end, VICTORY! Other things made Christmas a little bit sad as Joanne had to leave several times for Calgary to see her mother, who wasn't doing well. It's hard to see someone you love have to go through so much worry.

Our final escapade in Canada was our tubing trip! Oh man, I've never been more afraid of going down a hill. Now don't tell Aaron this but the hill wasn't the highest or longest hill I've tubed on. It was big and steep, but I think I've been on one's that rival it. Anyway, the scary thing wasn't the hill, it was what we went down it on. They have this huge crazy carpet that can fit twenty people on it at once. There was six of us so you'd think we'd all be able to stay on. That only happened once!
Every time we went down, we turned side ways and half of us would be dragged off by the snow. It also didn't help that Andrew started rolling himself up into the carpet, pushing everyone else off in the process. I was honestly more afraid every time they even mentioned riding that thing down the hill again. The last time we went down, somehow, I got pushed off the front of the carpet and was rolling just ahead of the speeding mass of flailing bodies and plastic. I think I was actually the one to stop it as it plowed into me at the bottom. Poor Aaron hit something on the way down and had a horrible bruise for the next week.

Well, we finally hit the road to Utah for the final week of our trip. We drove with Jillian to Blackfoot where we stayed with my Aunt and Uncle for the night. Jillian then drove back up to BYU-I and we met my family in Malad. Our Utah trip was more relaxed. We talked, went out to eat, I surprised my friend Esther, it was all fun. It was hard to leave home that next Sunday. We love our families so much and as much as we love our friends and ward family here in Maryland, we will always prefer to be close to our eternal families.

Anyway, so we're back and we've been at school for three weeks now. My internship is going well. I'm really enjoying Long Term Care. Not only do they have the hours I'd want if I have to work, but they are also in a position where I could see the fruits of my labors rather than treating them in a hopsital and releasing them to never see them again.

Oh, just a plug and a warning, if you get motion sick, DON'T I repeat DON'T see Cloverfield. I think I spent the whole moving with my head between my knees breathing in deeply, trying not to hurl. So don't ask if it was good. I wasn't focusing on the movie.