Christmas Vacation 2010

If things are looking a little different on the blog, it is because I finally changed my margins so I could fit wider pictures, and then while I was changing things, I got really wild and changed the background color to gray.  (Because I really want to paint all the walls in my house gray, but this was much easier and cheaper).  But that's about as fancy as things are going to get around here. 

This is a long post, but not as long as it could be, because I took 257 pictures on this trip!  That's how much fun we were having.

We started out by driving to Albuquerque.  We got there late Friday night (December 17th).

The next day, Cynthia turned 2 months old.

BYU was playing in the New Mexico Bowl that day, and Daniel and the boys had gotten tickets.  They were so excited to be able to go.  The game didn't start until noon, but by 8:00 in the morning Daniel was already dressed with his coat and gloves on, ready to go.  He took the boys over to the stadium a few hours early, and figured out the best place to be for spotting the team - Tristan and Oliver were able to meet and get their picture taken with both Jake Heaps and Bronco Mendenhall before the game started.  After the game, they got a bunch more autographs.  It was a happy day, and an excellent way to start our vacation.     

The next day we drove the rest of the way to Utah.  We spent the first night at Daniel's mom's house.  Here is Cynthia meeting her Grandma Nini for the first time.  It was love at first sight for both of them.

On Monday we headed over to my parents' house.  I love seeing my kids play all the same games that I grew up with.  The little Fisher Price playground that Rachel is playing with in the picture is the best.  We used to play with that for hours - cranking the little handle that makes the people go down the slide over and over again.  It makes me happy that my mom kept it, because they don't make toys like that anymore. 

Elizabeth was just happy to see the Christmas tree.  She got right to work drawing pictures of it.  I love the sight of a 4-year old in fuzzy pajamas drawing Christmas trees early in the morning. 

Of course, the thing the kids were most excited about was the snow.  They loved playing out in the backyard with Yankee (the dog).

Building a big snow fort with Dad:

I grew up in Utah, but I realized on this trip that my experience with snow as a kid was much different than mine now as a mom.  I'm not sure I like it that much now.  All the putting on of coats and gloves and boots that don't fit and then 10 minutes later taking it all off, but wait, now they want to go back out, but now they're crying because their gloves are coming off and snow is getting inside their shirts and then there is a huge pile of wet, dirty snow clothes (times six) dripping water on the floor at the end of the day.  I'm just not used to it anymore. 

But my kids really, really liked it.  So maybe it is all worth it.

We got our family picture taken while we were there.  Henry wasn't smiling in any of the pictures, which isn't like him at all.  I had told him before that he couldn't be wild or run around and I guess he took me very seriously - he was super solemn the whole time.

December 22nd was Tristan's 10th birthday.  He requested a Gandolfo's breakfast sandwich for his birthday breakfast.  We used to get those on Saturday morning for breakfast sometimes when we lived in Utah, and he remembered how much he loved them.

Daniel's sister, Audra, invited us over to her house to decorate Christmas cookies.  She taught us how to do fancy royal icing decorations, and the kids loved it. 

Rachel and Lizza also managed to fit in some dress-up/princess play with their cousin London.

After the cookie decorating, we went back to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's, where the birthday boy built a snowman (with help from Ollie and Rachel).

Then it was time to get ready for Cynthia's blessing. It was nice to be able to do it at my parents' home with lots of family there.  Daniel's sister made Cynthia this gorgeous headband for her to wear with her blessing dress, and his mom gave her a fancy little shrug to go with it.

One of the neatest things about her blessing was that my grandpa, who is serving a mission in Hong Kong, was in Provo for a few days and got to come to the blessing.

After the blessing we put the younger kids to bed, and gathered anyone who could go from Daniel's family and my family to meet at Pizza Factory for a special birthday dinner for Tristan.  I'm sure I say this for every kid on every birthday, but I really can't believe Tristan is 10.  To me that makes it seem like I almost have a teenager, which seems crazy.  I'm not worried about Tristan as a teenager, though - I'm sure he will be just as awesome then as he is as a ten-year old.

The next day I headed to the mall with the girls, so Rachel and Elizabeth could pick out their Build-a-Bear animals from Grandma Nini.  This is one of the most exciting things in the world to them.   

Later that night, Daniel took Tristan and Ollie to a BYU basketball game, so they could see Jimmer up close and in person.  Also, Cosmo:

Tristan just started playing basketball this year for the first time, so he loved being able to practice at Grandma and Grandpa's house (we don't have a hoop at home.  unless you count Henry's). 

On Christmas Eve we had a fun party at Daniel's dad's house in Alpine.

And then it was back to my parents' house for Christmas morning.  The kids were so tired from the night before - we finally had to wake Henry up around 8:30 so we could start opening presents. 

We didn't bring many presents from Texas, but I did bring all of their stockings.  My mom finished making Cynthia's just in time. 

Later on we drove up to my sister's house in South Weber for a Christmas brunch with my family.  We were missing four of the nine siblings, but we still had a fun group.

My brother Alex and his wife got us hooked on the game "Bang".  We ended up buying it and playing it several times over the rest of the vacation.

And Oliver figured out how to make Cynthia laugh.  She loves her older brothers and sisters.

Later that evening we drove to Daniel's sister's house in Layton for a Christmas dinner with his family. 

The older three with their cousin Adalynn at the "big kids" table.  I wish we lived near family so our kids could see their cousins more often!

Here are the kids with their Uncle Anthony and his wife Amber.  They had our family for Christmas and got the kids the perfect gifts.

Henry was overjoyed about his new puzzle from Grandma Nini:

Our second week in Utah was pretty low-key.  We all had gotten sick with bronchitis, which was annoying.  Despite all the fun we had, I think I will always remember this trip as the trip of non-stop coughing.

We hung out with family and played with Christmas toys.  Tristan tried to train his new R2-D2 robot.  Here they are trying to figure out why R2 was refusing to obey anyone except my dad.  I'm not sure why Oliver is upside down in this picture.

Oliver and Tristan put together some of their new Christmas legos.

But mostly everyone felt kind of like this (Henry named these two trucks "Optimus Prime" and "Bumblebee", and he kept them by his side constantly to help him feel better).

We had planned on spending a few days at a cabin in Sundance with Daniel's family, but because of bad snow storms and power outages, we had to figure out other plans.

We took all the kids bowling at Fat Cats, which they loved.

They also loved dinner at In-n-Out.

The night before we left we had one last big game night at Daniel's mom's house.  Everyone was putting their kids to bed there, so to make room we brought all of our kids downstairs.  Tristan started out on our bed, and Cindy was in a porta-crib, but the middle four were all set up next to each other on a blanket.  When we went downstairs later after the games were over, this is how we found them:

The next morning we woke up early and made the two-day drive back to Texas. 

The end.