Christmas Time

This is going to be a long post, so beware! I really should do this more often so i don’t have to spend so much time blogging about so much stuff. Oh well!  

On the Thursday before we left for Colorado, our power went out, random. We waited for about 45 minutes and then it went back on. I checked my phone and I saw that one of our friends asked if we wanted to go to the cheap theater with them at 9, so I looked at the clock and it was 9:04. We decided to go anyway (the previews are always 20 Minutes long anyways, right?). So we started driving and then we noticed that it was really dark outside. It turns out that all of Rexburg all the way to Idaho Falls was out of power. The power had actually come back on for about 5 minutes and then went back out. We didn’t get to go to the movies and we thought that our power would be out once we got back home, but it wasn’t. our apartment was a beacon of light, the only place that had power anywhere, how lucky :)

So on Friday morning we were off to Colorado! It was a very long day. I absolutely hate driving long distances. I get very carsick and antsy, Hans usually drives most of the way. I only drove about 3 hours of the trip and he drove the rest. I have my own supply of Dramamine, and we both like it when I take it so I can sleep most of the way :) We got there at about 8:30 pm, and then we went to Cameron’s basketball game.

Saturday was the start of the traditions. We had our tradition of going to see Santa at the mall, AKA stand in line for hours so we can get our annual picture with Santa haha. Always, after that we go out to dinner at an unknown place. The kids try to guess where we are going, in the car before we get there. We guessed it! right be fore we got there….. it was The White Fence Farm, they serve a famous chicken dinner. (pictures are coming soon!) We had a little time in between the mall and dinner because they didn’t open until 4 so we went shopping and then we went to see President Todd’s childhood house (their family came with us to dinner)

It was the craziest thing! President Todd’s childhood neighbor, still lived there and we went to go see him. He is a crazy scientist, who has the dirtiest house, never been married, and he is a genius.

This is the inside of his house, piles of stuff (about as tall as me) stacked all over the house, with a little pathway to walk around.

This is him (the guy with the beard :)

This is his telescope in the back yard.

On Sunday we went to church and relaxed at home. We played some board games and then we did Ornaments! Another tradition my family has is that all the kids get a new ornament every year, having to do with something big that happened to them that year. So every year we get to hang up all of our ornaments and my parents talk about why we were given the ornaments each year. So Hans had the privilege of listening to my parents tell lots of stories about my younger years, which he thoroughly enjoyed :)

Sunday night was not enjoyable for me :( I got the stomach flu, I won’t go into detail, but I’ll just say that it was not pleasant. I haven’t recovered fully since then and I have lost too much weight, I’m hoping that thing will get better soon :(

On Tuesday for yet another family tradition we went to a movie. We went to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at the dollar theater. We had to do all of our Christmas shopping for the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Wednesday night we went over to the Todd’s house to play games and watch movies. Sadly, i had to leave early because I felt really sick (really lame, something is wrong with me).

here are some random pictures throughout those few days:

This is Krista (she fell asleep when she was reading a book)

This is a dog that was sticking it’s nose through the fence and barking at us while we were cleaning the snow off the car.

I just have to say that I’m so glad that Hans and I both agree on the fact that we don’t like pets. We both think that dogs are smelly and gross. I have to apologize first to those who love animals in case they get offended, so I’m sorry! I just think that animals are so gross!  Dogs especially (because most often they are the pets). They have stinky breath, they bark for no reason, and they shed their fur all over the place (some not as much as others I know). We might have a fish at some point, and I like little turtles, but I’ll have to think about that because you still have to clean their tanks and the fish food smells bad.

I’m sorry to my children in advance, if they want a dog or a cat or something, because mom will not be getting them any! Even if they say they will take care of them, feed them, and clean up after them. Sorry! everyone knows that mom is the one that ends up doing that anyways.

Alright, moving on from my rant…..

I realized that a lot of my family hasn’t seen my wedding band since I got it, so I took a picture.

For Christmas Eve we always did a progressive dinner with our family in Washington. When we got to Colorado we have always tried to continue that tradition with the family friends we have here. We did it with the Bulloughs and the Todds.

The Bulloughs did appetizers and they were the Shepherds

We did salad at our house and we were the Angel, Hans talked a little about Angels.

 

We did the main dinner at the Todd’s house, they were the Wisemen, and we also played the white elephant game there :)

My mom won a hat, looks nice huh?

Also, when we were at the Todds, a family from our ward came to do Christmas Tree inspection, it was so funny! They rated the tree based on Christmas Spirit and such, and they even came with costumes. They came in, did their business, and left! It must be one of their family traditions :)

  

After the festivities we went home and opened our Christmas Eve present, a tradition. New pajamas!

 

Everyone in our new pajamas!

After a toast, and reading Twas the Night Before Christmas, We set out our stockings for Santa to bring our surprises :) Hans was quite surprised and pleased to see how big our stockings are! In fact, Cameron had a lot of fun trying them out :)

We also did the nativity scene (also a tradition) The weird face is because I hit my knee haha.

We went to bed and I got sick again (hence the bowl in some of the pictures)

Christmas morning!

Dad got mom a robe, and mom got dad a suit :)

Krista made me a Bracelet and earrings.

I got him Popular Science and Astronomy Magazines :)

So this is a really long post, and I have more fun pictures on my camera, but I left the charger back in Rexburg so I can’t upload them! I’ll put them on later when we get back to our apartment :)