Christmas Trip 2009

This year we had the opportunity to go back west for Christmas vacation. We spent over two weeks with family and friends, and had an awesome time. Here are some of the highlights (Warning: This post is very long and loaded with pictures and videos).

Pre-Christmas fun
Since we knew we were going out of town we wanted to save suitcase space, so we decided to have a small Christmas at home a couple of days before we left. Thanks to a generous friend, and a great store here in town, we were able to get a number of things for Will and Kayla.





Kayla got to help open one of her presents, which was a pink and white dog. This dog is especially fun because it looks exactly like a brown and white dog that Will got from his Grandma and Grandpa Evans a couple of years ago. They've had fun playing with them together.

Also during the festivities, Bill introduced us all to baklava.


We headed down to St. Louis the next day to catch our first flight on our Christmas journey.

1st stop: Mesa, Arizona
Since a lot of my mom's family currently lives in Mesa, and since my cousin Ryan was getting married a few days before Christmas, we spent about a week in beautiful Arizona. We were lucky to be able to save money and stay with my grandparents, as well as use a car generously loaned to us by my aunt and uncle. We loved being able to be with everyone in the Mesa Temple to see Ryan and Linndsy be sealed (sorry there are no pictures from that day). It was great being with Bill in the sealing room and being reminded of our own special day almost 6 years ago.
We did a lot of things together during the week. Bill and I took Will and Kayla to see The Princess and the Frog while other family members saw Invictus. Then we all went to a fun pizza place called Organ Stop Pizza. I tried to take a couple of pictures with my phone, but they didn't turn out so well. Basically there's a guy who sits at this big organ and plays songs from Broadway, Disney, you name it. And all over the room there are bells, drums, and other musical instruments that make the whole experience really cool.
Also, one of the fun traditions that we have in my family is a musical program on Christmas Eve right after a delicious turkey dinner. Anyone, no matter how old or young they are, can participate, and everyone usually does.




Will even got into it by singing the first verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High."
This little video is just a sample of some of the fun that we have together. My uncle Jeff spent a week on a deserted island by himself (by choice, he wasn't stranded there), and my uncle Terry and aunt Janine wrote a song about his experience.


Christmas day was pretty low-key. We spent most of the morning at my uncle Gary's house with my mom, my sister, and a few cousins and aunts and uncles.

We had another delicious meal together later that day, then spent the rest of the evening eating s'mores and talking in the backyard of my uncle Jeff's house. It was a wonderful week of good talks, laughs, singing, playing, and a great time.

Next stop: Salt Lake City, Utah
The day after Christmas we headed north for Utah. As soon as we got done at the airport, we headed for Bill's parents' apartment. They are currently serving a mission in Salt Lake, so we were lucky enough to spend a lot of time with them. That day we also got to see Bill's brother Jonny and his sister Laura and her family. Michael and Laura are living in Idaho, and Jonny was staying with them for a few days, so they were able to come down for the day. We had a lot of fun chatting and walking around Temple Square.



Will and his cousin Jessica had a great time decorating cookies and playing together





We spent the next week and a half seeing TONS of people and doing a lot of fun things. We were at my grandma and grandpa's house a lot, and some of my cousins were able to stop by. My cousin Ashley, her husband Ethan, and their cute little boy Wyatt stopped by on their way to visit other family. We had fun catching up, since we hadn't seen each other for quite a while.

We also got to see my cousin Michael and his wife Rachel, as well as my aunt Carrie.



We spent a couple of days with some high school friends of mine. First we had a big get-together at my friend Tricia's mom's house. It was so much fun seeing everyone again and meeting spouses and kids. Will had a lot of fun playing with Tricia's little boys, especially Adam, who is exactly his age.



Then we went out to dinner with a group of girls that I grew up with. We missed a couple of the girls who couldn't make it for different reasons, but had fun nonetheless.


(Forgive the horrible picture. This restaurant had a bunch of license plates on the wall behind us)

We took the opportunity to visit BYU a couple of times. We got to see a couple of old professors, a lady that I worked for in the religion department, and Will and Bill had a lot of fun playing in the snow for a while.




We made a couple of special stops on our trip. First we went to visit our former Wymount bishop and his wife. They are wonderful people who helped make our experience as new parents just a little bit easier sometimes.


Our second stop was up in Logan to see Bill's great-aunt Jean. She and Bill have always been close, and she is such a fun, spunky lady. We all had a great time visiting.




We spent a Saturday with Bill's parents and went to Hogle Zoo. It was a relatively warm day and we all had a great time.






In-between all the fun and adventure we spent a lot of down-time at my mom's house, where we were staying. We watched movies with my mom and sister, ate out a little more than we should have, and had a fabulous time.

Last Stop: St. Louis, Missouri
A few days after New Year's we said good-bye to Utah and headed back to the Midwest. We flew into St. Louis, checked into our hotel, then went and spent the evening with our friends Paul and Sarah and their two boys. We ate dinner and talked, and the kids had a great time having an impromptu costume party.





We drove home the next day a little earlier than planned, in anticipation of this:




All in all it was a wonderful trip, and even though we didn't get to see everything or everyone we wanted to, or do all the things we hoped to, we had so much fun and are so grateful for the experiences we had.

And just in case you didn't get enough of this post, here are a few extra videos for your viewing pleasure. The first video is Kayla's first word, the next two are of Daddy and Will playing with one of Will's new toys, and the last one is Daddy and Kayla playing Kayla's new favorite game.