Christmastime

Here is what we have been up to lately.

We went home for Christmas for a month! It was a great break and so needed. We were most excited to see the sunshine again. We haven't seen that for awhile. Before we left though we put up our very own very first Christmas tree. It was 6 feet tall... and about 2 feet wide, but it was our very own. Ben was the lights guy and I did the ornaments.

We wrapped all of the light boxes for fake presents since we were taking our presents with us. It looked pretty real. Then when we went back to Utah we had a whole bunch of Christmas trees that were way more decorated than ours so we got a real Christmas. We started our trip at Kyle and Mandy's house where we were pleasantly surprised in the morning by Kaden who woke us up at 7:15 and said "guys it's just morning now. Time to get up" Then he showed us his cool Nerf gun and we put all of the darts from it on Kayla's shirt while she tried to take them off. It was hilarious!

Then all of the boys put up the Christmas Tree. It was the most planned out and structured decorating I have seen. It was great.



Christmas Eve....

Then....we went to Idaho.


Lexi's grandpa lives just outside Idaho Falls. He has a big field behind his house where he plays on his snowmobiles. We took an afternoon and tore up some snow in the field.


We pulled a sled behind the snowmobile. Everybody had a great time. Kaden liked to help drive the snowmobile (he's a bit underage but this is Idaho!).


Sometimes you gotta ride the bull. If you don't have a bull, the neighbors have a huge horse of a dog. Again, this is Idaho, use your imagination....
















And here's Lexi "8 Seconds" Jones staying on behind the snowmobile. What's even scarier is that her mom is driving. For those of you who don't know, Mishele is waiting to have eye surgery. Let's just say that in the interim we try to keep her off the roads and away from heavy machinery. Lexi is a master of her center of gravity. She could not be shaken, pushed, pulled, or pried off the sled.

While we were in Idaho, we visited Ben's grandparents. Grandma has Alzheimer's and is in a rest home, because she can't use her legs anymore. Grandpa is hanging in there, but it's a tough road. We visited them for church. We had testimony meeting in the cafeteria. Grandma's mind is almost completely gone, but she can still hum her favorite hymns.