A Not So White Christmas

This year we spent Christmas in Utah with my family. To save room in the suitcases Jake and I exchanged gifts before we left. It was kinda fun to spread out the holiday fun over multiple days. Once we got to UT it was great to see some friends we haven't seen in a while as well as all the fam. Jess was even able to make it in from Alaska (not without a little adventure of course).

It wouldn't be a holiday trip to Utah without what has become our traditional get-together with our friends from college. As usual this involved plenty of drinking, lots of snacks, tons of pictures and a few games played. This year we invaded Kevin's parents house in Kaysville and it a blast.

Somewhere along the line we got off track with the Leystra's on the holiday switching, and this year was a Jenkel Christmas. So we had our festivities on Christmas Eve. There was a ton of delicious food and lots of laughs throughout the evening. After dinner we did the gifts and Xavier and Maizey loved showing off their new stuff.

Bry even got in the festive spirit...

One of the highlights was after the gifts were finished the kids wanted to get an update of Santa's progress. So Mike got out the smartphone and found the Santa tracker. In a vague motion he pointed to the screen and said "there he is, on his way but he can't come until you are in bed". This prompted two very different reactions - Xavier went into hyper drive that everyone needed to clean up so he could go to be. On the other hand, Maizey ran to the kitchen practically in tears to tell Leisl that she wanted to go to bed right then. Jess tried to console her by saying Santa wouldn't come until she was in bed, at that moment the doorbell rang (neighbors bringing treats) and this induced full blown hysterics from Maizey. It was the saddest/funniest thing ever! After much more consoling and her basically kicking everyone out she finally got to bed and we all went home. It was a great night full of fun, laughter and most importantly family.

Christmas day started in typical fashion, with me waking Jess up and her complaining that it was too early. We had a the traditional coffee cake breakfast and then did stockings and the few gifts that we didn't do the night before. Then came the entertainment for the morning with Jess and I performing a little Christmas karaoke. We have video, but I will spare everyones ears and not post it. But I am sure you can imagine how horrible it sounded!! After the laughter stopped we had to get ready to go over to dad's house. I was glad we were able to visit that day because he got terribly sick the day after Christmas so we had to cancel our dinner plans. It was another wonderful Christmas day, even if there was no fresh snow.

The day after Christmas Jess, Sis and I met up with our friend Jess Montgomery who was in town from ID. It was fun to catch up since we have not seen each other in a very long time. That night since dad was sick we all just hung out at mom's house and snacked and chatted. We even managed to get another good sibling pic!

We had one last lunch with everyone before we were back to the airport and heading home. It was a good trip and we enjoyed seeing friends and family.

Very Thankful

This year was a California Thanksgiving. Jake got home from island the Tuesday before and we packed up the car and headed south the next morning. Thanks to a bunch of snow we had to take the long way, but since Jake had been gone for 3+ weeks I didn't mind having a little more time to catch up. Our first night was pretty low key, just enjoyed some dinner and caught up with the fam. Thanksgiving day was great. Grandma Jeanne was able to be up in Alturas with us and Zeke, Catherine and their boys joined in the fun as well. There was plenty of delicious food and it was wonderful to be with family.

On "black friday" we decided to take the little boys sledding. I had not played in the snow or gone sledding in many years and forgot how much of a workout it is hiking up the hill in all those winter clothes! But it was so much fun!! There were many times up and down the hill and many crashes along the way too. What a blast!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, playing games, watching movies and just enjoying time spent with family.  It was a very nice weekend and a great way to spend the holiday.I am so thankful to have a fantastic husband and such loving family on both sides. Love you all.