So, I'm not generally a fan of winter.I like to be warm, I like to wear flip flops, and I like out door sports (softball mostly), but this winter we have done some fun things. I haven't blogged in a while, so this could be kinda long and I don't have any pictures right now, but maybe later.
November
November was a little bit busy for my family because Baily decided to get married. We were busy helping them get their house ready and get moved in. On November 7th we were able to go with Baily and Del when they went through the temple for the first time.
On November 12 we had a birthday party for Camryn, who just turned 3. She got all sorts of cool stuff that I wish I would have had when I was her age.
Baily and Del got married on the 14th. Baily's wedding was gorgeous. She insisted on one thing: having a tent in the gym so it didn't look like a gym. So far, things seem to be really good for the newlyweds.
This year for Thanksgiving, we stayed with my family. Last year we went to St. George with Kit's family. My mom always makes such a good meal. She always smokes a turkey, which is the only way I really like turkey. Kit and I decided to take on the task of making homemade noodles. This is something that Kit is used to having for Thanksgiving. I didn't think Kit would really help me make them, but he did, and they turned out really good. We had a pretty big crowd for Thanksgiving. It was at my mom's house. Both sets of grandparents were there. All of my sisters were able to come for a little while and my uncle Park was there too. After dinner, the guys all went to my sisters to play basketball for a while. Later, I played the game of life with Kolby, Kade and Austin. It was a fun day.
December
December wasn't quite as crazy for me as November was. With work, I usually travel quite a bit, which I don't really love. December I seemed to be able to be home more.
On December 3rd I went to my work Christmas Party. Kit wasn't able to go because he had a review for his final, so I was there all alone. There were lots of good things that he missed out on. Since I work for the State, we have to pay for our own Christmas party. At work we usually have one lunch a month for the office. Everyone either brings something or pitches in $5. The left over money goes into a fund for our Christmas party. This year, my supervisor had bought all of the food we would need with our Christmas fund. She is an amazing baker, so she was in charge of making a lot of the food. The night before the party, she had measured out all of her ingredients and got really organized before going to bed. Well, she got really sick, so some of us from the office ended up having to take over and finish what she started. I spent most of the day at the clubhouse we were having the party at helping stuff pork chops and cream puffs.
We have a few single ladies in my office. One is in her late 40s. She's never been married and really doesn't have a lot of experience with men. Someone in my office told her that they would find her a date for the party. Well, the guy that she had planned couldn't come, so last minute they were scrambling to find this lady a date. They found one, but everyone kept saying that he was really weird and would probably annoy everyone. The lady is a little strange too, so I figured they would make a perfect match. All day long I hoped that I wouldn't get stuck at the same table as them. Well the party started and my table had the only left over chairs in the room, so guess where the lovely couple sat. That's right, right next to me. It was kind of entertaining, but the whole night I was trying so hard not to burst into laughter because it was so awkward! I have never heard one conversation last so long about blood sugar levels.
Then came time for the gift exchange. The lady on her first date had told us all that she didn't like the white elephant gift exchange because she had been offended by some of the gifts that had been brought in the past. Well we played the left-right game. After all of the presents stopped at the right spot, the guy sitting next to me kept elbowing me, telling me to watch the first date lady. He had brought the gift that she was about to open and couldn't wait for her reaction. I laughed pretty hard when I saw that it was a pair of erotic dice! Another one of my coworkers, who is about 6 months pregnant, ended up with a nighty. The guy who was on the date made the biggest deal out of this. I think everyone in the room was embarrassed. He kept telling her that she had to model it and she needed to go try it on. I ended up with a toilet scrubber and some rubber gloves. It was an interesting night, to say the least. The food was really good though.
On December 11th, I was able to go out to Provo with some of my sisters, my mom, my aunt, and some cousins to do some shopping. We had a really good time. This was supposed to be our annual "Girl's Weekend", but Traci and Michelle weren't able to go. Traci was in Florida and Michelle just couldn't go. We went to "The Blindside". It is such a good show. I will probably by it when it comes out. We stayed the night out there. I love spending time with my sisters and my mom. We always have so much fun and so much to talk about.
The next week two of my sisters and their husbands had tickets to a Denver Broncos game that they had been looking forward to for months. One of my brothers-in-law is a Broncos fan and the other is a Raiders fan, so my grandpa got these tickets for them. My brother-in-law's little sister was due to have her baby on the 21st, but started having contractions. My sister and brother-in-law did not want to miss this because it is his only sibling and this will probably be the only child she has because her husband has some pretty bad health problems. They wanted to be there for her and in case anything went wrong. They didn't dare go clear to Denver when she was so close to going into labor, so they gave us there tickets. My parents have been feeling extra spendy lately, and they gave my sister some money to pay for all of our food, our hotel room, and a little extra spending money, so we got an all expense paid trip. I think we really needed it. We left home on Saturday morning. It was such a foggy, cold morning. Once we got to Colorado, the fog was gone and we slowly watched the temperature go up. By the time we got to Denver at about 2:30 pm, it was 47 degrees. We were in heaven! We stayed right down town at a pretty nice hotel. The first day, we walked to the next block over where there is a mall and a lot of places to eat and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. Then we walked around, looking in different shops. Later, we walked down to the Cheesecake Factory and got cheesecake to take back to the hotel to eat. Dallas (Kit's team) and New Orleans (My team) were playing each other that night. We couldn't get it in the rooms, so Kit and Wes went down to the bar to watch it. Sadly, my team lost their first game of the season that night.
The next day, we walked around downtown for a while, then caught a bus to Invesco Stadium for the game. It was about 50 degrees that day. The game was fun, but there were a lot of foul mouth people sitting around us. Suprisingly, we didn't get very cold. And to the other big suprise was that the Raiders won. My brother-in-law at home was jumping up and down and my brother-in-law at the game was heart-broken. After the game, we got back on our bus, went back to downtown, ate at Chili's (yum). We went to a store to find swim suits so we could get in the hot tub, but they didn't have any men's suits, so we just went back to the rooms and went to bed. It was a fun trip. It was fun to go back to the place where Kit and I went on our honeymoon and remember some of the things that we did.
The night before Christmas Eve, we went to Kit's mom's for dinner. It was Kit's cousin's birthday party. We had a lot of fun. Kit's mom got engaged. She seems very happy and we are happy for her.
Christmas!
Christmas is always a good time of the year for me. My birthday is always bad, pretty much, but Christmas makes up for it. My dad's family always has a Christmas Eve party. The last couple of years it has been at my mom's house. It gets earlier and earlier every year as my grandma gets sicker and sicker. She has been getting a lot worse lately and having more and more bad days, but on Christmas she was having a really good day. My dad has a cousin with Down's syndrome who is in her fifties. Her family had kind of abandoned her, so my aunt Kelly takes pretty good care of her. Every year, someone tries to pon Virginia off on someone else. Luckily, this year, she really like Baily and Del. I think she was trying to steal Del from Baily! Whenever Virginia is around, we have to watch the bacon wrapped water chesnuts. On my ex-brother-in-laws first Christmas with our family, my dad kept trying to get him to try these tasty delights. He refused, while watching my dad eat them, but didn't tell him why until later. He had been sitting there watching Virginia take one out, suck all the juice off of it, and stick it back in all night. He was about to vomit, I think.
It was good to have Joe and Thyrena and their girls back this year. Last year, they were in St. Louis all alone. We had them on the laptop on Skype, but I think that just made everyone more sad that they weren't there and what they were going through. This year, their therapist encouraged them to talk about Corbin and encorporate his memory into their celebrations. One of Thyrena's friends contacted Greg Olsen and got permission to make a special gift for Joe and Thyrena. It is a picture of Christ with little kids all around him. I'm sure most of you have seen it. It is the version that looks like it is sketched. They were able to put Corbin's face on one of the children. We talked about Corbin for a while, and all of his struggles and a few people shared their testimonies of the plan of salvation. We also took time to remember Chip, Lily, Mardel, and my great-grandma Reidhead, who died four years ago on Christmas Eve. It was a special moment.
This year, we didn't do the oyster eating and the pagent like we usually do, but we did get to hear Andrea play the violin. She is very talented and likes to show off at the Christmas party. We sang some Christmas songs like normal. We also had some new additions this year. Brooklyn and Jayden were able to be there this year, and Del was a new addition. Next year, we are planning for at least one more addition, but possible three more.... and I guess if Heston would get off his duff and find a girl, we could have four newbies at the party.
After the party was over and everyone left, Kade opened a Christmas present from Kolby. It was a game for the wii where you hunt dinosaurs. Kade, Kolby, and Kit played it for a while. My parents finally made Kade get in bed, so Kolby, Kit and I could go get his Santa gift and put it together. It was an electric scooter. Kit and Kolby had fun riding it around my kitchen before we took it over. Kit's family is big on wrapping stuff up weird, so he made me put a bad of dog food in the box and wrap it. The next morning, Kade opened it and saw a scooter on the box. He was so excited. We told him that he better make sure that was what was inside the box, so he opened it and found the dog food. He was so confused. We told him that maybe Santa had brought him a puppy. He started looking all over the house for a puppy. We told him that it was probably in the garage where Chloe's puppies had been. He went to the garage and found the scooter. He was so excited.
Kit and I stayed at my parents on Christmas Eve because I get too excited to watch all of the kids open their gifts and don't want to miss out. This year we got up at about 5 to start the festivities. Kit and I were spoiled this year. His mom got us a BBQ, his dad gave us money, my parents got us my uncle's old pool table and a tv. Kit gave me a shelf and a table for our entry way. I gave him some video games and a hunting pack.
We stayed for breakfast at my mom's, then went to Vernal to visit Kit's dad. We then went to Kit's grandma's for dinner with his mom's family. Poor Koda was locked up most of the day.
The day after Christmas, we ran a few errands, got a few Christmas presents put together, then went back to Vernal to visit Kit's aunt who came into town from St. George. That was a fun night too.
Now we are just getting ready to start the new year. I hope it is a good one full of lots of happiness. My sister is pregnant with her first child. We are praying that things go well for her. Burdick Paving sold out, which will mean a lot less stress on my dad and his brother. They have been waiting for a long time for the right people to come along and offer them what they felt the company was worth. They owned every piece of equipment and made more profit each year. Finally, a good company came along. There will be some changes in the company, but they will all be for the best. My family will still run this division for the next few years. It is a little bitter-sweet. Burdick Paving has been a huge part of my life and it is sad to say that it is no longer my families, but it will be so much better for my family to have more freedom and not have to be there all the time.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy New Year!
