Christmas - Family and Friends

 We had been thinking of going to California for Christmas this year since we were supposed to go in 2020 and that never happened. When we saw the prices of the tickets, we changed our minds. Luckily,  we saw my dad and Mary Lou here in October,  but it still would have been nice to go there. Of course,  with all the storms that weekend,  I have a feeling that our flight would have been canceled,  as so many were. 

We enjoyed Christmas Eve with our good friends eating tasty food and playing games.  Even that day had a last-minute change due to the weather.  We changed from going to Frankenmuth and walking around the German town in negative temperatures, to hanging with the Farnsworths.  Then we zoomed with my mom and Jim for our traditional nativity reenactment. 

Farnsworth besties!

Austin got really ethnic!

Kai was our angel and Jason was the narrator. My mom and Jim are on the computer in the back.

Our Wiseman. I was a shepherd.

Christmas day was magical,  being a white Christmas, which we don't get as often as you would think. Erik sang for the last time with the Primary,  which was a medley with the Youth,  so all my kids sang. Austin,  Victoria,  and I sang in the Ward Choir again.  Being only an hour long was nice and we got to wish all our friends there a Merry Christmas as we left. We relaxed, played some games, and talked with family the rest of the day. We also prepared for our little road trip we had set up only a couple of weeks before. 

Victoria didn't want to get up at 7, she was hoping to get up later...

She made it in time for stockings, which was first.

New skateboard

Gaming Keyboard

I got Jason this Puerto Rican hat.

Erik got a dinosaur dig, among other things.

Victoria was very tired and wasn't quite into her Harvard rejection letter, which she was unaware at the moment that Jason had created. They say that it's easier to get into Harvard than to get tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. Well, she didn't get into Harvard (didn't even apply there), but we did get her Taylor Swift tickets for when she comes here on tour in June! And I get to go with her!

Kai made Victoria this adorable collage of pics of them growing up. So sweet!

Kai made me this painting to replace her old one in our bathroom. 

My uncle Craig, his wife Jill, and three of their grown kids live a mere 9 hours away in Buena Vista, VA. Actually, Candace lives with her family in Charlottesville, but she was there visiting for a few days. We drove the snowy drive Monday and had a blast staying up way too late that night visiting with everyone. We hadn't seen them in over 10 years, I believe! We got to meet my kids' second cousins, none of who were born the last time we saw the Lund family. We toured Southern Virginia University on Tuesday and checked out part of the Shenandoah trail, whatever wasn't iced over and ate good food. Lots of reminiscing and fun times on Tuesday night as well!

Of course, look what shirts they were wearing upon our arrival- Sooners vs Huskers!

Candace's girls- Alice, the one on the left, reminds me of Victoria at that age.

Jill is an amazing cook!

My female cousins, Candace and Chelsea, trying to lean over and slouch down so they don't make me look so short compared to them! Dallas is in our group pic, which I don't have a copy of yet.

Some of Chelsea's kids. 

Our tour of SVU included a peek into the window of the haunted 4th floor, which is off-limits. Kai loves that kind of stuff!

Dallas' wife, Carly, is known as the Buena Vista cookie lady. She makes these amazing cookies every morning at the local Straws soda shop. They're kind of like Crumbl cookies!

At Straws soda shop together.

The view from the Shenandoah trail!

The road was closed because of all the storms. You can kind of see the ice coating each branch and twig in this pic. There were branches all over the road, which was probably why it was closed. 

The second cousins (minus Dallas' two little girls) Poor Alice who is very photogenic and happy. She was upset about a few things. Bad timing.

Charlotte and Kai, second cousin resemblances!

We left Wednesday to make our way to Ruckersville, VA to see some ROTC friends from BYU. On the way, we visited VMI and Washington and Lee Universities in Lexington. (Victoria will get extra credit for that for her military history class.) Glad and Jamie live just outside Ruckersville, which is only 1.5 hours from Buena Vista. We had seen them about 6 or 7 years ago on our way to Utah when they lived in Omaha. It was fun catching up again and watching our kids get along so well. We learned some fun games with them. They are a game family!

Washington and Lee buildings.

Cute church.

We went inside to hear the organ and it turned out the organist is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

VMI

Gilson family and us.

We drove home Thursday, through West Virginia backcountry. It was very interesting! Needless to say, Jason was done with driving after all that winding through the two-way roads in the Appalachian mountains! Luckily, we had given Erik a Dramamine the night before, and then more the next morning. We learned our lesson after last year's flight to Costa Rica.

West Virginia had all these frozen waterfalls coming out of the rocks. I think it was just water that had seeped out and then frozen. I don't think there are that many waterfalls there.  

Through Shenandoah National Forest on the way home. 

It was a great holiday week, even though we didn't do anything extraordinary. Merry Christmas!

Holiday Hustle

 December flew by, as I knew it would. We celebrated with church activities, a band concert, an orchestra concert, a dance show, making treats, and delivering gifts to friends and neighbors. For almost a week, everyone has been talking about the big storm that's been going across the US. Today was supposed to be the kids' last day of school before the break. Since my boss thought the idea of having school two days before Christmas was ridiculous she had scheduled the closure of Red Bell at the beginning of the school year, thank goodness. Due to this storm, they canceled school everywhere else for today, much to our delight! I would have usually been frustrated with that decision since they made it yesterday before school was even out and before the storm had started. However, since my week was already over and I had a successful week at my school with giving out all my student's gifts and writing all the thank you notes, in addition to our Christmas party on Wednesday and a family sing-along yesterday, I didn't care if my kids' schools were canceled today. We needed this day off together! Now we can relax and watch the wind blow the snow around outside. We'll venture out tomorrow, but not today!

First batch of Christmas cookies!

The boys and Jason and I went to see a new light display nearby.

Below are pictures of Austin's first band concert. Remember, he had decided to try percussion this year instead of choir. 

You can see his little head in the back with the chimes and bells.

In this one he's more to the left, playing the tympany. 

Proud percussionist!

Below here are pics from the Christmas dance performance. No, they are not of Victoria, her studio didn't do a Christmas performance this year, they're just prepping for competition. These are of Austin in the hip-hop class that he wanted to try out. He's loving the class so far, but I think the 2-hour Christmas recital was more than he wanted to be involved with. We'll see how it goes when swim and track season started. The owner of the studio, Derek, is super stoked to have Austin there and very complimentary.

He's on the far right.

Austin-the hip-hopper

Now here are some highlights of Erik as he read some lines at the Ward Christmas party as a wise man. He also sang in a trio in sacrament meeting with the Primary a few weeks ago as a wise man. It was the same day my other kids and I played some string music with other friends from the ward as prelude. Erik sang an octave lower than everyone else, he doesn't like falsetto, but he did a good job! 

After the ward party, Jason stripped off his sweater, ready for the BYU game!

Jason's making this aquarium table for Kai's snake, Ross.

Round two of treat-making: fudge and cupcakes.

My brother sent us these Crumbl cookies! I had never had one before and have enjoyed trying a bit of each one!

Below here are pics of Kai's and Austin's orchestra concert. It's too bad we couldn't see either one playing because of where they were in the group of instruments on stage and where we were sitting in the audience. I thought we had good seats, too.... I'm only including a video of one of Austin's songs. Not because you can see him in it, but because it was such a fun song!

Here's Kai leaving the stage.

My string players!

Here's what Erik wears in class. He strips off his pants and sweater to wear a t-shirt and shorts (yesterday the shorts were particularly short). He doesn't care to ever wear long things, and this was the day before school cancelation for the super cold upcoming blizzard!

Luke, this morning by the heat vent in the bathroom.

The wind had blown down my snowman sleigh that was right by the door. The winds are very strong right now!

Crazy kid!