Pre Christmas

December 11, 2008

I'm the Enrichment Leader in our ward and we had such a fun time putting on this year's RS Christmas dinner. The theme was "Celebrate His Birth" and our table center pieces were nativity sets (donated by sisters in the ward) and then my wonderful enrichment committee decorated the rest. Didn't they do a gorgeous job?

Sunday Dec. 14th, 2008

Jack got terribly sick. I went early to church because I sang for our ward's Christmas program. When Jack and John walked in I could tell something was miserably wrong...Jack looked horrible. I took him home right after sacrament meeting and he had a temp of 102.6! Luckily he was already scheduled for his 2 year old appointment the next morning, so we just had to hold him off until them. Turns out he had bad ear infections, a horrible cough and poor little guy was miserable all around. (Other than that, his 2 year old stats are all average!)

As much as I hate for him to be sick, it's the only time he'll let us snuggle him. For FHE we snuggled on the couch and watched Finding Nemo. Sweet Daddy even got to take a little break from studying for finals and spend a little time with his son. Dr's orders was to use a nebalizer to break up the cough in his chest. Jack pretty much had the system down and insisted on holding it by himself...Cute little mask!

The next morning Jack and I were off to Utah. Amoxicillan (sp?) does wonders...he was feeling so much better by the time we left Tuesday afternoon. We were able to find really cheap flights on Southwest ($99 per person/each way) so Jack and I left Tuesday and John stayed behind to finish a few more finals. Obviously I prefer to fly with John because it's just so much easier, but I was especially not looking forward to it because 1) Jack was sick and I was sure his ears were going to be bothering him 2) I'm 25 weeks and my belly is getting bigger (thank goodness he had his own seat, but he still wanted to sit on my lap) 3) I don't think there is anything more stressful than going through security with kids. I had to take out all liquids (his medicine etc), they had to fold down the stroller, take off both of our shoes off, make sure he doesn't go running through the security without me... But we made it and all is well. I can't wait till I get to do it with 2 kids ;-)

I came very prepared with snacks, DVD's (big thanks to Grandpa Ray for that much needed DVD player), stickers, coloring books. And of course, all he wanted was the Southwest safety guide because it had a picture of an airplane on it. Go figure!! That night we stayed with John's sister, Kyanne then headed down to Provo to see Jaren and Jenica.

Although most of our days were spent visiting with family and friends, we stayed the night with Amy (Duffin) Clark and her cute little family. Jack and Ivy became great friends!! Thanks for letting us hangout with you Wed and Thurs night!

Jack had a great time at Jenica's apartment... destroying her temple gingerbread house. At first he was very good to "just look" but in the end, he couldn't resist. Of course Uncle Jaren's encouragement to "try the candy treats Jack, they're really yummy" didn't help either. He knocked the whole thing over and it crumbled all over the place! Sorry Jen.

Friday Dec 18th, John made it to SLC just before the HUGE storm rolled in. We ate lunch at Cafe Rio with Jana and McKay (they flew in for a funeral one hour before John did.) We were originally going to eat lunch all together (Gochnours, Marriotts, Jaren and Jenica) because John hasn't seen Jaren since he's been home from his mission and we weren't going to AZ during the break, but as soon as we heard the storm was coming, we pushed them out the door ASAP Friday morning. Bummer! We were planning to drive up to Burley right after we satisfied our tastebuds with the deliciousness of Cafe Rio, but the weather was so scary and cars were sliding off the road left and right...we decided to stay the night in SLC. Thank goodness for Kyanne. She's so great for letting us stay with her. That night we went to visit our good friend Scotty Zwick then came back to Kyanne's and ate Chinese takeout. Watching the news that night it said that there were over 80 car accidents between Provo and SLC during the storm that afternoon. We were so glad we stayed!

The next morning we woke up to a foot of snow on our car. But, the sun was shining and the roads were plowed so we decided to go for it. We made it to Burley with no problems at all, plus can't complain when Jack slept most of the drive up there! John's family was very anxious to see us but then again, who wouldn't be? We are pretty cool :-)

That night we went to the ward Christmas party. The theme was "Christmas around the World" and they had different countries represented and what they had contributed to the entire Christmas holiday. For example: St. Nicholas was originally from Thailand, Gingerbread cookies came from Germany, hayride and candycanes from America... They had activities for every country. It was very fun.

Avoiding all eye contact with Santa. He wasnt' scared, he just wouldn't look at him!

Jack couldn't take his eyes off the horse.

It was FREEZING cold that night. I guess little kids don't really have a concept of weather because Jack wouldn't stop at anything... he wanted to be outside with the horses!

John's cousin Greg and his daughter Eva. She's 2 weeks younger than Jack.

Oh it's so wonderful to be done with finals!! It's such a relief... for all of us :-) Now we just get to wait for grades to come, that's always fun.