Cheap and Semi-Spontaneous Trip to Utah (April 2019)

One fine day I found super cheap tickets to Utah. 

They weren't the greatest tickets (meaning that they had a couple of stopovers and inconvenient timing), but they were cheap enough that it was worth those inconveniences!

 Plus, airports make great places to do your contortions....

We loved being able to spend Spencer's 24th birthday with him...

And just loved being there with him in general...

We even flew Cami there from Texas, so that we could have all the kids together (a rare happening these days).  We were only missing Glen, who couldn't take time off of work. 

Ellie found that contortioning in Utah is just as fun as contortioning at home. 

A big part of the reason we came was to help my parents get their house ready to rent out while they were on their mission.  We did find plenty of time to play too. 

I enjoyed hanging out with Heather....

And running into old friends (which seems to always happen in Utah)!

We ate lots of good food together (getting ice cream is a family tradition when we are away from home)...

And the kids just really enjoyed being together. 

Cami had to leave before Spencer's birthday, so we did the best we could on making his cake in her absence.

And we took him out for a good birthday dinner!

There was a whole lot of cat cuddling going on with certain members of our family...

And there may have been a bunch of silliness too...

Also, it snowed...in May.   It made me glad that we live somewhere that snow in May is highly unlikely.

We loved spending time with my parents (although I don't think they liked how ruthless I was with decluttering their house)...

We also loved spending time with my Nana...

It was a great trip and the perfect way to get away from house selling stress, even if I was pretty much doing the same thing at my parents' house as I'd been doing at home!  haha!

Before Christmas

What have we been up to this Christmas season?  

We made gingerbread houses (with kits from Wegmans).   

We made homemade cards with residents at the Assisted Living Center and only got threatened with a lawsuit once. A resident told us that it was in her contract that she didn't ever have to see kids and would sue us for being there.    Other than that it was a lovely experience and we enjoyed our time there.   

 I wore my ugly Christmas sweater and Santa hat as often as possible.   I also taught the biology at coop, which meant I ended up with PTC strips in my pocket, so I could go around  testing whether random people have the super taster gene.

We woke up to an ice storm on Saturday, December 17th.  It took us 20 minutes to chip all the ice off of our car.

But it was worth the effort to see this awesome girl (Nicole) get baptized.

 She's Emma's age and has been an awesome addition to our YW.   It's also been fun to have a good excuse to spend more time with the Sister missionaries.   :)

I also tried to put together festive outfits (some more successful than others),

and hit my mid-afternoon slump and collapsed on the floor until someone could help me up (and feed me chocolate)....

The kids enjoyed staying in their pajamas half the day...

 We keep trying to balance out some of the goodies with some wholesome(r) foods, but it's going to be a rough road getting back to healthy eating and exercising once the holidays are over....

Ellie made her own nativity out of cardboard and paper as a gift for her auntie....

Our Elf is losing his zing and would often get stuck in the same place for several days....

We did 12-days of Christmas for someone, but didn't realize until later that they had motion sensored cameras by both of their doors, which meant that our identity wasn't actually a secret.   

They kept playing along though and let us keep delivering despite the fact that we weren't anonymous any longer.   One night they  left a little thank you gift for us, which the kids LOVED.

We hung out with friends!   We made pretzels, played games, and talked!  

And I enjoyed my cute conversations with Briella and Joseph (and their mom, Rachel)! 

Emma returned from England on December 23rd!!!     We are soooooooo happy she's home....

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!   Stay tuned for a full Christmas recap coming soon!