Utah after Christmas

Tuesday after Christmas we packed up and drove to Utah.   We stayed with Trina. Wednesday we went to the temple with her and did endowments and sealings for Pepa's  siblings. We went to the Provo City Center temple. That night we went to Ikea  and then watched movies at Trina's.  Thursday Mom, Danny and Rachel went to the outlets for a little shopping. That night we had dinner at Kenton's house.  Josh and Holly came too.  We celebrated Mom's birthday and then we all went to watch a BYU basketball game.  Friday we went over to the Dean's house. We had a great time catching up and spending time with them. The kids spent the night there that night. Then we picked them up the next morning and drove back to Las Vegas.

Christmas

Christmas break was nice. We had a week out of school before Christmas. We were able to catch up on a lot of our Christmas traditions that we hadn't been able to get to during school. We went to the Bellagio and the cactus garden and made a gingerbread house and slept under the tree.  We also worked on Kwanzaa. We didn't have a full day this year to do it so we did a couple hours every morning.  We went and saw a movie as a reward on the day before Christmas Eve.

Grandma Zonda, Grandpa Cliff and Grandma Donna came to celebrate Christmas with us. They came the morning of Christmas eve. We went ice-skating that day. We had a lot of fun. But it was pretty hard for the kids. We realized they have never rollerskated it or rollerbladed or anything before. So there was a lot of falling and tears.  But they all stuck with it and by the end they had had a good time.

That evening we had Chinese food for dinner. We went over to the Pettingill's for a little bit to join their annual party. Then we acted out the nativity and opened sibling gifts.  Everyone was very happy with their sibling gifts this year. Danny got Nike slides, Rachel got a color-changing cat night light, Aaron got a cotton candy maker, Seth got pokemon cards and Ruby got a magic bucket of cookie dough.

On Christmas we got up at 6:45. We opened gifts for a while. The kids got a new trampoline, Bob got a gas fire pit, Aaron got a new Xbox, Danny got a lot of games and controllers for the Xbox, Rachel  got a lot of art supplies and a electronic tablet for drawing. Seth and Ruby got a superheroes playmation game that they both loved. They got Legos and Pokémon toys.

 After presents we had Norwegians for breakfast. We played for a while. Then we had sacrament meeting at 1:00. It was nice to have church on Christmas. Then we came home and had our second annual testimony meeting.

On the day after Christmas, my parents took the kids to the store to buy me a birthday present. Then we celebrated my birthday by going to dinner that night. Then we went to see the Christmas lights at the speedway after that.

Dance and Basketball

Aaron finished flag football.  He has such a good time on that team. We were so glad his coach decided to do flag football again this year. Danny finished ballerz for a while.  They take off the winter while they play for the school team. Now he's on his High School Varsity team as a freshman. Seth just started basketball.  He didn't do a sport in the fall.  He's loving basketball because he's one of the better players since he's older and his brothers have worked with him a little.  Ruby and Rachel are doing dance again.  They had a great Christmas recital.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in California at Ryan's house. We left Tuesday night.  Wednesday we went to Magic Mountain with them because they had free passes.  We had a lot of fun, but it got really cold and windy toward the end of the day.  Thursday we made the food and went to the park.  We ate around 3 when Kristal and Dan got there.  Then we went to see the new Disney movie Moana.  Friday we went to the beach.  It was a really nice day there.  Aaron and Seth got in the water.  It was hard to keep them out when it was as warm as it is some days in the summer there.  They played on the playground too and we ate a picnic.  That night we went to Chuck E Cheese for Ella's birthday.  Saturday morning our kids babysat and all the adults went to the LA temple.