A Promise to Return...

Okay, so I know that I've been negligent of the whole 'blog' world for the last month, but I'm here to tell you that I am returning. I just need a few more days to make sense of my world. As I look around my house, I have determined that one of my New Years Resolutions is to see my floor again and always keep it that way. Christmas was wonderful, it's just deciding where to put it that's the problem. Sigh. Anyway, I'll give a quick update and then I'll do more details with pictures etc. over the next little while. Christmas Vacation started on December 11th right after Jarett's final. Due to the news of bad weather heading our way, we headed out right away stopping in Calgary for the night. We left Calgary at 6:30am and drove for 21 hours straight stopping in St George just ahead of where the storm seemed to settle. From St George, we continued to Las Vegas (where we stopped to see the Bellagio Fountains and walk through Ceasar's Palace). After Vegas it was non-stop to California where we stayed at the Palm Desert Marriott Resort (AMAZING).


Need I say more?? We arrived on Sunday night and rested up a bit on Monday. It was a rainy day, but some still decided to go on out to the pool. Yes, we're those crazy Canadians. It was about 50 F and we got some seriously CRAZY looks. Hey, it's a heck of a lot better than the -40C that was back home. Anyway, that was Monday. Tuesday was Disneyland (which was perfect, as always) and we got some strange looks only wearing t-shirts and periodically a sweater. Most Californians had never seen weather this cold and they were wearing long coats, scarfs, toques and mittens. So granted, we are strange comparatively. Wednesday was back at the resort (raining again). Thursday and Friday were Disneyland and we stayed overnight in Anaheim (the resort was 2 1/2 hours away from Disneyland, so this saved a LOT of driving). Saturday was a bit warmer (almost 60) and we went to the pool and relaxed for most of the day. My mom also threw me a surprise birthday party (since we'd be driving home on my actual birthday). Then it was back into the car for a long haul. We made it all the way to Idaho Falls from Palm Desert in one day pushing ourselves ahead of another snow storm. We actually went farther, but the roads were SO covered with snow that we couldn't see anymore, so we turned around and stayed in Idaho Falls for the night. We were super sad to not be able to stop and stay with some wonderful old friends that we haven't seen for a few years, but it turned out that we made the right decision. The roads were horrid. The next day, which was my birthday, we were up and at it fairly early and pushed through to Calgary stopping only for gas (which is when I fed the baby) and we found ourselves miraculously home.

The next two days we prepared for Christmas and did our Christmas Eve celebrations. Christmas was WONDERFUL and we feel so blessed to have had all our family around us. We blessed Jaymeson in Sundance ward (both of our parents are in the same ward, so it just made sense) on Dec 28th and it was wonderful. We had our families together afterwards and ate some wicked food. Jarett's mom woke up on the morning of the blessing really sick and it seemed to spread pretty quickly afterwards. Neices and nephews, sisters and parents were all getting sick. We knew that our turn was coming. Saryn got it first and threw up on the Tuesday and Thursday. New Years Eve would have been perfect had it not been for Jarett getting sick and having to leave before 10pm. We thought that a miracle had happened and Kienna had actually not picked something up, but she proved us wrong on Saturday when we were staying over at the Yamadas to get an early get-a-way on Sunday morning. We decided we were going to forfeit church and just get ahead of everything and not get anyone else sick. So we travelled home on perfect roads and have been trying to make sense of the house ever since.

Well, that's my overall synopsis of the 3 weeks of vacation that we had. It truly was wonderful and we had SO much fun every night watching movies or playing games or just chatting with endless amounts of family. How better can you celebrate the holidays? Well, as promised, I will update with more details and pictures once my house is in order.....and now, here I go to do that - wish me luck!!!