Christmas in Idaho! - December 24-27, 2009

We arrived in Eagle on Christmas Eve. Just in time to give hugs to Clay, Kristen, Emma & Aspen on their way home. Then we talked Jed & family into staying long enough to open their gift from us. I love presents! (Stella, Jed, Zoe, Maria, Hallie, Tucker, Hannah)

Then a little visiting before heading to bed to wait for visions of sugar plums and listen for Santa's sleigh! And suddenly! It is Christmas!

Search through the stockings...

Play with toys (this actually wasn't taken on Christmas, but the kids did play on this little 4-wheeler a lot! and I love this picture of Ellie & Bree)...

"Pet" Uncle James... (McKayla & Carter)... When we arrived, Hannah (not pictured) ran out to say hello and give hugs. Then she ran back inside to tell her Mom that "UNCLE JAMES LOOKS LIKE NOAH!!!"

Whack a mole... It cheats.

Carter, Deven & McKayla....

Inspect the left over boxes and wrapping paper (Ellie)...

What did you get for Christmas? (James, Opa & Ellie)

And a long established and well-cherished tradition of skiing during Christmas - glad we did, the inversion was starting and it was so sunny, beautiful up at Bogus!

Skiing in the Livingroom - December 18, 2009

Such a sweet setup! Now all he needs are skins for the skis and baskets for the poles!

Such a bummer when the first chip on the new skis' top plate happens in the livingroom. Sure hope the downstairs neighbors aren't home!

A new star did appear... - December 17, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree... - December 14, 2009

We're done decorating for Christmas! Our two foot tree has a jingle-bell garland, tiny home-made crochet snowflakes, lift tickets from previous winter adventures and a silver snowflake topper.

My beautiful nativity (thanks again for the framing Mom & Dad!!!!) and snowflake scentsy - I need to find my 'evergreen' scent!

And our fireplace ready for snuggling.

Almost done. All that is missing is our stockings!

November DC Steezy!! - December 7, 2009

This is the photo from day 60 of the backcountry.com hair farming experiment. LOVE this picture! The last day is December 18th... Don't know if I want him to shave it all off yet.

James had a wonderful surprise this month - he was nominated for and made November EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH! But they call it the "DC Steezy" - DC meaning distribution center and Steezy is a snowboarder term clumping "Style" and "Easy". I had to look it up.

He gets a princess parking spot for the month - right in front of the employee doors. He gets to ride the scooter around the warehouse. He gets a gift certificate to the Maverik across the street, a gift certificate to the Gear Trade website and got to pick something out of the schwag pile. Pretty sweet! He picked a pair of poles off the Gear Trade website - now he just has to find some baskets for them...

Great job James! You're the Steeziest! :)

Happy Birthday James! - December 4-6, 2009

For James' birthday we found a super-cheap ($25/night) condo in Park City - actually, it wasn't that cheap because we did have to spend 1 1/2 hours at a time-share presentation/sales push. But it was still fun to have a condo with a view of the Canyon's gondolas. It was freezing when we checked in and we had the heater going full-blast for hours before it finally warmed up in the bedroom. Since that is where the heater was, the bathroom and kitchen areas never did get very warm. It had a tiny stove and a microwave, but no oven and no table. It is very, very, very, very hard to prepare food without counterspace and without a table! Still nice to have a full size fridge and freezer to keep food in and to not have to eat out in an expensive resort town!

Fancy toilet paper... And the paper towels also had a sticker.

My favorite part was the swimming pool / hot tubs / sauna / steam room / ping-pong tables. The pool is a heated (compared to outside air temperature) indoor-outdoor pool. We swam under the big garage doors to the outside, got out of the pool and into the hot tub. Then out of the hot tub into the pool for a swim back indoors and straight into the steam room to warm back up!

We did a little car-exploring of Park City - discovered that the moose there are not like normal moose.

But we didn't do any skiing. Not enough snow yet. It is freezing cold (single-digit lows, highs in the teens), but no precipitation. The resorts are open, with about 3 runs each, but not worth going off the snow-making to damage our gear.

We also met up with my cousin & her family for dinner - thank you Erin & JB! Dinner and Wii games and the movie "The Proposal." I think there was more snow at their house than there was at the Canyons! All my photos are cell-phone pictures. And mostly taken by one of Erin's boys. Only Braeden didn't make it into a picture.

Kyan

JB

Jessi James Kyan and Jett

Erin Jett JB

And James' big birthday present (which we bought a week early), but I still wrapped up the box. A BRAND-NEW STEREO DECK! Way back in July, on our way home from a Simpson Family Reunion, the old stereo deck ate a library CD and in order to retreive the CD, the stereo deck had to be completely dismantled. It was dead.James drove around for 4+ months without a radio at all - unless you count the little portable radio & earbuds he kept in the car. So he got to pick out a new stereo / cd deck for his birthday. It has HD radio stations, it is I-pod compatible and even has a USB port so you could put music on a flash drive and play it through The Outlaw's stereo system.

Welcome to a new age bracket James!

Happy Thanksgiving! - November 26-29, 2009

I'm grateful for extended family - this is Maebe, James' cousins Sage (in the background) & Rachel are her parents. We had dinner w/their family on November 15 - she's not afraid to tell you what she wants! And there was some serious chocolate cake! I'm also thankful for chocolate.
I'm thankful for technology. This appeared in a picture message from our friends Chris & Diana. Caught James napping in Sunday School. I'm also thankful for Sunday afternoon naps. Maybe next year they won't be during Sunday School? Did I already say how thankful I am to have James as my husband? Well, I am sooooooooooooooooo grateful for my James.

I'm thankful for a fabulous Thanksgiving Feast! James, Kathleen & I had turkey (smoked & roasted) at Uncle Roger & Aunt Lynnettes. YUM! I didn't have to cook a thing. We had tons of family - all of the Shuman kids and a friend of Chelseys. Glen & Nancy. Alan & Michelle. Keri and Marcus. Chad & Kelley and Kelley's Mom. Brett & Tammy. Craig & Ariana. Aunt Karen & Natalie. Granddad & Grandma.

My contribution was this "Thankful" tree. I punched out a bunch of little oak leaves, stapled ribbons on the ends and then put some on everyone's plate. We all wrote down our "Thankfuls" and tied them onto the branches. I'm also thankful for leftovers. Unfortunately, we're all out...

I'm thankful for Sunday drives with James. We drove up to Brighton after church & taking Kathleen to meet her ride back to Rexburg (I'm thankful Kathleen could spend the week with us - sorry if you were bored while we were at work. I'm still jealous of all that free time!). We made it just before dark and checked out the very light snow coverage. I'm also thankful for our reliable transportation and steady jobs that allow us to buy enough gas for random Sunday explorations.

I'm thankful for visitors from Idaho: Carter

McKayla

and Bree.

Kim & Deven brought their kids for a visit on their way home from Thanksgiving with the Davis'. I did get to play with Ellie at the Church History Museum, but she slept through our adventure at the park. I'm also thankful for sunny warm-ish days in late November so we could play at the park without being too cold. (I'd also be grateful if it'd get serious about winter and dump some snow already!)

And finally, I'm thankful for this cell-phone video of Carter - he makes me laugh! (Kim - I did try to email you this video - but I guess it was too big for the email system. I'll put it on a jump drive and bring it w/me at Christmas.)