I Am a Terrible Blogger

Let's see, where do I begin after having forgotten I had a blog since last January?

It's Christmastime again, and the same decorations that I had a hard time boxing up and putting away in last year's last blog entry are up again. Except for a tree. We don't have a tree yet. We're going to let the kids decide when they get home whether they want a fake tree that's-already-perfectly-strung-with-lights, or a REAL tree, maybe from the Christmas Tree Farm, that sheds needles and dies within days but smells like Christmas.

Last year, we had Sara and Grant and Eddie and Dane and Skyler here and we all voted for the Christmas Tree Farm.

 We went on the hay ride and drank hot chocolate and took
pictures of each other taking pictures. It was perfect.

Little Grant loved it most of all.

Putting Christmas Away

Hello, blog, I'm back! I've been feeling guilty about neglecting you, but mostly I'm writing today because I'm procrastinating putting away all the Christmas stuff. Oh, I took it all down and vacuumed up all the needles from the Christmas tree farm tree. All the nutcrackers and stockings and Santas are on the dining room table waiting for me. I just hate boxing it up. In Battlestar Galactica vernacular that means something pretty terminal.

We had a Christmas for the memory books--and the checkbooks--this year. With Dane in NYC, Skyler in Houston, Hannah at Disney World (and going back to BYU in Utah right after Christmas), and Scott getting off his mission in California (right around Christmas), there were quite a few airline tickets to buy:

1. Dec 18 IAH-TXK Skyler
2. Dec 21 DFW-PSP [Palm Springs, CA] Creed
3. Dec 22 NYC-MCO Dane
4. Dec 22 TXK-MCO Sue and Skyler
5. Dec 24 PSP-DFW Creed
6. Dec 24 PSP-SLC-DSM-TXK Scott
7. Dec 26 MCO-TXK Sue, Dane, and Skyler
8. Jan 3 MCO-SLC Hannah
9. Jan 7 TXK-NYC Dane
10. Jan 7 TXK-IAH Skyler
11. Jan 7 TXK-BUR [Burbank] Sue (back to work!)

It was worth every pretty penny of Christmas money spent on tickets. We flew on planes together, went to amusement parks together (Creed went on so many roller coasters in one day with Scott that even he got dizzy), watched movies together, ate too much food together, played stupid board games together (new favorite: Bubble Talk), watched fireworks together, set off fireworks together, and lit the backyard grass on fire with fireworks together. We got to know Scott and learned that he loves airplanes, Alaska, steak, and the afore-mentioned fireworks. We had so much fun together.

P.S. By the way, don't believe your husband if he says, "Why are you planning to come back from Florida on Christmas Eve? Just because that's when I'm coming back from California? Don't do that--stay with Hannah through Christmas, I'll just be working double shifts that day, I'm not even going to be home. I don't really care about Christmas anyway--my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving." Right.