Christmas in Utah

Sorry, this is gonna be a whole month crammed into one post, so I'll try to keep the pictures plentiful and the comments concise.

We flew out on December 21st to head to Utah. This jolly elf was kind enough to give us a ride to the airport (Jon).

Waddles the duck (given to us as a gift from Jon and Keriann.... they are aware of an obsession Steve has with ducks lately...) was perched in the tree to keep watch on the house in our absence.

We ended up not landing in Utah until 4 am, Toledo time due to some crazy delays at the Detroit airport. The Millers from our Toledo ward happened to be on the same flight as us. Leisy did such a great job of describing the series of events... I'll let you click here if you want to know more. (Luckily our luggage didn't get lost like theirs though!)

Well, Utah was a winter wonderland indeed... which would be great if I actually liked snow. But, at least Steve and my brothers made the best of it. Here they are with a couple friends creating the one and only......

SNOW DUCK!

Steve was so proud of this little beauty. Haha... (did I mention his slight obsession with ducks...?)

(Our friends informed us that on the day after Christmas it was 68 degrees back in Toledo...... what's up with that? Of course, now that we are back in Toledo, the snow and cold has returned)

It was so fun to be with family. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at my parent's house. We set up this crazy hunt for all the guys. If you look close, you'll see the different colored yarns overlappin and creating a crazy web! It was a lot more tangled than it looks here. Anyway, each person had a different color and had to follow their yarn, roll it back up in a ball, and it led them to their Christmas Eve package from mom.

Even Dad took part in the chaos.

(Here's my youngest brother Jordan, lost in the yarn)

In everyone's package was their new pajamas (a tradition in our family) and a cozy fleece blanket mom had tied for each of us!

Christmas morning:

(I can't believe how big my "little" brother Daniel is now.... he just barely turned 14....)

The best gift we got for Christmas was the plane tickets that got us out there to Utah! Our wonderful parents bought them for us.

The saddest part about Christmas.....

There were some very special people missing

My sister Megan lives out in Switzerland with her husband Brady and my cute nephew and niece- Kyler and Kahri. WE SURE MISSED YOU GUYS!!!

On Christmas day we headed over to Steve's parent's house where all the family gathered.

Our niece, Emery absolutely LOVES Steve (or Steven as she calls him). He's always on his hands and knees playing with her. And she always wants him to build her a "hut" out of the couch cushions.

What a cute girl she is.

On December 28th, my birthday (that's right, I am now a whole quarter of a century old...) we had a Japanese dinner with my family. Its a little something called shabu-shabu. You cook thinly sliced beef and then an assortment of vegetables and Japanese noodles in a boiling pot of broth. Then you dip your goods in different types of sauces. We don't go quite traditional on the broth (we pretty much make it into miso soup... if you've ever heard of that). It is quite tasty indeed.

The next day we met up with friends in Salt Lake City to go out to dinner. Click here for pictures from that event. It was fun to get together with Steve's buddies (who are now my friends as well, of course).

Steve and I took a quick trip up to Idaho before the new year. We wanted to go see my Grandpa Kirkham. He had a heart attack a month ago and ended up getting open heart surgery where they bypassed 6 arteries! He's 80 years old (almost 81) and is lucky to be recovering. What a blesssing. He got to go home a couple days before our visit, so it was good to be able to spend some time with him and Grandma. I am so grateful for the family I have.

We are back in Toledo, Ohio now. Steve is into his second semester at medical school and we're just pluggin' along out here. Sorry to those we didn't get to see while we were out there in Utah... it seems like vacations always fly by much too quickly.