Home Life

Today we got a quote for new window well covers which we really needed!  Poor Ben will be much safer now!  We ended up ordering them and they should be installed in a couple of weeks!  Whew!

Happy New Year Everyone!

We hope that 2014 is even better for you than 2013 was!

Over the past few days, we have been in Salmon, Idaho with family!  We left on the 27th, and came home today.  We went up there to support Mom and Dad Hobbs as they gave their mission farewell talk in church.  We knew we wouldn’t be able to see them again for a long time, so we made long trek out (not as long as it would have been had we still been in Illinois)!  🙂  We left at 3:30am and arrived in Salmon at about 4pm that afternoon.  It was great to see everyone!

While up there, we had a birthday party for Trevyn (David and Gina’s son), and enjoyed each other’s company.

On Sunday, Mom and Dad Hobbs gave GREAT talks and we all enjoyed listening to them.  I think we almost doubled the congregation size with all of the family members there supporting them!  🙂  Whenever we go anywhere as an extended family, we really bring the crowd!  After church, we went out to Carla’s and Scott’s house and had a big dinner.  There had to have been at least 100 people there off and on.

We ate until we were stuffed, had a great time again with family, and all wished Mom and Dad best of luck on their mission.  They go into the MTC in January for the Angeles Philippines Mission.  The next morning, we started the conclusion of our whirlwind trip by heading back home.  We arrived home today at about 7 and are totally exhausted from the driving.  Overall, we drove 24 hours and spent 48 in Salmon.  🙂  Oh well, not a problem… We love spending time with family and supporting them in their life events!  Life is all about families and that’s where we want to spend our time.

Best of luck Mom and Dad!  You’ll do GREAT!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

What a wonderful Christmas we had today!  The kids got up early (as usual) and prodded us into getting up as well.  Santa came, and they were excited to see what was brought to them…

Everyone had a blast seeing what they got, playing with toys, and opening presents…

Among other presents, Zach got an art kit and supplies that he really wanted (he’s quite the budding artist), Ben got Legos (go figure), Kirstyn got music and dance-related stuff (go figure there as well), and Brittany got stuff for college!  🙂  The big present we got this year was our new house, which we absolutely LOVE!  🙂

One of the best presents of all, however, was that our family got to talk to Sarah today!

We got to talk for about 30-40 minutes and it was so much fun to hear her voice and see how she was doing!  After we talked and got the low-down from her on what was going on, each of us got to talk to her individually.  What a sweetheart she is.  She’s working so hard and trying so hard to be the best she can be.  We’re so proud of her!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Today/tonight, we carried on the tradition we have been doing with friends for about 10 years now.  We invited a couple of families over (Liddell and Ahlstrom) and we had dinner at our house.  After dinner, we went caroling to 5-6 families in the area (in all three wards we are all in).  We had a GREAT time and it really touched some of the people we sang and brought treats to.

After caroling, we came back to our house and acted out the nativity in our basement. As always, it was a LOT of fun and we also got some humble laughs.  We always enjoy doing that and it’s even better when you have a full cast to help you out!  🙂

After the nativity play, we had a dessert buffet, hot chocolate, and lots of goodies…

Angela always puts together quite the shindig!  We all ate until we were stuffed and ready to go to bed and let sugar plums (or maybe sugar “tums”) dance in our heads!  🙂  The kids had a great time too!  The older kids sang, played their instruments, and it was wonderful to hear music floating throughout the house.  I wish that this would happen more often but the girls don’t bring home their instruments to practice as much as they should!  🙂

After bidding everyone good-bye, the boys went out and scattered their reindeer food on the front lawn.  They then ran to bed as fast as they could!

What a great night!  We are glad we can continue to carry on the tradition here.  It was bittersweet, however, as we really do miss the Oscarson’s and other families we used to do this with in Illinois.

Today we decided to take a little excursion and went up to the Hammond Candy Factory in Denver.  This place is a pretty popular place, especially at Christmas!  They make world-famous candy canes, ribbon candy, and other fun stuff to eat!  We went to the store there at the factory and got some stuff and then took the tour of the factory.

It was fun and the boys especially liked it.  🙂  At the end of the tour, everyone got a large candy cane that had been broken or didn’t quite come out right.  Same great taste!  🙂

Today we went to Zach’s first basketball game.  It turns out that his team is REALLY good.  They totally blew away the other team by something like 25 points!  I wouldn’t be surprised if the team went undefeated this year.

After the game, the girls had a service project cleaning and repairing bikes at the hospital.  They had a great time doing that.  While the girls were serving, the boys and I got to go to the new movie Frozen.  It was REALLY good and they loved it.  I did to!  🙂  I think that the girls were jealous that we got to go.  Oh well, they’ll go sometime next week I’m sure.  🙂

Tonight we went to an awesome Christmas party at the Fradin’s, some friends of ours.  There were a ton of people there that we knew and we had a wonderful time!  We ate a lot of food and we had a fun white elephant-type gift exchange (gifts for the guys, gifts for the girls) that we got some laughs out of.  Malinda Liddell babysat for us because Kirstyn had Pep Band at the High School and Brittany had to work.  This was the first babysitter in a long time we had to pay for!  🙂

Great news!  Ben is going to be just fine!  I went to Children’s Hospital today and  picked up Ben and Angela.  He’s doing MUCH better and has that cute smile back on his face.  The doctors say he can’t do any jumping, sledding, going outside on the ice or anything for at least 2 months.  He’s not too happy about that, but he doesn’t have a choice.  On the way home, we stopped by Smart Cow and got him frozen yoghurt with all the toppings he wanted for being so brave.

He was so cute!  While at Smart Cow, he wrote Ben loves Mom and Dad on the table and was so happy!  We are very relieved that he is going to be OK.  Our prayers were definitely answered.