The lovely kind of Chaos

Christmas was wonderfully chaotic. We had 17 people here. All of my siblings and parents. It had been a long time (about 10 years) since we had all had Christmas together and I will bet that it will be another 10 before it happens again. We all got what we didn't even know that we wanted which is the best kind of stuff to get. (I even got some stuff that I did know that I wanted) Since then we have been hanging out, playing games, eating way too much food, and just enjoying being together. More info and pictures are to follow, but too much is still going on to form much of a coherent thought. Happy New Year to all!!

My Amazing NYC trip

As many of you already know my sister Emily and I went to NYC last weekend to take in the sights. We had more fun than I have had in years. I was the absolute tourist. I kept saying things like --"OOOOHHHH look at that" and "I have seen that on TV." We stayed at Richard's apartment on Friday and then spent all day looking around on Saturday. The only other place that I have seen that many people was at a concert mosh pit. It was still a blast.

We started out a little bit shaky after literally sprinting down the streets of DC in order to catch our bus, and realizing that I had brought the portable DVD player, but no movies to watch. Everything else just got better from there. The bus ride went quickly despite the fact that we were sitting right next to the bathroom door and had to keep informing people that you must PUSH the door open not PULL. When we got to NY we got on the subway and headed to Richard's place. (After seeing a huge rat run down the train tracks) We crashed at his place and got up the next morning to begin our adventure.

Time Square was our first stop. It was everthing that I hoped that it would be. There were lights everywhere and all of the stores were ten times bigger and brighter than the ones at home. Toys R Us had a working full sized ferris wheel inside. What a rush! We then went to Hershey world and M&M world, took a million pictures, saw Rockefeller Center (along with two wedding proposals), Saks, Macy's, Fao Schwartz, and everything in between.

With plenty of time left we headed back to the subway to go and catch our bus. After buying a movie for the ride home and hot chocolate we somehow found ourselves again sprinting down the street to catch our bus.

Though I came home sore and exhausted (in order to speak in Sacrament meeting and teach RS) it was one of the best trips I have ever been on.

Thanks Em!!!

Frozen Bums and other events

On Saturday we went to see Todd march in the town Christmas parade. It was only 30 degrees and flurries were coming down. It was a funny parade. Since we are really kind of a redneck area (just in case you weren't aware) the "floats" were kind of comical. A lot of them were just cars (regular not old, cool, or done up) with little paper signs on the side saying who was inside (keeping warm I might add). I decided that I was going to drive my van in the parade and just wave at all the freezing people along the way. Todd had hand warmers in his gloves and feet warmers and two layers of clothes but he still came home shivering. His band was entry number 75 out of 120. As soon as we yelled, cheered and took pictures of his band going by (I had to explain why we would say "Thats my Barney") we packed up our stuff and left. Needless to say all of us were frozen!

On a different note-I was organizing and found the following picture (which made me laugh) Later on that same day

I was lecturing the boys on how we should treat our brothers and sister. "Heavenly Father did not give us families so the we could beat them up". I thought of this picture and started to laugh. It is funny how life seems to make a full circle.

Thanksgiving

(I don't know why this is sideways, but what can you do?)

We went for what is probably one our very last Thanksgivings with family in a long time. We were at Tami's house, but since she is moving to Germany in the spring I think it was probably the last time we will be there for Thanksgiving. We had a really good time. I even fed a goat. We went to the Bluebird Gap Farm and had a good time walking around with the kids. The best part of the trip was the huge mound of mashed potatoes. It only took us three days to finish it off. There is nothing better than leftover Thanksgiving food.

The other fun thing that we did while we were there was to go and see the movie Twilight. I was hoping that it was better than it was, but it kind of grew on you and once I quit making comparisons to the book I really enjoyed it. I took Todd and Hannah with me (as well as Emily, Jeremiah, Richard and Tami). Todd thought it was boring and the scariest part was Bella and Edward kissing. Hannah covered her eyes during the kissing part, but enjoyed the rest of the movie. Unless you had read the book the movie was probably kind of lacking. It did kind of make me want to go home and read the book again, but I resisted the urge and now I think that it has past.

My brain is now turned towards Christmas. We got out our Christmas decorations last night and I am already sick of the singing/dancing snowman that hasn't shut up since he was put out.