Christmas

We had our church Christmas party on Aydon's birthday and enjoyed a mexican meal, the young children do the nativity for us as we sang carols and of course Santa came.  Presley was happy to tell Santa she wanted roller skates for Christmas.

Presley had her music program at school the day that Preston had to pick up Aydon from the airport so they didn't get to watch but Zack came and both sets of grandparents.  They finally got a new music teacher and she did a great job.  Presley loves to sing and perform and did a great job.  

The traveling Santa made it to our house and we took our picture and passed it on to Presley's bestie that same night.  

I can't tell you how excited I was to FINALLY have one of our kids come home!!  After driving home from Thanksgiving I told Preston I'd feel better if we just flew Aydon home for break rather than him doing that drive alone and worrying about weather so Preston picked him up in the new Tesla.  We've enjoyed lots of family time with not much work going on and being able to sit and play games or whatever we want.  

We had our annual Christmas Eve party with Navajo Tacos, 2 crafts, a few games and our gift exchange.  We always have so much fun.  I was excited because the craft was new Mickey ornaments I can use on my trees!  Presley was so excited to win the grand prize this year $25 in the spinner game.  Everyone was happy Preston could be home.  Unfortunately, he was called right away Christmas morning so he missed lunch with his side of the family where we had Tamales, Green Posole & red enchiladas.  Ty was able to call home and got to watch us open our gifts.  Because he had exchanges the week before Christmas he told us not to send gifts until after transfers so his gifts were sent early (a messenger bag & a pillow) and after he moved that he got to open after Christmas (new airpods, a faceless family painting & other gifts).  

Since we didn't have anything going on, Zack & I put together the Mickey Mouse puzzle I got for Christmas in two hours.  It has lights that you can put behind it but we decided we will do that next year.

Presley's 7th

Presley is at the age where she is very excited about birthdays.  She wanted to go to a zoo for her birthday and we had planned a zoo trip when we went to Utah so I got to say that was our zoo trip.  She said she'd never been to a zoo but she has been.  We wanted to take her to Bearizona but the prices were pretty outrageous so we decided Utah's zoo was going to count.  We had planned a swimming birthday party but the pool pump went out that week and was closed so we had to do a quick planning party at home for her friends.  She's so hard to buy for.  She doesn't like to go shopping so she doesn't see toys and really has nothing she wants for her birthday & Christmas which are so close.  When she tells me things she wants I get them and that leaves all the family with no ideas of what to get her.  She did say she wanted a Tigger stuffed animal so when Sunshine got that she was soo excited.  It was the weekend before her birthday but Moana 2 was still showing in town so we picked her bestie up and took her to the movies with us to watch it again.

Thanksgiving in Utah

Preston had the week of Thanksgiving off and I really wanted to do Disneyland as everyone's gift but we decided against that (although they all would've loved that).  Preston didn't want to stay home on another week of vacation so I suggested renting a house in Utah so that we would still be able to have a good Thanksgiving meal but kind of just chill too.  We saw Moana 2 would be released, I found cheap tickets to go to Utah's Hogle Zoo, and we decided to go to the BYU/Houston football game.  We were pretty excited to get to check out more of the Utah area.  We were also able to have home cooked meals, play games and relax.  We broke up the drive by staying the night in Cedar City with Allen & Cristine.  We actually drove Cristine's mom up with us so she could visit with her a couple of extra days before all of her family arrived for Thanksgiving.  As we were leaving Cedar City it started raining and rained all day long.  That was the only weather we had but it was quite a bit colder.  There was some snow and it made Presley's day to be able to build a snowman, even though it was super small.  When I was planning I remembered seeing Post Malone had a pink Raising Cane's somewhere in Utah and looked it up and wouldn't you know it was exactly where we were staying so we of course had to stop and check it out.  Presley loved the pink ping pong balls that flowed through tubes, tables covered with ping pong balls and we all got a laugh out of the bathroom decor.  We took pictures by the F150 outside and snapped a picture of his face on the building as well.  We got to watch Moana 2 that night and Presley loved it and said she cried in it.  Drew took a nap during the entire movie.  I was tired too and kept nodding off.  

Wednesday was the zoo and originally had planned to go to the temple lights while there but found out they didn't start until the day after Thanksgiving.  So we ended up going to have lunch at a pizza place and then went to Verizon and everyone except dad got new phones.  Those that wanted went and watched Gladiator 2.  Presley, Drew & I stayed back at the house.  

Thursday we had a nice Thanksgiving meal and played games.  We had learned Tenzi at Allen & Cristine's and I did an Amazon pick up so we could play that while we were on vacation too.  Aydon taught us Bank & Liar's dice.  We played skull kings and Bang too.  

Friday we drove back to Salt Lake and checked out This is the Place Heritage Park.  It was pretty cool.  Presley loved the little park they had there because it had like a zipline style ride and they rode that for at least 30 minutes while we watched the deer eating apples in the orchard next to the park.  Grandpa went and got an apple from the tree and cut it up and man was it delicious!  Those deer were eating good.  We tried Brigham's donuts and boy were we surprised when they were mini donuts.  They were good though and it was a nice place to warm up real quick.  We enjoyed our visit and nearly empty everywhere we went.  After the park we went to Temple square and were there to watch the lights turn on.  Because of all the construction going on throughout the entire Temple Square it didn't take long to see and we were soon on our way to dinner at Chili's and then head back to the house.  

Saturday we got Aydon all packed up and took him to back to campus.  He wanted to show us around and so he did and then we went and ate at Panda Express before going to the BYU game.  We were so afraid of being frozen so we all wore leggings under our jeans and then snow pants over our jeans.  We took blankets, beanies, scarves and gloves and by the time we got to our seat Presley was whining and asking to take some of her pants off haha.  I wouldn't let her poor thing.  She was grumpy for a bit but once the action started she really enjoyed the game.  She was counting every time they played the Cougar growl sound and she said they were up to 10 before Granny & Grandpa took her home at halftime.  She enjoyed the cougar jumping over two golf carts into a ring of fire and the drown show.  The cougar also did a drum beat and then ended up having dancers dance.  It was a really fun game and neat to experience a totally different atmosphere than we've ever been to.  Zack had sat with Gary & Vickey the first half and then when they left he sat with Aydon in the Student Section. We left Aydon and said we'd see him in a couple weeks for Christmas break.  

Man driving straight home was long!  It's definitely best to break that drive up.