Final week at home

   On Tuesday we went to the Holibars for dinner.  They invited their home teaching and visiting teaching families over.
    We had a busy week because of Christmas. Breakfast casserole in the morning and steak and shrimp for supper.  Lots of snow for Christmas so the kids played outside a lot.  Christmas was great as usual, with lots of family. It was stormy on Christmas , but the next day was sunnny so the kids played in the snow and went to Peterson Park to sled down the hill.  Josh, Jared and Jake pulled them around on the 4-wheeler, snowmobile, and RZR.  
    On Sunday we talked in church.  It is nice to have that behind us.   

breakfast

Sledding

Braeden loved teaching Grandma how to use her new mini I-pad

Because of all the snow, Josh and Rachel stayed an extra day, so on Sunday night we had a sleep-over with the Knowles and Christensen cousins.  Joyce and Emily spent most of Monday taking down Christmas and getting ready for a new year.

We had lots of friends and family over for dinner after church on Sunday..

Macey is helping tend and Ty is playing

one more ride before going home

Cousins

dinner time

Two weeks left

Jace climbing

Mariah loves her chocolate kiss

Jaxson likes to climb

Macey and Santa 

We have spent this week getting more things ready for our adventure.  Joyce has been working on Christmas.  We need to finish things there so we can concentrate on the mission.  Jared and Emily and the kids are here now so that has been lots of fun. Jaxson is about ready to start walking.  

Three weeks left.....getting ready

We have spent the last week getting ready to go and getting ready for Christmas.  Joyce has been making pillow cases and pajamas for all the grand kids and I have been putting new knobs on some of the doors.  (We could't find the keys so we could lock them so I changed the knobs.)  On Tuesday we went with Larry, Valerie, and Phyllis to the Red Robin for lunch.  We attended the temple on Wednesday.  I spent most of the evenings delivering neighbor gifts. On the weekend we went to Salt Lake to shop.  Christie, Mark and Emilee met us in Bountiful to show us where to find the best deals.  We walked over to Temple Square from our motel room to see the Christmas Lights at Temple Square.  On Saturday, we watched Macey perform in her gymnastic/cheer competition and they won first place.  We did some more shopping in Orem, (I bought a new suit), and then onto Heber City so we could watch Haley while Josh's family attended the Christmas Extravaganza Program at the Conference Center on Sunday morning.  (They could only get four tickets so Haley had to stay with us.)  AnJ,  Braeden and Lexxi came with us. The weather was great and it was fun to spend time with our family.

The Brays

Temple Square

Allison and Heather

Don't drop the flier!

Macey's team won 1st place

Trip to Dairy Keen for ice cream in Heber

Waiting for the ice cream.....

Ready for church Sunday morning...

Devils Slide on the way home....

Four weeks left before the adventure begins.

Today is Dec. 8th.  We have four weeks before we leave for the MTC.  We have spent the past few weeks getting ready for the holidays and our mission. We had a busy week of Thanksgiving with all the family here and our cousins party that weekend.  On the 5th was our ward party.  It is strange to think we will miss all of these parties for the next two years.   We have made several trips to the DI, cleaning out things we don't need.  The kids are saying that we act like we won't come back, but I don't like the idea of all the clothes and stuff sitting around for two years when someone could be using them.  ( I'm not giving the shop away because I know it will be well used. Right Jake?)   On the 30 of Nov. we attended church in Poc. so we could listen to Braeden speak.  Jared and Emily were with us and we went to Beau and AnJ's after for dinner. AnJanell gave us this picture for our 41st anniversary which was the 1st of Dec.

Joyce wanted a family picture for Christmas so Allison got us all together at the park in Iona and here is the results.

Cousins party 2014

Our Christmas Tree for 2014.  The kids made paper chains and we strung popcorn on it , but Mariah likes to eat the popcorn.