A Very White Christmas

Warning: Long post ahead

This year we decided to spend Christmas with Nate's parents in snowy, cold West Yellowstone. This was the first time we'd spent Christmas with them since the first Christmas we were married, so it was nice to spend the holiday with them. It was a first for both of us to be there during the winter, and I was a little concerned about having good weather to make it there and back without too much difficulty. Thankfully, we had great roads on the way there and mostly good roads on the way back.

Enjoying the road trip 

The kids did pretty well in the car (except that Felicity won't really nap in her car seat). The good news is that with good roads, it actually takes less time to travel there in the winter than in the summer because there's very little traffic. We made it there in just 4.5 hours including a quick stop for gas.

A couple of moose we had to stop and see just off the road in Mack's Inn, Idaho

And when we arrived, this was the beautiful winter wonderland we got to be surrounded by for a week:

The gorgeous views from Nate's parents' house

Felicity had a rough time sleeping while we were there which made for several poor night's sleep for all of us. Granted, she had just gotten over a week long GI illness right before we left, but if she continues to sleep this poorly when we travel, we may just have to stay home and never go on vacation again.

Anyway, onto Christmas. Santa was able to find us without any problem, and the girls both enjoyed opening presents and playing with all of their gifts.

Felicity enjoying some of her Christmas presents

Bridget with her pile of presents on the chair behind her

Even though the temperatures stayed in the teens during most of the days we were there, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to play in all of that snow. Sledding was everyone's favorite, although Bridget really liked going for rides in the RZR including on top of the frozen lake (just the edge where is was solid enough). I even made my first snow angel in over 20 years, and my in-laws got a good laugh at me trying to get myself back up afterwards. In my defense, it was really deep snow and the snow gear I was wearing was really heavy.

Left: Nate helping Felicity go sledding. She loved it!
Top right: Bridget and Grandpa riding in the RZR
Bottom right: Bridget and me making snow angels in the 1.5 ft. of snow

Felicity preferred sitting in the RZR rather than riding in it because she didn't like the snow and cold wind in her face.

Grandma and Grandpa even had a kid-sized snowmobile for Bridget to ride on. The first time she got on it, she pushed right down on the accelerator 2 seconds after she sat down and before Grandpa could give her instructions. Luckily, she stopped when she hit a big snow pile a few feet away. The video below was her next attempt after Grandpa had a chance to instruct her:

I was hoping to go into Yellowstone Park on a snow coach while were there, but it turns out they are super expensive and the guy didn't offer us a deal. So even though it would have been nice to see the Park in the winter, we made our own fun in and around the house.

December Preschool Program and Field Trip

The night before we left to go out of town for Christmas, Bridget had her preschool Christmas program. It was only about 15-20 minutes long which was perfect. The dress she's wearing is one I made for her for Christmas, and I also made a matching one for Felicity. Maybe I'll get around to taking a picture of them in them togther, and post that as some point.

Here's a clip from Holly Jolly Christmas:



And here's one more clip to show how much Felicity was enjoying dancing along as the kids performed:

The morning after her program, we went on a field trip with her class to the bowling alley. We debated about going or not since we were leaving on vacation that day. Because she loves bowling so much, we decided to go on the field trip and then make the 4.5 hour drive to Grandma's and Grandpa's house after that.

 

Random December Happenings

December is always so crazy busy that keeping up with blogging is never a high priority. Here's a recap of some of our month leading up to our vacation.

Bridget loved decorating the tree this year. Felicity loved removing the decorations but was unable to put them back on by herself. Even with all of the undecorating and redecorating, it held up pretty well for the month.

Bridget wanted to pose like this under the tree because there's an ornament with her picture as a newborn under the tree. Five years later, she's just a wee bit bigger. ;-)

The finished tree looks so much prettier all lit up.

For a family night treat, I made these peanut butter reindeer cookies. Bridget thought they were great and enjoyed helping put on all of the decorations.

For the first time in a few years, we actually made it down to Temple Square to look at the Christmas lights. We went just before all the frigid weather set in, so it was nice to enjoy it with just a slight chill in the air. We met up with Megan one evening after she got off work and also walked through the new City Creek Mall. Sadly, the kids didn't get to see Santa there as we'd planned because they were only letting people with dogs see him that night. Lame!

This is a picture of the primary kids during the live nativity they did as part of our church Christmas party. There's a bunch of animals off to the right that you can't see. We had pretty nice weather earlier this month until this particular weekend. It was so cold outside, so the kids had to bundle up hiding their shepherd and angel costumes. Bridget's in the middle of the front row dressed as an angel. They sang a couple of songs and then we hurried inside to get warm.

As a side note, I should mention that tons of people in our ward got sick the Sunday night after the ward Christmas party. I know of at least 50 people that got sick, including me, Nate, and Felicity, and there were probably a bunch more I didn't know about. We're pretty sure it was some type of food poisoning and not a stomach bug because Bridget never did get it. All I can say is taking care of a puking toddler when both Nate and I were puking our guts out was horrible. I'm just grateful Bridget didn't get it because I think I would have starting crying if we'd had to try and take care of her too. Luckily she was able to take care of us the best a 5-year-old can.

Felicity thought this present of hers made a great little chair, and we thought it made a cute picture.



Megan and I teamed up for Bakefest 2012 to spend an entire day making tons of delicious Christmas goodies to share with our friends and neighbors. The treats included heath bars, sugar cookies, spritz cookies, 2 types of fudge, ginger crinkles, white chocolate and chocolate dipped pretzels, mini monster cookies, chcolate mint cookies, and peppermint bark popcorn.

Sadly, I was unable to get any pictures of our kids with Santa this year. I mentioned how City Creek didn't work out, which I was a little bummed by, but my backup plan was to go to a local bakery/restaurant where they were doing a breakfast for dinner with Santa a few days later. As luck would have it, that didn't work out either because it was the night after the food poisoning incident, so we were in no condition to leave our home or eat normal food. My plan C was to take the girls to the mall or some other place nearby before we left to go out of town, but Felicity was really sick that whole week right up until we left with some weird GI thing. Sitting on Santa's lap just wasn't meant to be for them this year. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to see Felicity's reaction to him.