Winter Wonderland

While Scott and the big boys were on their trip, Brock, Bo and Britton spent some time at the park.  They weather was sunny and close to 60 degrees the whole Christmas Break.  We had a blast playing outside.

That's what I call a Winter Wonderland.

Texas Road Trip

The last few years, Scott and some of the boys have gone to the BYU and Utah bowl games.  But this year when BYU's game was announced in Texas they thought they might not do it.  However, a few days later when they announced that the Utah game was also in Texas...Scott quickly got on board.  Little did he realize that the two cities in Texas were 10 hours away from each other.  But, what is another 10 hours when you've already driven to Texas!  So, the day arfter Christmas, Scott, Braden, Boston, and Grandpa Wood headed off on another road trip, where they, of course, worked in some National Parks along the way.  Their first stop was at Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell.

 Then it was on to Saguaro National Park in Arizona, just outside Tucson.  Having the boys stand in front of this one really gives you some perspective as to how big those cacti really are!

 They stopped next and saw Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  It is on the border of northwest Texas. 

 The coolest park (I thought) was Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.  I could fill up a whole blog with amazing pictures from the caverns.  Instead I just put in a few.  The hike into the big room was three miles long. That is pretty far inside the earth.

Here are some of the stalagtities and stalagmites found within the caverns.

 Here is Boston in another part of the caves.  He loved this park.

 The next park was Big Bend National Park at the bottom of West Texas on the Mexican border.  They saw the Rio Grande, which Braden thought was very disappointing.  Braden said, "That's the Rio Grande? It isn't any bigger than the Virgin River!"

And finally, it is game time! All of the boys agreed that the Armed Forces bowl was really well done.  Chick-fil-a was the sponsor and did a great job.  Also, Scott said that the SMU campus was beautiful.

 It was defineately an armed forces event.  There were members of each branch of the military there.  And apparently Braden filled out some paper to get some free stuff, so now he is getting recruiting mail from the military.

 Boston loved the jets!

 And the best part is that it was a great game to watch in beautiful weather and BYU won!

Now it was time to drive from Dallas to El Paso (same state, NOT close) for the Utah game the next day.  It was on the UTEP campus and was another beautiful day.

 The show started out with parachuters and other cool stunts.

 And they got to see another great game with another win for a Utah team.

On the way home they stopped at Petrified Forest National Park and lots of petrified stuff. :) 

 These enormous pieces of wood are remnants of 2 million-year-old trees.  The scene in this picture was once a lush forest.  Now it just looks like desolation.

 They came home through Las Vegas so that they could make one last stop at the Hoover Dam. 

 I loved this statue, which is a memorial of the high-scalers who carved out the canyon walls to make the dam.

Kim and the other boys had a great time staying home.  Kim got to read and get lots of things organized, and Brock, Bo and Britton got to stay home and enjoy their Christmas toys.  They chose to stay and play instead of going on this trip.

Brigham Young Home at Christmas

On Christmas Day, since the boys were dressed up for church, Scott asked us to go to the Brigham Young home and take some pictures, since it was decorated for Christmas and looked so festive.

 So the boys were pretty good sports and came downtown and took these pictures.  I posted a few.  it is fun to have the green paint of the home with the red bows.

 We used a tripod to take this rare family picture.

 It was cold, but beautiful, and I love seeing my boys all dressed up!  That is a present in and of itself.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning was fun, but a little more rushed than usual because we had church at 9:00 a.m.  Still, everything worked out great and we all went down to the church at 8:30 am to make sure all was set.  Britton got the lego ship he wanted,

 Brock got the lego village he wanted,

 And Bo got the lego castle he wanted.  Your welcome Lego for keeping you in business!

Boston got a GPS device for geocaching and a Risk game he wanted,

 And Braden got his Hawaiian guitar and some money towards a new amp that he wants.

We had a fun day after church relaxing and building legos, putting together puzzles, napping, and having hot

chocolate together.

Merry Christmas boys!

Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful and quiet Christmas Eve together as a family, with all of our usual traditions, starting with the reenactment of the nativity story.  Here are the boys in their costumes.  The angel has red over his white clothes, King Herod is apparently Russian, and you might recognize the shepherd and wise men cloaks from Halloween (ranger and Harry Potter).  And yes, that is supposed to be a sheep, even though it looks like Britton is choking his stuffed animal bear.  Nonetheless, we love acting out the story and singing Christmas hymns to go along with it.

 Then, the boys get to open presents from their grandparents (thanks so much G&G!), and then open the present they got from the brother who had their name this year.  Britton loved his present from Brock.

 And then, of course, comes the Pringle Party.  This year kept to the same standard as the past.  The boys had the play room decorated, complete with snacks, games, a dance floor, and even Christmas music piped through Braden's new P.A. system he bought. 

Have a fun night boys!  See you in the morning.

Tuacahn Nativity

While Scott and Boston were up north, the rest of us had the chance to be in the live Nativity at Tuachan.  It is a fun experience and I have to thank my friend, Emily, for giving us the chance.  We were townspeople, and the weather was good that night.  It is a great and special Christmas memory.

 This is the first had they gave Britton, and you can see he wasn't too happy when I took his picture.  Then, he got up the courage to go ask for another one.

 They gave him this one, which apparently was the right one.  He loved it!

We finished the night with a late dinner at Pizza Factory.  It was so much fun.

Cousin Court of Honor

Boston's two cousins, Jaden and Joshua Rock, had an Eagle Court of Honor, and so Scott drove Boston up north to go to it.  They had a fun and quick trip.

 A picture of some Wood family scout grandsons with Grandpa Wood.

Congratulations!  Hopefully Boston's Court of Honor will be next.

Christmas Pictures

I had dreams of taking a new, professional family picture and making a beautiful Christmas card this year.  But..it didn't happen.  Realizing that we didn't have time to do the Christmas card we would have liked to do this year, we settled for hurriedly taking some pictures of the boys in between dinner and that night's activites.  I thought I would post a few.  This first one was on our card this year.

 Braden is going through a phase where he seems only capable of sarcastic, exaggerated smiles, and says that he just can't smile for a camera so he doesn't even try a real one.

 Still, they are some pretty handsome and great boys and I can't wait to have another Christmas together with them.

Thanksgiving

We held Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year, and had a great time with my parents and three of my siblings and their families.  The kids table stayed up for days so that they could draw, play, and eat.

 And here is the grown-up table. 

The cousins had a great time playing together.  Playing the computer or writing stories in the office,

 Playing the guitar and scouring Black Friday ads,

eating food, and just being silly.

 

 Bo spent most of the time next to Bronx on the floor.  He loves babies.

And there were even some mean games of Ticket to Ride.  Everyone had fun, except for when they were taking their turn with a sick stomach.  Someone brought a stomach bug which traveled to various people over the course of several days.  Still, it was great to be together!

Looks like Thanksgiving dinner wore Grandpa Hart out.  He couldn't even finish his crossword before he fell asleep with pen still in hand.

The little kids were thrilled to get some storytime with Grandpa Hart, and there wasn't a space in the house that didn't have people sleeping in it!

I even found these guys sleeping in the food storage room.

I think we had 29 people here!  Thanks to everyone for making the trip.  It was great fun!