Holiday Activities!

Our holiday celebrations ended last friday. I don't know whether to bore you (or myself) with the details! Oh well, why not? It may take me a couple days to get it all posted, but here it goes!

A few days before Christmas we decided to completely change our plans and stay at Ryan's parents house Christmas Eve with a few other family members...

Melvin, Raeghn and there five children (Wayne, Kveena, Shad, Adam, and Andrew)

Spencer, Jenn, and their little Kali.

Ryan's baby sister, Whitney, home from BYU for the holiday (and home for a very exciting first kiss)...

AND before Mom Torrie knew that anyone besides Whitney would be home she had invited her Sister Sandy, Sandy's ex-husband Harmus, and their two children Harm (with his wife Melanie), and a week over due Tara (with her husband Moe and son Darian) to come stay for Christmas Eve and day. To top off the crowd Sandy brought her two dogs and Tara her puppy! Needless to say there were people everywhere and dogs getting stepped on all night!

I tried to convince Ryan (many times before, during, and after) that we could really stay the 25 minutes away at our own home...but no. "It will be fine". And to be perfectly honest it was fine and I didn't hurt anyone and I didn't cry!

Brooklyn and Colby woke up somewhat early (6:45 to go potty) and must have heard the noise down stairs so Ryan and I enjoyed opening presents with them and then I woke the boys up 30 minutes later. We had our own little couch away from the rest of the crowd. It was fun to watch all four of the kids excited to rip through the paper and ask for more to unwrap. I think next year I may just wrap old toys for fun so they have more to open with their name on it!

Yeah-Thanks Aunt Shana and Uncle Diego!

Spiderman-Thanks Carta's!

Daddy played kitchen with Brooklyn inbetween calls.

My Horse! From Grandma Jepsen Anyway, it was a fun morning and the day turned out great!

I forgot the highlight of my Christmas Eve was riding on Dad's wagon pulled by the Belgian horses. Thanks, Dad! We sang carols and had hot chocolate after.

We went home late Christmas day to set up the presents we couldn't give our kids at Grandma's house (Brooklyn's toy kitchen and Colby's train table Ryan made). I also left the gifts from my family for the kids to open on boxing day (the 26th for those of you who don't know. Big shopping day comparable to the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.).
Sooo, Ryan worked the rest of the week with a couple of them being busy call days. He had Monday the 31st until the 6th off for vacation. We had been planning to go to Kimberly B.C. until he found out that his clinic coordinator had given the condo (that we had reserved two months earlier) to another doctor! Yikes, was I mad? But he did find us another one for only $300/night! AAh! Mad again is an understatement when we were only having to pay $75/night right off the ski hill. Luckily Ryan had invited his brother to come with us so we split the cost.
Instead of getting ready to go to the condo on New Year's Eve like we should have been we decided to go out to the parents again and stay up late for the New Year! We raced home the next morning to pack and I was so upset that my house was NOT left nice and tidy like I love it for a vacation! I had had a large family gathering over the weekend and the clean up didn't happen until we came home from the condo.

Anyway, Kimberly turned out to be a great time! I don't know why I was so brave, but the day for skiing came up and Ryan and I thought it would be fun to take all of us. I can't tell you how much fun it was to have the boys and twins on the ski hill! Brooklyn was in heaven and loved it so much that we had to buy her own skis when we got home Friday. Brayden has been once last year and it was fun to see how much better he did this year. Tyson and Colby weren't overly excited, but they did good. They seemed pretty hungry and tired. We found out the next day that they were both coming down with a high fever and Tyson even threw up. Little sweetie-he was so patient with us! Ryan and I went night skiing and had so much fun. I forgot that it had been a long time since we skied (probably just after Brayden was born), but I must admit things went well. The first time down the blue hill was pretty slow for me, but Ryan played around and coached me down. I told him to go on his own the second time-he made it down the hill in 4 minutes! The nut! I cut my time in half and we were able to go one more time before closing the lift. I was the last one on the hill as they yelled "lights out" behind me! Pressure! But lots of fun! We are hoping to make a ski trip in February or March to Utah.



What a fun way to end and begin a year!


This is how we sled in Canada!