Utah Christmas

So...

I feel bad because we had so much fun in Utah that I basically forgot to take any pictures at all. How lame! Super bummer. I will give you what I have and I can hopefully get pictures from Laurie soon.

Anyway, the story begins (and ends) with the drive. A very, very long drive. Heavens. I've never been in the car for longer than 12 hours before, and it's really not very fun, especially when the CD player in your car is broken. But we somehow survived it.

We left right after Jordan got off work on Friday and drove 8 hours (arriving around midnight) to Tucumcari, New Mexico, where we stayed in a gross hotel room that was a smoking room since Jordan thought it had said non-smoking when we booked it. Whoops. We were too tired to bring Lexi's kennel up, but since she had slept in the car the whole time she kept running around the room and generally being obnoxious. Neither of us slept until we locked her into the bathroom at 2:30 am.

The next morning, we stopped for breakfast at Cline's Corners, so of course we had to take a picture.

Lexi was so, so bored on the drive. Aussies are bred to run around all day long, and so sitting in a car for twenty hours almost killed her, although she still traveled really well.

Finally, finally we made it to Salt Lake City. Thank goodness. We dropped off Lexi with Jordan's uncle Jeff and his sweet girlfriend and then headed to Mike and Laurie's for some fantastic chicken and dumplings soup. Mmmm mmm! It was awesome after eating junk for two days.

Over the next few days we just had a ton of fun with Jordan's family. We went to the children's museum, and it was so cool--I've never been, and we had a blast going with our little nieces. We also celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve Eve. Jordan and I gave the tiny nieces cute coloring books with big crayons and we gave the big girls purses to go with Grammy and Opi's present...pink jeeps! The kind kids can actually drive! Wow, what lucky girls.

On Christmas Eve, Jordan's awesome Aunt Lani left to spend Christmas in San Francisco with her sister and her family, so she let us stay at her dog-friendly house for a few days. It was nice to be with Lexi for Christmas! On Christmas morning we got up around 7:30 and had a quick opening presents. I got Jordan a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt, a book by Orson Scott Card, a puzzle of Lexi that never actually got here (so he didn't actually get that present), and a game called TransAmerica. Jordan got me tennis rackets, a Christmas apron, a book by Orson Scott Card (but not the same one I got him, thankfully), and the DVD How to Train Your Dragon.

Lexi, though, was the one who really made out. Both her "grandmas" spoiled her rotten, although Lexi didn't get a car. Ha ha! But she got a ton of toys, treats, a frisbee, and even a cute blanket from Aunt Lani. Oh, and I got her this darling "Ho, ho, ho" bandanna to wear for Christmas. We let her open her own presents and it was pretty cute to watch.

Here she is with all her presents afterward. She was basically in heaven.

Christmas and the day after we basically relaxed because...we were staying for another week! Originally we were going to stay six days and then drive to Georgia and then drive back to Texas, but we decided to use up the rest of Jordan's vacation time and save ourselves 42 hours of driving. Also, my family was going to come up to see my grandparents so I got to see them again! How fun.

On Tuesday we went skiing/snowboarding (I ski, Jordan snowboards) with my dad (skis) and Brett (snowboards). It was really fun but the power went out at around 1:00 and we couldn't finish out the skiing. Oh well. Dad and I came back later in the week and I was colder then I had ever been in my whole life. It was 5 degrees in the parking lot and I'm sure much, much colder at the top of the mountain. Brrr!

We got a ridiculous amount of snow on Wednesday and Thursday and I was able to take some fun pictures of Lexi enjoying the snow. She loved bouncing around in it and carrying around her panda bear!

We finished off the trip with a fantastic New Years Eve party with all of Jordan's siblings and their spouses. Laurie was nice enough to watch all six grandkids while we had our party! She is a brave soul. We played Minute to Win It games and had a great time with a lot of laughter, but nobody took pictures! So sad, because there were some great moments.

When we got back to Laurie and Mike's at about 11:00 pm, Libbie and Hailey were still awake. They informed me that "Gram said we could stay up as late as we want! We're going to color." Hmmm...suspicious. Soon they were asleep, though. Cute girls.

Saturday morning we had our car packed to the brim and said our goodbyes. We drove 10 hours to Albuquerque and then did 10 more on Sunday. We spent the night at Jordan's Aunt Robynn's and Uncle Dick's house and had a fun fondue dinner with them and Jake and Tatia.

I'm so grateful for my fantastic in-laws! Every one of them is a friend AND family. What a blessing.