Christmas

Well we finally made it home from our Christmas vacation. We left last Saturday and were able to make it to my friend, Stefani Smith's wedding reception. It was fun to see friends I haven't seen in a while. We spent Sunday and Monday with Jory's family and had an early Christmas with them. I was sick all weekend and had lost my voice for 4 days! So it was really hard to talk to people. On Tuesday we went to the Mesa temple with my mom's side of the family. We did baptisms for the dead for 250 family names. I got sick again that day, so I didn't get to do baptisms. I mostly slept during the 4 hours my family was in the temple. I was really sad I didn't get to enjoy it with them. It was also my brother Chad's first time to do baptisms. So I was really sad I missed out.
On Christmas Eve my family and 2 other families get together. We eat at my parents house and afterwards go on a hay ride. We try to sing Christmas songs, but of course it sounds horrible because we can't sing! Then we go to other family's house and have a white elephant gift exchange. Then to end the night we go to the last family's house and do a live nativity. This has been a tradition in my family for years and I think I like it more than Christmas! We had my grandparents and my uncle's family from Utah down, so we had a very big group!
Christmas Day was a lot of fun. We opened presents, ate and played all day. I got a new camera and photo editing program, so once I have time I'll put some pictures up. We were supposed to leave on Friday, but we were afraid the weather was bad, so we didn't leave until Sunday. We were hoping to have a nice, warm Arizona Christmas, but it ended up snowing in Thatcher.

The headstone for Madison and McKenzie's grave came. We thought it turned out really nice. My Aunt Lori made us the sign, "Caution, Angels at play." She was so excited to give it to us, she had us open it on Christmas Eve.



I love Christmas time. I just wish it wasn't over so soon!