January 1, 2017

 Christmas break was nice. We had a week out of school before Christmas. We were able to catch up on a lot of our Christmas traditions that we hadn't been able to get to during school. We went to the Bellagio and the cactus garden and made a gingerbread house and slept under the tree.  We also worked on Kwanzaa. We didn't have a full day this year to do it so we did a couple hours every morning.  It was so nice to get the house organized. We went and saw a movie as a reward on the day before Christmas Eve.

 My parents and Grandma Donna came to celebrate Christmas with us. They came the morning of Christmas eve. We went ice-skating that day. We had a lot of fun. But it was pretty hard for the kids. We realized they have never rollerskate it or rollerbladed or anything before. So there was a lot of falling and tears.  But they all stuck with it and by the end they had had a good time.

 That evening we had Chinese food for dinner. We went over to the Pettingill's for a little bit to join their annual party. Then we acted out the nativity and open and sibling gifts.  Everyone was very happy with their sibling gifts this year.

 On Christmas we got up at 6:45. We opened gifts for a while. The kids got a new trampoline, Bob got a gas fire pit, Aaron got a new Xbox, Danny got a lot of games and controllers for the Xbox, Rachel  got a lot of art supplies and a electronic tablet for drawing. Seth and Ruby got a superheroes playmation game that they both loved. They got Legos and Pokémon toys.

 After presence we had Norwegians for breakfast. We played for a while. Then we had sacrament meeting at 1 o'clock. It was nice to have church on Christmas. Then we came home and had our second annual testimony meeting.

 On the day after Christmas, my parents took the kids to  The store to buy me a birthday present. Then we celebrated my birthday by going to dinner that night. Then we went to see the Christmas lights at the speedway after that.

 Tuesday afternoon we packed up and drove to Utah.   We stayed with Trina. Wednesday we went to the temple with her and did and down my aunts and ceilings for Pepas  siblings. We went to the Provo city center temple. That night we went to ikea  and then watched movies at Trina's.  Thursday I took Danny and Rachel  to the outlets for a little shopping. That night we had dinner at Kenton's house  Josh and Holly came too.  We celebrated my birthday and then we all went to watch a BYU basketball game.  Friday we went over to the Dean's house. We had a great time catching up and spending time with them. The kids spent the night there that night. Then we pick them up the next morning and drove back to las vegas.

 We had three different friends invited us to spend time with them on New Year's eve. That was fun. We moved from one party to the next. Danny went to the stake  dance and had a good time. Everyone stayed up until midnight.  I think that was the first year that had happened. We started at 9 o'clock church today. That was hard to get up for. But it was so nice to have the afternoon open. We had a mandatory family nap time to catch up on sleep. At night we  went for a family walk and played Apples to Apples and did family yoga. It was nice.