Some day, these will be the good old days
All the love you won't forget
And all these reckless nights you won't regret
Someday soon, your whole life's gonna change
You'll miss the magic of these good old days.
This was a good reminder to really appreciate everything that was happening at Christmas this year. Because in about 5 years we might look back on this as "The Good Old Days." All the kids are home and still young enough that they are home all the time. But give it a few years and they will have jobs and relationships that might take them away from home more at Christmas time. Charlotte and Lydia will have graduated from High School in 5 years. Our family dynamics will be very different. And while I'm okay with our family growing up and changing I do want to appreciate what we have right now.
Also things could change with our extended family. Right now Brandon and I are lucky to have all four of our parents healthy and alive. But things could change. Hopefully all our parents live many more years. But one day we will look back and say, "that was the last Christmas with _____." I don't want to take any Christmas for granted.
And even if things are the same for many more years, there was no denying that this year was special and unique.
Brandon's brother Bryan would be in town and so would my sister Lindsey. Bryan and his family were coming in from Florida. It had been 4 years since we'd seen them. Lindsey and her family were coming from Houston. We'd seen her 6 months ago, but I never take a visit from Lindsey for granted.
Lindsey was the first one to tell us she was coming. She would arrive on Christmas Eve and then stay through the New Year. But she would only be in the Salt Lake area for about 3-4 days. That meant there was a very small window to see her.
Normally my family goes down to Utah for Brandon's Family's Christmas Eve Party. Then we drive back to Idaho and get home around 11:30. That way we can spend Christmas Day on our own. We've been doing Christmas Day on our own since 2008. (Check out this adorably short blog post about it.) The reason we do it that way is because we'd hated trying to split time with our families during our first married Christmas in 2007. That Christmas Day in 2008 was pure bliss and we've kept the tradition alive ever since.
But Lindsey in town changed everything. At first I considered driving back to Idaho for Christmas Day and then coming back down to Utah a few days later. But that just seemed crazy. Who wants to do that much driving in December?
So I started to consider that we would not go back to Idaho until a few days after Christmas. In theory we could have just stayed at my in-laws. But after last years disaster I vowed to NEVER stay overnight there again. I wanted to be like my sister in laws. They could show up for the Christmas Eve Party and have a great time for a few hours and then go home. I wanted that. But it's a little tricky to just go home when your home is three hours away.
So this is when I decided we needed to stay in a hotel. We'd go to the hotel on Christmas Eve. Stay over night. Open presents. And then go to my sister Emily's house and hang out with her family, Lindsey's family, and my parents.
It was a great plan, but I was super worried about convincing the kids. Would they want to do Christmas away from home? Well at first they were a little skeptical. But as soon as I said the words, "Hotel with a Pool" they were totally on board.
Since Brandon didn't have a job yet I decided that we might as well take advantage of that. Normally we have to balance his work schedule with our travel plans. But that wasn't an issue this year. So I booked our hotel for Monday the 23rd through Thursday the 26th. That meant we'd spend three nights there. I booked two rooms because that worked really well on our trip to Texas.
After I booked the hotel we found out that Bryan and his family would be in town. They would be at Brandon's parents up until Christmas Eve. So it was perfect that we already had plans to be in Utah on the 23rd. (And perfect that we weren't planning to stay at my in-laws because there wouldn't be any room for us anyway.)
Okay, so that's all the back story. Let's actually talk about what happened.
I already told you a little bit about church on Sunday. I said I'd had a moment where I looked around with so much love for the people in my ward. But there's more. I also just had a moment of peace where I KNEW that everything was going to work out. Brandon was going to get the job that we were waiting to hear back from. And the twins and I were going to get into the play. I just KNEW it.
I tried to hedge my bet a bit by thinking, "Well I feel like it will work out because even if those things don't happen we will still be okay." But I still had a feeling of "NO! He's going to get that job and you are going to be in the play." So I was like, "Okay then, I'll just shut up and trust the process."
Back at home Charlotte was feeling a little better. She'd had a sore throat most of the weekend. It had turned into a seal bark cough that morning. So I'd let her stay home and she took a long hot shower. That helped a little. She laid on the couch next to me and slept while I updated this blog.
When I was done with the blog I moved onto reading a book. And not just any book - the book that Brandon has been writing for YEARS. He's always wanted me to read it but I'd held off for two reasons. 1. I didn't want to read it and get critical of it while it was still in the early stages. I knew that my response to the book would carry a lot of weight and I didn't want to crush Brandon with a harsh comment. And 2. I didn't want to read it electronically. I like reading physical books. Reading it on a Google Doc just didn't seem enjoyable.
Brandon has been working a lot on the book when he wasn't doing job search stuff. He got to a point with it where he felt like the first draft was complete. He wanted feed back before he went any further. So he printed out a few copies of the book to give to his family at Christmas. I got my hands on one of those copies and was trying to read as much as possible before it had to go to a family member.
Here's the cover of the book - it's called Superluminal.
While I was reading Veronica wanted me to take this picture of Marcia snuggled up against her.
We felt SO popular because Four different people had came over that day. Two were neighbors dropping off treats. One was Brandon's friend Mike who gave him a Maverick gift card. And one was our neighbor Diantha. She'd be taking care of our chickens while we were gone so she came over to learn what to do. I think she was a little surprised that it was Charlotte and Lydia showing her everything. I was like, "I don't do a thing with these chickens."
That night we lit the Love candle on our Advent Wreath. We also ate treats that people had been bringing by our house.
Brandon had spent the afternoon cooking in the kitchen. I also made sure the kids had everything packed for our trip.
On Monday I went to work for about 3 hours. First I went to Castle Therapy and entered payments. Then I went to Aspen Grove. I was planning to stay until 12:00. But the mail hadn't shown up by 11:00. I knew if it did show up after 11:00 I wouldn't have time to process it all by 12:00. So I just left at 11:00. There was nothing that couldn't wait until Friday.
Brandon had spent the morning getting the car filled up with gas, packed, and making sure the kids were ready to go. So when I got home we just had a few final things and then it was time to go.
But poor Charlotte was not feeling well. She was huddled on a blanket in the living room. She still had her cough and a sore throat. I had the sinking feeling that I'd seriously goofed up. All that time on Sunday when I was writing and reading had been completely wasted. I should have taken Charlotte to instacare and had a strep test done. We could have got her on antibiotics. Instead it was now 15 minutes from when we needed to leave. Even if we could get into instacare quickly there would still be a wait to get medicine. What were we going to do?
My best plan at the moment was to give her Nyquil, put her in the front seat of the car so the seat warmer could help keep her comfortable, and just hope that it wasn't actually strep.
I spent a lot of the car ride down to Utah googling things on my phone to figure out what to do. I was thinking that we'd drop everyone else off at Brandon's parents house and then I'd take Charlotte to and insta care in Odgen. But that required a lot of driving. And would probably be super expensive because our insurance wouldn't cover anything out of state. I tried seeing if any sort of virtual visit would work. but I wasn't sure we could get antibiotics without being seen in person.
In the end we just went to Brandon's parents and his mom gave Charlotte a big dose of cinnamon mixed with honey and some herbal tea type medicine. She slept for a long time on the couch and while she never was really "better" she didn't get worse. So we were able to avoid instacare.
There was a good thing that happened while we were driving down to Utah. I got a call from one of the creative team people from Cinderella. He said that me and the twins had made it into the play! That was such good news. I spent the next little bit texting my friends Kerri and Marianne to find out if they'd made it - they had. And letting other people know that we'd be in the play. I also put all the rehearsal dates and show dates into my calendar.
We were staying in a hotel in Layton. That's near my sister Emily's house. We wanted to drive the least on Christmas Day and since we'd be with her on Christmas Day we picked a hotel near her house. We drove straight there and unloaded the car. We were travelling with so many presents and food that the back of our car was super packed. It was good to get that out of the car so we could see out the back window again.
One thing we had was our small Christmas Tree. We got that set up and put the kids presents to each other under the tree.
That was nice. Like I said, we haven't seen Bryan and Kara in 4 years so it was good to catch up with them. Our kids had fun hanging out together. Melanie and her family were there too.
The first thing Derrick did when he came in the house was to see how tall he was compared to everyone. He was taller than Owen who is 14 and almost as tall as Bryan. He LOVED Bryan. He called him Uncle. As in "Hey Uncle, look at this." It was kind of funny.
Here is a terrible picture of five cousins together.
Most of the girl cousins were on the couch, but somehow Veronica got left out. I think they added her after this picture.
Derrick had been waiting to do chimes all night. He was so excited to help pass them out. Then he ended up with the important 12 chime that plays in just about every song. He was so good at that and never missed his turn.
Here I am attempting some Christmas magic with myself.
Here's the one picture I took with a display - and the flash just reflected back.
Here's the view of the park from our car. It wasn't as magical as I'd envisioned it to be, but it was still a nice night.
We drove back down to Layton and got ready for bed. I laid in bed with Veronica until she fell asleep. Then I went over to Brandon's room. Charlotte and Lydia were still awake, but they know the truth about Santa so that wasn't a problem.
Around 9:00 I rounded up the kids and we got ready to leave. Brandon stayed behind so he could hang out with Bryan more and then help his mom prep for the party the next day. Steve had never been fully briefed on our plan so he was asking if we were going to my sisters. I was like, "Nope! We are going to a hotel!"
I think for a second he thought I was offended that there was no where for us to stay at the house that night. He was like, "Oh you still need to check in?" I said, "Nope, we already did that. We even set up a tree." So I hope he got the idea that this was very pre-meditated.
We drove back down to Layton and got everyone situated at the hotel. I was sharing a room with Derrick and Veronica. Charlotte and Lydia would be sharing a room with Brandon. But since he wasn't there they were basically on their own. That suited them just fine. They were right across the hall from me so I wasn't worried about them.
Derrick and Veronica stayed up watching episodes of Bluey until about 11:00. I stayed up looking at the cast list for Cinderella. I recognized about half the names.
Cinderella was going to be played by Rachel Call. She'd been in Spamalot with Brandon. She was his dance partner in the Finland scene. I'm not sure she even had a line in Spamalot, but now she was the lead in Cinderella. (Actually I wasn't surprised that she was cast. At the 4th wall night for Spamalot I'd been sitting across from Jarod. He'd been talking Rachel into auditioning for Cinderella. She's been like, "Oh I don't know." And he'd been like, "Oh I really think you should." I think he had an idea of casting her for Cinderella even then. I'm sure there were others he was considering too - but it's kind of cool that I was there for that moment.)
My friends Sara and another Rachel would be in the ensemble. So would Kerri, her husband Nate, and their daughter Payton. Payton is 9 so I think she was the youngest in the play. (This is her 5th play so she'll be fine.) Marianne and her teenage daughter were in the ensemble too. Kellen, the teenage boy the girls had met at audition was also in the ensemble. And so was Kota - Lydia's dance partner from Music Man. There were a few other people's names that I recognized, but didn't know very well yet. And then were were a lot of names that I didn't know at all. I'm excited to get to know them.
I'm so excited to do this. And there's something special about the fact that I'll turn 40 while doing this play. I think there is often this feeling like the interesting part of your life is over when you turn 40. But I get to do this completely new thing as I turn 40. It's a good reminder that my life is still going to be interesting.
Tuesday was Christmas Eve. It was so nice to wake up in a hotel instead of at my in-laws. My in-laws are great people, but staying at their house is always a little stressful. They always seem to slightly annoyed that we are messing up their house. Maybe that's all in my head, but that's the way it always feels. And last year it all came to a head.
So this year it was WONDERFUL to see my kids socks on the hotel room floor and not immediately feel like I had to pick them up. And it was great to have suitcases with clothes spilling out and not feel like we needed to zip them up right away.
And when we went to breakfast it was nice that the food was available when my kids were hungry and we didn't feel like we were imposing on anyone by eating it and getting dishes dirty. And when my kids just wanted to eat sugary cereal I didn't feel horribly judged.
Yep, staying at a hotel was worth every cent.
We'd accidently left all of our snack food with Brandon the night before. So after we were done with breakfast I had the kids watch TV in their rooms while I ran to Walmart. I bought goldfish crackers and animal crackers, some carrots, bananas, and granola bars.
When I came back we all got in our swimming suits and went down to the pool. We were staying at a LaQuinta which is normally a solid choice, but this one felt a little run down. The pool area had some signs of age and the hot tub was out of order. But my kids would swim in a puddle so they were happy.
We had a good time swimming. Charlotte stayed with us for about 45 minutes which was great! I'd pictured her too sick to swim and just miserably laying there while we all had fun. But she was doing better on Tuesday than she had been on Monday. After about 45 minutes she decided she'd rather have a long hot shower than swim in the slightly warm pool. So she went back to her room. The kids and I stayed another 20 or so minutes.
When we made it back to our rooms everyone was super happy to snack on those crackers I'd bought earlier.
Everyone took showers and relaxed while watching TV. I texted Brandon and told him we were aiming to be at his parents house around 2:00.
He called me a little later and was casually chatting about how 2:00 would work, but I was thinking, "You never call me about random stuff like this. Do you have job news?"
And then he got to the point. He said, "Hey that lady got back to me. She offered me the job!"
I was like, "I knew it!"
It was the best Christmas present.
He'll be working at the hospital doing maintenance of machinery like oxygen machines and . . . I don't really know what else. My brain still cannot grasp what this job actually involves. But it's a job and that's great! He'll be making the same amount per hour that he was at his last job. So that's good. (Technically he's worth more, but they should do a review in like 90 days so evaluate his pay so we'll see what happens there. But at least we aren't loosing any pay from what he made before.) He'll be starting in January. Maybe January 6th, but maybe a little later since he has to do a background check and get a flu shot.
The kids were getting bored with the TV so we ended up leaving around 12:00. We drove up to Ogden and then got gas at the Smiths at the mouth of the canyon. Then we drove up to Eden. I felt so happy as I drove. Charlotte was feeling better, Brandon had a job, I was in the play. It was all so great. Also it was so nice to know that I was going to show up at my in-laws with kids that were fed and dressed and no one had to witness any of the process of getting fed and dressed. So yeah, I was having a great time.
We got there around 1:00 and the Christmas Eve Party didn't officially start until around 4:00. So I'd brought a puzzle to do in the meantime. Navy was really excited to start the puzzle with me and Charlotte. But she skipped out after a while. So it was just me and Charlotte working on it. We had a lot of fun doing that.
Melanie came over with her family and then Shannon arrived with hers. It was so nice to see everyone.
We had a nice dinner that I didn't get a picture of AT ALL. But it was really yummy as always.
Then we took family pictures. Bryan had his nice camera out and took lots of pictures. At one point he was taking a picture of all the girl cousins. Justin was behind Bryan doing funny things to get the girls to smile. He put something on Bryan's head. Derrick thought he was teasing Bryan and yelled, "Hey, you leave my uncle ALONE!" It was really sweet and funny.
Then Steve showed a short movie about the nativity. Here are the kids waiting for that.
Shannon had a gift for Steve and Jacque so all the kids crowded around. It ended up being a clue that lead to more clues. So the kids ran around and found the clues and brough them back. That was fun.
Kara had a game with toys wrapped in seran wrap. It was really fun. But it stressed Derrick out because it was so random and chaotic. He'd done really well up to that point, but he did not like that game. Veronica and Charlotte and Lydia loved it. Charlotte even won a $5 Walmart gift card.
Then it was time to dance around the tree. Derrick was a reluctant participant. I told him we'd sing 10 songs. So he and I counted every song. He made it through them all.
Then it was present time. Jacque gave everyone candy boxes with $20 hidden inside. It was a great gift - especially since all her grandkids are older and just want cash. But Derrick wanted a toy. He was disappointed. But we worked through it.
It's kind of funny because for years Derrick hardly participated in Christmas Eve and he barely talked. All the other grandkids were the ones who were vocally excited about things. Now the other grandkids are teenagers. They are still excited, but they don't show it as much. Derrick now has the role of the vocally excited Grandkid while everyone else is just kind of quietly participating.
We had dessert and I handed out presents with my raspberry jam and apple butter inside. Everyone hung around for a long time. I've never minded our 3 hour drive back to Utah. But it was nice to not have to worry about that this year.
Eventually we gathered our things and started getting ready to go. Bryan and Kara were the first to leave. They were heading down to Utah county to spend time with Kara's sister Brooke. It was sad to see them go. I hope we see them sooner than 4 years from now.
Then we left. We drove down the canyon to Ogden and stopped at the Ogden Christmas Village. We love this display and try to see it every year. I figured it would be really magical to go there on Christmas Eve.
Reality wasn't as magical.
The kids were super tired and over stimulated from the party. I hadn't realized how much we all liked and NEEDED the silent 3 hour drive back to Idaho after that big party. Getting out of the car after only 30 minutes was not great.
Veronica was grumpy, Derrick was still slightly made about the seran wrap game and the fact that he didn't get a present, Charlotte wasn't feeling well, and Lydia was stressed and trying to make sure everyone was walking together so no one got lost.
I'd pictured all six of us holding hands and skipping. But instead we broke up into two groups. I had Derrick and Veronica. Neither of them really wanted to be there. We set a timer for 20 minutes and walked around and then headed back to the car.
On our way back to the car we ran into Brandon and the twins. They asked Derrick if he'd seen the display with the DeLorean car. He hadn't so they took him to see it. I took Veronica to the car.
There had been a guy dressed as Santa playing his guitar and singing. He had a microphone and a speaker so we could hear him really well when we entered the park. As we were leaving I tried to leave him a tip, but all I had in my bag was like 50 cents. His music had been my favorite part of the whole experience that night so I really wanted to tip him better. I dropped Veronica off at the car and grabbed $5 from my emergency cash that I keep hidden in the car. I went back over and left the tip for him. He said, "Oh you came back." I said, "Well you were really good. Merry Christmas."
I'd packed all the presents into one of my big pink totes. It had been in the car all packed since Saturday. It was fun to pull that out and open it up and get all the presents out. Brandon stuffed the stockings while I put presents under the tree. I usually try to stick to the 4 gifts rule every Christmas - but I usually add a few more. This year because of financial reasons and the fact that all the presents had to fit in our car I stayed with that four gift rule. Each of us had three presents under the tree and back at home there would be one more gift for each of us.
Derrick and Veronica were so excited to look at their presents. So we went over to Charlotte and Lydia's room. They were all still fast asleep in there and didn't exactly appreciate our barging it. But the night before they'd said we could come over after 8:00 and it was after 8:00.
Since the girls had the tree in their room I took the stockings with me into mine. Veronica seemed to be asleep, but after I got back in bed she said, "I saw you!"
She hasn't come out and said that she knows Santa isn't real. But I think she's close. I also haven't been trying very hard this year. I'm like, "You're going into Middle School next year. It's time."
Derrick woke up around 2:00 and I was sort of aware of what he was going. He opened the curtain to let light into the room and then went and found his stocking. Then he went through it all to see what was inside. He put it all back in the stocking and then went back to bed. In the morning he acted like he hadn't been awake at all.
On Christmas Day we woke up to snow. There was about an inch on the ground. That was a nice surprise, because last I'd checked the forecast has only called for rain.
Derrick and Veronica slept until 7:55. I'd texted Brandon to see if he wanted to wake up the kids so that we could make sure we had breakfast before it closed at 9:00. As soon as I texted that Derrick and Veronica both woke up.
Veronica was excited to go through her stocking. She was THRILLED to find a giant jaw breaker in the toe of her stocking. Derrick - who had not yet opened his stocking that morning - said, "I got one too." That's how I knew for sure that he'd been looking in his stocking at 2:00.
In hindsight we should have given them 10 minutes to wake up a bit and gone back to our hotel room and waited. But we didn't.
So things got off to a rough start with Derrick being super excited and Lydia responding super sarcastic and then me getting super annoyed and yelling at Lydia to be quiet so we could have a nice Christmas morning.
Not the best way to start Christmas.
But hey look at this pretty Christmas Tree. (With tums in the foreground because that's real life.)
And then I jumped in the picture. I had no idea Derrick had his mask on in this picture.
After dinner Derrick and I set up a game. Derrick has seen some instagram videos of this family that plays fun games for Christmas. They have tons of different versions of the game but the basic principle is that the do something to pick a bow and then they match that bow to a cup with the same bow and they get a prize that is under the cup.
The kids loved looking at everything.
Derrick had won a little tape measure as part of the seran wrap game. He had it in his pocket for some reason. He'd get it out and try to measure the fish.
We really liked this jelly fish room.
This room had a window that looked under the penguin tank.
And then we went upstairs and looked at the penguins. I watched on penguin eat down three fish one after another. It was impressive.
Here's some views of the big whale statues.
They were really cool.
Derrick loves saying what kind of whale they all were.
Here are the kids on a komodo dragon.
We went into an Amazon area. It was really hot and humid in there. I was so glad we'd left the coats in the car.
Here we are looking at it from underneath.
The fish were really cool.
Here I am.
There was a big blue mackaw on this tree.
I liked this spotted stingray.
They kids posed with this Megalodon jaw.
Here they are posing on a sea turtle.
We all loved the ray touch tank.
Then we went into the main thing I'd been excited about. Its a tunnel though a big tank. Sharks, and rays, and sea turtle swim all around your. Here's one of the rays.
And a shark.
It's so cool to have them right by you.
My friend Kaymie had told me not to miss the VR experience. It was in a separate building but was included in the ticket. She said it was kind of hard to tell that it was part of it all. I'm glad she told me about it, because there was a lot of construction outside and I'm not sure we would noticed the little sign for the VR building if I hadn't been looking for it.
Anyway, things got a little better as the presents were opened. Lydia got the universe projector she's wanted and she was a lot happier after that. (And I apologized profusely.)
Our Christmas was small, but still good. A lot of the presents were just small because that's how they were. Like all the kids got a wallet. Charlotte got a small little puzzle cube thing. Derrick got a DeLorean model. Veronica got a crystal on a necklace.
After we opened all the presents we went downstairs to breakfast. The kids were all in their sleepers that I made last year. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to embarrass the kids in front of everyone else who was eating breakfast.
Breakfast on Christmas morning is often an after thought in our family so it was nice to have all the options available to us at the hotel. All the kids made themselves waffles on the griddles.
After breakfast we went back to our room and changed into our swimming suits. Then we went and swam for about an hour. It was fun to have Brandon there. Here are all the kids crowded around him.
Swimming was so relaxing. The room was really echoey and I had fun whistling Christmas songs and hearing the echo bounce back. I decided that I hate singing It Came Upon a Midnight Clear because the notes are all over the place. But it's really fun to whistle. Brandon says he's always happy to hear me whistle because it means I'm happy.
And I was really happy because for the first time in a long time Christmas felt like a vacation instead of an obligation. Last year after everything was so crappy I decided that if I was going to take time off of work and travel to Utah I wanted it to actually feel like I was on vacation.
The whole Christmas season had also been relatively stress free for me. Brandon being unemployed was actually kind of a blessing because it took away a lot of the "extras" that I try to take on. I only bought the kids four gifts for Christmas and was done with the shopping on December 9th. I didn't worry about neighbor gifts or teacher gifts because there was no room in the budget for things like that. It only took like an hour to wrap gifts because they were so small. We haven't done Christmas Cards in years, but this certainly wasn't the year to start again. I just focused on what I actually wanted to do and let the rest slide. It was great!
After about an hour of swimming we went back to the hotel rooms and showered. We leisurely got ready for the day. I'd assumed that my sister Lindsey had stayed in a hotel that night so I was surprised when she texted me and asked when I was coming over to Emily's. I was like, "Oh are you already there?" I hadn't wanted to impose on Emily's family's Christmas morning so I wasn't planning to be there until about 12:00. But knowing that Lindsey was already there changed everything. We were all basically ready by this point so we just put our shoes on and headed over to Emily's.
Not only was Lindsey there, but my parents were there too. I'd thought we'd be the first to arrive, but instead we were the last.
Here's Derrick showing off his car to my dad. (And me making a weird face in the background.)
We had a great time hanging out with everyone. Around 2:30 we had Christmas dinner with turkey, ham, cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, mac and cheese, and rolls. Lydia was like, "I've never done this in my whole life."
Which is true. My kids have only ever known a Christmas Eve party. They've never seen a Christmas Dinner. (And frankly we usually just stuff ourselves with candy on Christmas Day and dinner is very much an afterthought.)
My dad took this picture of me and Brandon.
After dinner Derrick and I set up a game. Derrick has seen some instagram videos of this family that plays fun games for Christmas. They have tons of different versions of the game but the basic principle is that the do something to pick a bow and then they match that bow to a cup with the same bow and they get a prize that is under the cup.
The prizes are things like candy, $50, a free hug, little toys, etc. Derrick really wanted to do a game like that. So I asked my sisters if they would be willing to help out with buying the prizes. Lindsey venmoed me money and Derrick and I ordered everything on Walmart.com. (Ordering it online was less stressful than wandering all over the store with an impulsive 12 year old.)
We tried to keep all the prizes around $2-$3. We weren't going to have any free hugs or any $50. The most we had was a $5 bill. We had cookies, chips, gum, candy, little toys like hot wheels and ponies, a jar of fart putty, a light up ball, hershey's kisses, and little trophies.
Derrick wanted to play the version of the game where the bows are connected to stings that are strung through the middle of a toilet paper tube. Then the people each pick a string and pull it. That way they don't know which bow they are selecting.
The game was fun and Derrick really liked running it. But it was WAY more chaotic than the instagram family makes it seem. That instagram family is always really calm with their game. Like they cheer and laugh, but they aren't fighting over who gets the next turn. Our version was much louder and crazy.
But there were still some fun moments like when John won the little pony toy or when 3 year old Juniper won the big pack of gum.
My parents left a little before 5:00. My family hung around a little bit longer, but my kids were on day three of big hangouts with cousins and were getting a little sick of all the commotion. So Brandon took them back to our hotel around 5:30.
My parents left a little before 5:00. My family hung around a little bit longer, but my kids were on day three of big hangouts with cousins and were getting a little sick of all the commotion. So Brandon took them back to our hotel around 5:30.
I hung around though because I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
Lindsey took her family to get all checked into their hotel. Then she came back and hung out with me and Emily. Normally we could stay up for hours talking. But Emily was exhausted and so Lindsey and I left around 8:30. Lindsey dropped me off at my hotel which was just a block or so away from her hotel.
I stayed up reading some of my new books that Brandon gave me. Derrick and Veronica watched TV. Then we all went to bed.
On Thursday Lindsey and Emily had planned to take their kids skiing at Nordic Valley. That was not in the budget for us this year. Nor did I really think my kids would like it. So I planned for us to do something that I knew the kids would love. For years we've talked about going to the Living Planet Aquarium. Every time we drive by it Derrick will be like, "What is that? We need to go there!" And since my kids all love fish I knew this would be a fun activity for all of us.
So on Thursday we had breakfast and then packed up our stuff. Brandon and I actually went down to breakfast before the other kids were up. It felt like we'd barely seen eachother for a few days so it was nice to have a minute together.
The other kids ate and then we packed up the car. More snow had fallen overnight so Charlotte took care of getting everything brushed off. The car was full of stuff, but we'd given away presents and used up the game prizes so we'd emptied the tote that had held those things. And the gifts had been unwrapped so that tote had more room. Plus we'd eaten most of the food we'd brought. So we'd been able to condense a lot.
We drove down to Draper and got to the aquarium right after it opened at 10:00. I didn't want to carry everyone's coats around all day so I made everyone run in without coats. We'd pre-purchased the tickets so we were able to avoid the main line.
Soon we were inside the aquarium. The first place we went was an exhibit about fish in various parts of Utah. I'm glad we started here, because it would have seemed boring after the more exotic places.
Here's a fun picture of the kids posing with whale statues. (I had my flash off so it didn't spook a lot of the fish and that made it so a lot of my pictures are darker than I wanted them to be.)
There was a rope bridge that we all crossed.
The area took up two stories and had a big sloping ramp that took you from the top to the bottom. .
There was a huge fish in this tank.
These are always so fun.
We'd been there about 2 hours and had basically seen everything. The kids were getting hungry so we went out to the car and ate a bunch of our snacks. Then we went back to see some more things and to see some other thing again.
We went to the building and got on the schedule for the 1:15 show. That gave us about 45 minutes to wait. We went back to the Amazon room while we waited.
Here's a link to a video I took ( I really wish Youtube would stop making all my videos into shorts because I can't embed them like I used to.)
I liked this ray that would lay on the top of the tunnel.
And then we were able to get a whole family picture.
At 1:05 we went over to the VR Building. It's underneath this giant structure that we've always wondered about. I've thought it was supposed to be a statue of a squid. We found out that it's supposed to represent an alien name Eco. There was a whole back story and everything.
Brandon took this picture of the kids with a shark coming right to them.
The VR experience was of Eco taking her daughter on a tour of the Amazon. And we were along too. (It felt a little forced, but whatever.)
We went back inside the main building and looked at the penguins. Veronica was not having a good time. The VR stuff had made her a little sick and the penguin area stunk like dead fish so that didn't help. She and I sat on some bleachers while everyone else crowded around the glass. By the way, this aquarium gets a 10 out of 10 for seating options. There was always a bench when I wanted one.
We took a few minutes to bring stuff into the car and then we opened those last presents. Charlotte adn Lydia each got three books and Charlotte started reading her's right away.
Here's Derrick patiently waiting his turn.
Brandon had wrapped mine really pretty. He always does such a good job.
It was almost 2:00 by this point and we were all getting hungry and a little home sick. So we said goodbye to the aquarium and went to a nearby Wendy's. Everyone was so happy to have burgers and fries. My phone was nearly dead so we were all spared a picture.
After eating at Wendy's we drove up to Layton and stopped at Emily's. I'd left two pumpkin pies there the night before. (There was no point in taking them to the hotel because we didn't even have plates.) Emily and Lindsey's family had been snacking on them all day. They had decided to go skiing on Friday so they'd just had a relaxing day at home.
I wished that I could have stayed longer, but none of my kids were interested and honestly I was ready to be home too. So I just said a quick goodbye to Lindsey and then left.
Our drive home was really uneventful. We got home around 6:00.
At home there were presents waiting under the tree. I'd labeled a lot of the presents as "from Santa," but hadn't really tried to hide my hand writing. Derrick had been asking me, "Did you write this?" And I was like yeah. Also every present he got was one that I'd had him pick out on Amazon. So yeah there wasn't a lot of mystery. I think he's like 95% of the way to figuring it all out.
Anyway, so he knew that he still hadn't opened the safe/bank that he'd picked out from Amazon so he was really excited to open those presents.
And then we all just kind of did our own thing. I realized that I hadn't been alone in like 4 days and it was wearing on me. So I went into my room and took care of our bank account stuff and then just read for a long time.
On Friday I went to work and got things taken care of at Castle and Aspen Grove. When I was getting ready to leave Aspen my boss came in to talk to me. He said he was going to give me a raise. My pay went up a whole $5 an hour! I actually make more per hour than Brandon does right now. I never thought that would happen.
I'd been kind of thinking that good news came in threes. Getting into the play was one, Brandon's job was two, and the pay raise made three.
Back at home Brandon was in an existential crisis about accepting the new job. He has a lot of PTSD from his last job and he was just assuming the worst about this one from the get go. He kept saying, "I just don't feel good about it." And then we realized that he actually just didn't feel good.
Brandon rarely gets sick so it took him a while to admit that he wasn't feeling well. I was like, "Brandon you just spent like 2 weeks doing all this Christmasy stuff for our family. You've earned a break."
So he finally admitted he wasn't feeling well and actually took some medicine.
Meanwhile Derrick and Veronica were prepping for one of their epic sleepovers. I took them to the store and they picked out and paid for a bunch of goodies.
That night they stayed up late watching movies and eating junk food. They watched the 2014 Godzilla and then Godzilla King of the Monsters. Then Veronica said no more scary movies and they watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I started taking down a lot of the Christmas decorations. We have plans to knock out this wall in the kitchen sometime soon. I didn't want dust getting all over the Christmas stuff.
I took down everything except the tree on Friday night. On Saturday I tackled the ornaments and the tree.
I love all of our ornaments, but I was kind of wishing I could throw them in a box rather than carefully wrap them all. It takes SOOOOO much time to get them all grouped and packed nicely. This year I set up the card table so I'd have somewhere to put everything as I took it off the tree.
I finally got everything put away. But I was out of energy for the moment. So I watched Kong Skull Island with Derrick. I fell asleep for like an hour, but I liked what I saw. The plot was dumb, but the cinematography was beautiful.
After the movie was over I had the kids bring down all the totes from the upstairs and I got everything organized in the storage area under the stairs. I'm always so happy when the Christmas stuff is tucked away for another year.
Normally I redecorate the living room after Christmas, but this year I'm actually taking more things down. We have plans for some shelves in the living room so I took down a lot of things so the room can be a blank slate.
I was hoping to do even more, but since Brandon was sick I didn't want to get too far ahead of him and make him feel bad for not being ready for any of the demolition.
He spent the whole day sleeping in bed. He mostly had body aches and a cough.
And now here we are at Sunday again. Church didn't happen for us today. We are in the time of year when we barely know what day it is. And add in the fact that Brandon is sick - well no one really even got up until 11:00 AM today.
Plus we had a missionary doing her home coming talk today. I knew the chapel would be packed and we'd probably end up on the hard chairs in the back. I hade the hard chairs.
And it's the 5th Sunday which always gets a little dicey. Some 5th Sunday lessons are downright terrible. It doesn't help that they try to shove 60 adults into the Relief Society room. And all the youth would be combines which would throw Derrick off. And I didn't know what to do with Veronica. Would she come with me or should I just have her go with Charlotte and Lydia since she'll be in young womens next week anyway?
Anyway it was all too complicated and in the end it was just easier to stay home and watch sacrament meeting on zoom and not worry about the second hour.
So we are spending the day in low power mode. It's been raining for like 3 days straight so there no reason to leave the house. And everyone is content. So it's actually really nice.
Anyway, that sums up Christmas.
Thanks for reading.
