Christmas 2010

We are finally home and settled from all of our Christmas adventures so I finally have some time to give a little summery.

On Christmas Eve we packed up the car and headed south the Utah. The drive was going great until we were about 5 miles out of Brigham City and the car died. We managed to get off the freeway. Around 2-3 minutes after the car died a nice young family stopped to see what was going on. These very kind people ran home and picked up jumper cables and a tow strap. They also came back with a snack for Lily. While Tyson and this very nice guy (we never got his name) looked over the car Lily had fun playing in the driver's seat.

It became clear that we were not going to get the car going so this kind man and his wife, with their young child towed us the 5 miles into town and took us to the auto parts store. We tried to give them some money for their troubles, but he wouldn't take it. It was great to be reminded that there are so many good people in the world who are happy to help, even on Christmas Eve.

We had our battery and alternator tested and it turned out that our battery had a short in it and that caused it to kill our alternator. Tyson's brother and his fiancee headed north from Sandy to come and help us out and while we waited for them I took Lily across the street to Burger King to get her a snack and let her play for a bit.

Once Stew got there in only the guys about 20 minutes to change out the alternator, Tyson had already replaced the battery, and then we were on our way again. We made it to Sandy around 7:00 pm and we had a nice relaxing evening with family.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. It is so different with a little child around. Last year we of course had Lily, but she was too young to open gifts herself or understand what was going on. This year she seemed to figure it all out and she had a great time. I was a slacker and forgot to pull out my camera, so I pulled a few pictures off of my sister-in-law Brandi's blog.

Lily figured out how to unwrap her gifts, but she liked to do it a little at a time so it could take a while.

She went from person to person having them help her open her gifts and then she would sit with them and play with her new toys. This is her with her grandpa playing with her new see n' say.

She found some fun things at her grandma and grandpa's house. This lift flap book was her favorite, she must have gone through it 50 time or more.

She also LOVED the slide and spend hours going up and down it. She even helped some of her toys go down the slide. Every time she got to the top of the slide she would say "go" and wait for everyone to watch before she would slide down.

To our surprise Lily really opened up this last week. She had been so quiet and clingy to me and this last week she played with everyone and let all of her aunts and uncles hold her and play with her. She also started talking a lot more. I still don't understand a lot of it, but I am picking out more and more new words all the time.

On Tuesday we headed home, and thankfully made it back home without incident. My entire family was in town so we spent the next several days with them. Mostly we just hung out at my parents house, but on Thursday we all went bowling. Lily got to play for the first time and she had fun. The ball return was her favorite thing though. Tyson go the high score of course, but my brother Jack (2 years-old) managed to score 100 (with bumpers) and came in 4th. We are not bowlers, but we had a good time anyway.

On Friday we headed north about an hour and an half and went snowmobiling and sledding. It was so cold when we got there, around -8 degrees, but it warmed up to about 10 degrees by the afternoon. The area was beautiful and it was great to be with family. The kids loved sledding! All in all we had a great time, but it was cold, so we headed home after a few hours.

It was a great week, but it seriously wore me out. I'm grateful that we have an uneventful week ahead of us so that we can recover a bit and get back into the swing of things.