Christmas Break

We are all out school now for the rest of the year - Yay!!! My last week went pretty smoothly with final exams, reading through the last reports that were due, and entering grades. Julia, Ethan, and Christian all said that their last week was really tough and that their teachers wanted to make up for the time that they were going to have off. But then on Friday they had a huge school-wide -party. Sounds like they got to travel from class to class in the morning making different crafts and then play games and watch movies in the afternoon. This weekend we have been making plans for all the fun things we want to do together over the next couple of weeks.

The past three weeks we have been getting a ton of snow! Maybe 2-3 feet or so. It seems like every time I have cleared the driveway we get another snowfall the next day. Sometimes I have thought about just waiting and only clearing the necessary part of the driveway, but if I don't get to our driveway and sidewalk quick enough our 70 year old neighbor comes out to do it. I think he has done it 3 or 4 times already this season. He does have a snow blower, but I still feel bad every-time I come home and see that he did it.

On Friday we got our biggest snow fall. It started off with rain in the morning. Rebecca and I planned a temple trip for that day and was glad it was just raining so the roads wouldn't be bad. We got abut 30 miles out of Pocatello when the rain turned to snow. Instead of 80 miles per hour, we had to slow down to 40 for the rest of the drive. There were cars off the freeway all along the way. Rexburg looked like it had been hit really bad. The snow had slowed down a lot on our way home, but there were still tons of cars off the road, a few accidents, and even some semi-trucks that had crashed. IT took us an extra hour or so, but we made it home safe. That evening the snow really started to come down and the next morning there was probably a fresh foot on the ground.

On Saturday evening I had my work party and it was at our house. Some of my co-workers were worried about trying to make it up our hill. I spent two hours that day just clearing our driveway. Luckily a couple hours before the party the plows came through and cleared our roads. The party was lots of fun. It was just for the faculty, department staff, and family members, but there ended up being 50 or so people that were here. We did cram everyone upstairs for eating, but for the most pqart the kids all played downstairs while the adults where upstairs. There was a lot of yummy food. Rebecca found some homemade chicken nuggets that she loved, Julia at almost half a ham on her own, I really liked some Asian noodles that one of my co-workers from China brought, and the children drank between 2 and 3 pops and a couple capri-suns each. After the eating the children had a gift exchange. Our children were so excited all day that they were going to get presents. Julia and Christian got drawing sets, Ethan got the game Clue, Elliott got some nerf guns, and for Agnes we just wrapped up some of her old blocks instead of entering her in the drawing. Then the adults had a white elephant gift exchange. Of the 22 people, Rebecca got number 5. When it was her turn she stole an immersion blender from someone, which was great because ours broke a while back. I was number 13. Nothing had caught my eye earlier so I opened a new one. It was toilet paper with Donald Trumps face on it. Luckily Rebecca got to keep her blender throughout the exchange. I thought I was going to have to keep mine too, but then number 21 was super excited to get mine. I then got to steal a rubrics cube which we will probably re-gift to Christian and some Lindt chocolates. Rebecca and I shared a couple in church today, they are really good, especially the dark chocolate ones.

Rebecca, Julia, and Christian are off at a Messiah sing along this evening. I thought it would have been fun for us all to go, but it didn't start until 7 and Agnes and Elliott needed to get to bed so we let Julia, Ethan, and Christian choose whether or not they wanted to go. It will be fun one day, maybe ten or so years down the road, when we can all go together.

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

We watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional this evening. I am so glad that the church does that every first Sunday of December. This year the final talk was by President Eyring on having peace in our lives. It was especially good. We had been talking about some of his comments on that earlier in church today, so the topic had been on my mind throughout the day. Rebecca and I have also been working on helping the children have peace in our home. The Savior definitely set the perfect example of this. I like how He was able to be at peace no matter what was going on around Him.



You can watch a rebroadcast of it here (www.lds.org or https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/categories/christmas-devotionals?lang=eng) if you would like.

We started a new family tradition for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We had nachos for dinner while we watched and then everyone got to suck on a candy cane after they were done with their dinner. The children all liked it and they agreed that we should keep doing it every year. I think the candy cane part is especially good because it gives them something to do with their hands and their mouth so the rest of their body has to just sit and listen. They were all pretty attentive throughout the whole thing. It was also fun watching Julia and Ethan eat their candy canes. They both tried to make theirs as sharp as possible. But then they started poking each other. I had to smile though because I remember doing that same thing when I was young.