Ringing in the New Year

Rebecca's parents and her brother's family came to our house to celebrate the new year with us. They arrived on Thursday night and then we had all of Friday to celebrate. Rebecca and I did sneak off to do some furniture shopping, but mainly we all played games, ate snacks, and had a good time.

One of our children's new favorite games is spot it. It is a game with a bunch of cards that have 7 or so pictures on each card. No two cards are alike, but any two cards have one and only one matching picture on them. There are lots of different games that you can play with them, but what we do is split up into two teams and then just flip over two cards at a time and the first team that spots the matching picture wins those cards. We go through the whole deck and the team with the most cards wins. I think our children like it so much because it is a game where age doesn't really matter - Elliott gets just about as many cards as Julia and Ethan, and the kids get just as many as Rebecca or I do.

Some of the snacks that we had were Grandma Swift's popcorn cake (a tradition we do on New Year's Eve every year), a homemade chocolate cheesecake (another tradition), pizza, stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped jalapenos, chips, a salad, and pop. Right at midnight we toasted in the new year with some sparkling cider and then watched some of the fireworks out our back windows - we are loving our view! All of the children stayed up until midnight except for Agnes.

The next day we drove down to Utah and spent a few nights with Rebecca's brother's family (Tyler & HyeWon). That was a lot of fun. On Friday evening we met up with many of Rebecca's aunts, uncles, and cousins for her Grandparents to treat us all for dinner at the Provo University Mall food court. Then on Saturday Rebecca's dad and mom watch the children while Rebecca and I went out furniture shopping. We ended up picking out two beds and a dresser from RCWilley that they are shipping to us, two dressers from IKEA that I am still working on putting together, and a dresser from a small furniture store that we strapped on top of our van for the 3.5 hour drive back to Pocatello. That means we now have a table (we got that in Idaho Falls right before Rebecca's family arrived), bar stools (we got those of craigslist), couches for the living (just got them from Costco, and then those dressers and beds that I mentioned. Here are some pictures:










On Sunday we went to church in the morning, packed up, had dinner at Rebecca's grandparents house, and then made the drive home. We stopped by temple square for about 30 minutes to look at all the lights. I think we will want to make that a yearly tradition now that we live so close. Our children we eager to get back in the car because we had a book on tape going, but we still had a good time and they were impressed by how many lights some of the trees had. Just one block after we were in the car Christian said he needed to go to the bathroom, so we pulled over right in front of the conference center and I made all of the children run in so we wouldn't have any more unexpected stops. There were a few complaints, but they really liked getting to see the conference center after only seeing it on TV in the past. They have been asking if we might be able to go there to actually watch conference sometime.

It was a fun little mini-vacation before the kids had to start school again.

The Force Awakens

Our children love Star Wars! They have seen episodes IV, V, and VI several times and read several books about all of the movies. They also have a bunch of Star Wars legos that the frequently play with and they pretend all the time to be Luke and Darth Vader in epic light saber battles. Rebecca and I had been talking about eventually taking them to see the new movie once it came to the cheap theater. However, when Rebecca's parents got to Pocatello they surprised the kids with tickets for all of us to go see it. We all loved it. It had been a really long time since we have all been to the movies together as a family so that was a really neat experience in and of itself. But the fact that it was the new Star Wars put it over the top for the children. I think they have talked about it at least once a day since then. I was a little worried that it might be too much for Christian and Elliott, but I don't think it was too bad - probably at about the same level of the other three that they had already seen.

Lots of Snow

We have had a ton of snow the past couple of weeks. I guess Pocatello gets the most snow in the month of December, but this year I have heard we have been getting an unusually large amount. One neighbor told me this is the most we have had in 3 years and another neighbor told me it was the most we have had in 14 years. It really started to fall right after Julia told me she missed the snow we had in Alaska and she prayed for it to snow a lot more that night :) It has been snowing since then every day for about two weeks now. The weather forecast says that we should have a break for the next couple of days at least. With all the snow the kids have been loving helping me shovel the driveway (they have a couple kid sized shovels), build a snow fort, have snowball fights, and sled down the ravine in our back yard. I think the snow has been a lot more fun knowing that it will probably be all melted in just a few weeks.

Christmas Eve Activities

Amidst the moving in we have been some of our favorite Christmas activities here and there, including the church Christmas dinner/party, a work Christmas party, looking at Christmas lights, listening to Christmas music, reading a lot of Christmas books, picking out some gifts for each other, talking/skyping with family, and watching some Christmas movies.


Rebecca made all of these stockings over the years. She originally made five back in Oklahoma after Julia and Ethan were born. And then just this summer she used her mom's sewing machine to make four more. We only need seven of them now, but she wanted to get a couple extra ones in just in case.


This year we decided to start the kids on a gift exchange and I think it worked out pretty well. They all had a good time thinking of and shopping for a gift for the sibling whose name they drew and they all seemed pretty excited for their presents to be opened. I think it worked a lot better than trying to find 25 little gifts that they could give to each other and they have been more excited being able to focus on just one other person.

Christian wrapping his present for Agnes.

Julia working on a bow for her present for Christian.

This evening we did our annual Christmas pageant routine. This year we went from room to room, eating some food (fish, pita bread, cheese, grape juice, and figs), reading some scriptures, and singing some songs at each stop. I was the donkey again, Rebecca the narrator, Julia was Mary, Ethan was Joseph, Christian and Elliott were shepherds, and Agnes was an angel. We then watched The Nativity Story. We love that movie because it shows a lot the emotions that Mary and Joseph may have experienced at the time of Christ's birth. It seems pretty accurate too based on what we read in the scriptures even though it is not a church affiliated movie. After the kids went to bed Rebecca and I wrapped the final presents, filled the stockings, started preparing our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast, and are now watching It's a Wonderful Life.

All dressed up.

Making cinnamon rolls.

Stocking stuffers and It's a Wonderful Life in the background. We usually do not do cereal in our house and we never do the sweet cereal except for a few bags that we do as a family Christmas present every year. It's cheap, but the kids love it!

If any of the kids do sneak up early this giant Ironman is there to catch them. He has already spooked me a couple times when I was walking by with the lights off.

Jarom's Wedding

This last weekend we were able to go to my nephew Jarom's (Tianna's oldest child) wedding. Our plan was to pick the children up from school and head right out. It was an 8 hour drive and so if everything turned out right we would get there at around 10 pm.

Unfortunately things did not turn out as planned. A little before noon we stopped at Fred Meyer to get some snacks for the road and fill up on gas. Right after filling up on gas our back wheels locked up and would not move at all. Luckily there was a auto shop across the street. The tow truck still charged $65 to get over there and it cost $500 to get it all fixed. I had to jog the 5 miles home to get my mom's car to pick up the kids from school and Rebecca had to entertain Elliott and Agnes in Fred Meyer for a couple hours, but in the end it all worked out.

We left at 4 pm and the kids did really well on the drive again. After listening to a few books on tape (The Jungle Book, A Christmas Carol, and Stuart Little) they all fell asleep. The roads were pretty bad and snow was coming down for about 2/3 of the way, so we didn't end up getting in until 2 am.

The next morning we mainly hung around the house and helped a little bit with preparing for the wedding. It was a really nice ceremony and reception. You could tell a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into preparing everything. I always like to hear the advice that is given at weddings and the vows that are often shared. It reminds me of when Rebecca and I were married in the Seattle Temple 10 years ago. I can't believe it has already been 10 years! It was nice during the couple's dance during the reception when we got to stay in the dance for a little while at least because we were no longer one of the newer couples.

Waiting on the couch between the wedding and the reception.

The entry way to the reception. 

The place looked amazing with all of the decorations. For food there was a taco bar, chocolate fountain bar, hot chocolate bar, and candy bar. It was all delicious, especially the tacos.

We had a fun time while we were there. In addition to the wedding it was nice to be able to just spend time with family members. This is something we always missed out on when we lived in Alaska because it was always too hard and expensive to travel to these things.

We ended up leaving a day early though because a lot of snow was expected for the day we originally planned. The drive home went pretty smoothly and although there was a little snow on some parts, we kept our 80 mph speed for most of it (I love how Montana and Idaho have 80 mph speed limits on the freeways). On the way back we listened to The Book of Virtues, some of Winnie the Pooh, and then got 3/4 of the way through Where the Red Fern Grows.

We are looking forward to a lot more traveling to see family now that we live so close to everyone.

First Nights in Pocatello

Playing catch-up a little here. Before Thanksgiving the builders told us the house would be done by December 4th. When I came back from the break they said we could move in on December 7th. Then on the 6th, they told us the 8th. We decided to just have Rebecca and the children come on the 8th no matter what so they couldn't keep postponing on us and because the children needed to start school. Rebecca's mom drove along to help out, and Rebecca said that they drive went really smoothly. They listened to the first Percy Jackson book on the way and that kept their attention the whole way. When they got to Pocatello though the house still wasn't ready. We talked to the builders and they offered to put us up in a hotel for three nights just so they could finish everything up to get all the inspections in and get the certificate of occupancy. We were fine with that - at least we were all together!

Sleeping in the hotel room.

Even though her siblings were all on the floor, Agnes thought she deserved a bed all to herself.

The hotels weren't all that bad. We were pretty crowded and some of the children were always sleeping on the floor, but there was a swimming pool and a hot tub in both places which the kids loved, and the place we stayed in for the second two nights had warm cookies at night and free breakfast in the morning. It reminded me of when I first moved to Washington with my family growing up. We stayed in a hotel for a few weeks before we could finally move in to our home.

We have been in our house for a week and a half now and have been loving it. They are still working on small things and it seems like someone comes in almost every day to finish up a job, but it is getting there. We also don't have furniture yet, but we are working on it. Pretty soon it will really start feeling like home.

First Day at School

Julia, Ethan, and Christian had their first day of school here in Pocatello today!

When we first called to register them for school, they said that the school that they were assigned to for the home we live in was overcrowded for kindergarten and second grade and so we would have to go to a different school. In fact, the two schools that were next closest to us, were also filled and so they would have to go to a school that was about twice as far away. The distance isn't too bad, but we just didn't like that they wouldn't be able to go to school with any of the kids in our neighborhood, that they would have to change schools again next year or the year after whenever a spot opened up for them, and the new school that they were placed in had the worst performance scores in the district and it looked like a prison from the outside. Luckily, just two days before they arrived a family that included a second grader and a kindergartener moved out of our home school and they allowed us to get in after all.

All three of them said that they had a great day at school today. We were glad about that because they seemed pretty nervous in the morning and the day before. They just had lots of questions about where to line up and what time to be there, and what if they couldn't find their class. But, at the end of the day they told about the fun things that they did at recess, some of the new friends that they met, some of the things their teachers said to them, and some of the projects that they got to work on. Christian goes to school full day on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other Monday so he is off for the rest of the week. But Julia and Ethan are excited to go back tomorrow.