This year for Thanksgiving, Josh's older brother, Bryan, invited us all to have Thanksgiving at the church that he is the Bishop over in Rigby. I took my usual candied yams and pies. Stacey drove up here for the weekend and went to Thanksgiving dinner and then Black Friday shopping with us the next day. I didn't really get too crazy with my shopping. We went out early Friday morning and went to Kohls, Target, and a few other places. Then we went to lunch at Rumbi and then met Josh, who had come to Idaho falls with Avery, and Stacey took her home while Josh and I stayed and went a few more places. We had decided that our Toyota Highlander was causing us more headaches than it was worth. It had stalled on the highway on me a few weeks earlier and it looked like it may have more troubles down the road. So we decided to a start looking for another vehicle. We test drove a Buick Enclave that night and I really liked it, but sadly it sold to another family the very next day. So we kept looking over the next couple of weeks and ended up buying one by mid-December. Some may say that a Buick is a grandma car. I saw that it's quite comfortable and has a place for me to organize all my change... haha okay so maybe that is a grandma car quality. Who uses change these days?! lol But anyways, it's nice and hopefully it lasts use for a while.
Also on Thanksgiving weekend, Josh got to go out and do one of his favorite things: going fishing down the river with his friends (well actually his cousins - Steve and Devin.) I legitimately thought he had died he was gone so long. I even went online and made sure his life insurance was paid for the year. I tried calling and calling him and he wasn't answering. Finally, as his dad and Devin's wife, Charm, were about to go out and look for their bodies, he did call us back and tell us they were alive and just getting off the river. I expected there to be a really good reason for his unreasonably long amount of time fishing, such as a problem with the boat or an injury. His good reason? "It was the best fishing I've ever had in my life." I'm so glad. Because he probably won't be going fishing again for a long, long time.
The Mighty Fisherman
Goodbye Toyota Highlander
Hello Buick Enclave
In between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a few fun things we did included going to see Santa at the carousel (The carousel closes on Labor day and Avery is always so sad, so this is a nice opportunity for her to get her fix again until Memorial Day)
Avery and I went swimming one day at a local hotel. She LOVES swimming and often asks to do this. I always say no, but one morning when the boys had just left for school and she happened to be awake early that day, I said "Let's go swimming!" She about fell off her chair. She was so excited! We just went from about 8:30-10:00 and then we had to hurry home and get to school by 10:45! But she had so much fun. We had the whole pool to ourselves!
Avery got this new dress that has a fox face on it. Here she is modeling it one Sunday:
Our ward had a Polar Express Party for Christmas on a Saturday morning (the 16th) and our bishop dressed up as the conductor and punched the tickets as the kids arrived. It was so cute! They had made everyone pancakes and hot cocoa. It was lots of fun and everyone came in their pajamas!
Kitty loves the Christmas tree...
Christmas shopping at Walmart:
A project that Josh build and I painted for the boys' room:
Playing in the very first snow for the season
(we have gotten a little more since that day, but still not too much!)
Making Christmas cookies:
My "ugly" sweater (I actually really like it! And it lights up!!!)
I helped out with Avery's class party this year. I had helped with Caleb's for Halloween so I had promised Avery I would help with hers at Christmas. We had the kids make these cute ornaments with their pictures in the middle. I think I overestimated the skill level of the kindergarteners and the moms had to help wrap the yard around each one. It kind of turned into a scene of chaos trying to get each child's ornament done before the timer chimed and they had to rotate. LOL (Please note Avery's teacher in the background of the picture. Yes, I feel ya lady. It was a loooong day. haha)
Josh had quite the honor bestowed upon him. It's kind of funny how it all came to be. So every year the Police Department does a Christmas party. This year, the K9 division was in charge of it. That basically is just Josh and one other guy named Ryan! So they ended up doing a lot of work. One of their tasks was to collect some prizes to be handed out for the raffle at the party. So they went around to local businesses and were asking, "Would you like to donate a Christmas present to a police officer to be handed out at our party?" A lot of businesses donated things. They had tires, oil change passes, flashlights, remote starts for a car, movie passes, gift cards, and so on. But the biggest prize was that a local bank donated $1000 to be used as a vacation getaway and they had talked about Vegas specifically (since you can usually find flights there for about $100 a person). So when the Chief heard about this big prize donation, he said, "Why don't we make this an award for an officer of the year? We can send out a survey to everyone who works at the police department by email and they can submit their answers anonymously and then we will find out who the peers vote as the officer of the year." So they sent out this survey that had about ten questions on it, things like, "Who would you most want for backup on a call?" and "who is always willing to help without being asked?" and "who establishes positive ties with the community with his actions" and so on. The winner was then announced at the Christmas Party and only the Chief knew the winner ahead of time. Well guess who it was... yup. Josh. He actually even said to me before the party, "I really don't want to win" just because he knew there would be a new article involved. He's so shy about that sort of thing. But I think he is excited to have the extra $1,000! The bank manager, who is also our neighbor, said he didn't mind if we used at at Disney World so we may just do that. Josh is also talking to his dad about going to Alaska in June, so we will probably need to extra money to cover that also! Here is Josh accepting his award:
And finally, in these days leading up to Christmas, we had been spending a lot of time as a place called Gravity Factory. It is an indoor trampoline park about five minutes from our house. The kids LOVE it. We bought the boys some Winter Break passes so they can go as many times as they want over these two weeks when school is out. I probably should have just bought Avery one too since she always wants to tag along! We all went as a family the first time to check it out. But the boys have been back every day since!
Well, Christmas is just two days away now! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we plan to go to church during the day and then relax in the evening and get to bed early! (Well that is my plan anyways.) Today we went to Josh's parents' house to have their celebration with a breakfast and then some outdoor fun. The boys (and Avery a few times) got pulled around on the sleds behind the four-wheeler. Then Avery and I left by about 11:30 and she went to her friend, Kendalin's, birthday party at the gravity factory! (We can get enough of that place!)
(Bryan and Jada's family got a new puppy!)
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