Our New Year's Vacation

We decided to head up to Utah over Winter Break to enjoy my parents, their home, their town, and their state! None of it disappointed us . . . It was a good break for sure.

The youth of our stake had a New Year's Eve dance and so we were going to leaving on New Year's morning. However, a big storm was heading its way in to Utah that day, starting at 5 am. As it was calling for up to 12 inches of snow on Soldier Summit, we decided to head out after the dance on New Year's Eve. So we left for Utah at about 10:30 and got there at 4:30 on New Year's Day. Besides being during the night, the drive was totally pleasant. Dry and basically empty roads.

It snowed pretty much all day on Wednesday and so we were glad to have made the drive when we did. The kids sledded that day and had a fun time. We basically just stayed home. I took a nice nap that afternoon. :)

Thursday during the day was spent much the same with the kids sledding a lot. We left and went to Salt Lake City. We stopped by the Scottish store again and walked around for a little bit. Then we met my parents at Benihana and had a wonderful and delicious dinner. I was able to get birthday gift-certificates for Ben and Jonas and so that gave me the excuse to "have" to go. :) We all really love that place!

On Friday we went to our favorite bagel shop in Heber for lunch. Then we tried some bowling. We hardly ever bowl and so it was really fun - and funny, ha. The girls used bumpers, but I think they would have been okay without them. The boys started out pretty poorly, but finally started knocking down pins. Ben was the winner. Of course. :)

That night we went to Thanksgiving Point's Luminaria display. It was so awesome! We all loved it! My parents had gone a couple weeks earlier and thought we'd like it, too - which we definitely did. It was totally fun and magical.

On Saturday the five eldest of us went to do baptisms at the Provo Temple. My parents work in the baptistry on Saturdays mornings (9-1:30) and so we thought it would be a good time to go! We were able to drop Lucy off with Paul F's wife and kids (they are in Provo for the semester). Paul and his daughter, Olivia, came with us as well. It was really nice!

After that we met up with Lucy and the rest of Paul's family at the BYU Creamery for lunch. We had a good visit and then we walked around the BYU campus for a little bit.

For Ben's Christmas gift, I gave him and myself a "Learn to Curl" lesson at the Utah Olympic Oval. So that Saturday night, Ben and I went to dinner in Midway before, and then headed down the canyon to West Valley for our lesson. It was super fun! I wish I had gotten more pictures, but sadly I didn't. But we had a really great time.

Sunday was church, a delicious lunch/dinner made by my mom, and then we left for home. Ben and I had to work on Monday, but the kids had one more day left on their winter break - lucky! The boys went skiing in Telluride and the girls skated all day on the rink. I'll post that later . . .

 Our ward was in charge of some of the NYE's decorations . . . so the kids and I worked on a skyline, among other things . . . It was a NYC theme dance . . .

The boys said they had a fun time! I was there the whole time . . .

 Happy 2020! We were close to Grand Junction when the new year happened and saw a couple of fireworks. :)

 Lucy getting ready for sledding!

 The kids at Benihana.

 The old people at Benihana. :)

 Our chef, making an onion volcano. Always a hit.

 We walked to the Gallivan Center after dinner. It was so pretty and cool! Next time we must skate on it!

 Jonas snowboarded always when they went out to sled. He had a blast.

 More sledding . . .

 And more . . .

And a video . . .

 The boys and my mom worked the most on this crazy-hard puzzle! It was so hard because of the non-straight edges. So hard! So this puzzle was worked on from the inside-out. I got in to it at the end and we all helped finish - well, except my dad. Ha. What a cool puzzle!

 Lucy bowled a spare, I think, and was quite shocked. :)

 Miles figuring it out . . .

 Jonas getting ready to go - with Miles, Lucy, my dad, Emmy, Ben, and my mom in the background.

 Emmy's turn!

 The pictures don't do the Luminaria display justice. It was soooo cool.

 Saturday morning, temple time!

 Jonas, Miles, Emmy, Anne Formisano, Lucy, Maren Formisano, and Olivia Formisano at the Creamery.

 It's curling time!

Our team won every time - by a lot of beginner's luck and a bit of skill. :) It really was super fun.

Another awesome trip to Utah.

The End of 2019

Well this is the last day of 2019! Crazy. We didn't do a Christmas letter or card this year and so I don't have that to post. :(

So I'll just post our yearly end-of-the-year-interviews:

Christmas Eve and Day

Christmas Eve was a busy one . . . which I think is probably good. It's probably the longest day of the year for kids!

I slept for a few hours that morning as I had worked a Monday day-shift and night-shift. We had signed Miles up to do a 2-hour drive-time with an instructor and so he was doing that from 9-11. Then we headed over to a friend's home for a brunch/lunch. There was another family there and it was a good time with some good food!

We left a little after 1 and dropped off our kids to watch the new Star Wars movie. While they were at the theater, Ben and I were home wrapping all the gifts (I hadn't wrapped a single one yet!). It was perfect. The kids came home (they all enjoyed the movie) and we got ready for dinner. We had our annual Christmas Eve dinner of Swedish meatballs. We had three missionaries over to join us and that was fun.

After they left, we dropped in at our neighbor's Christmas Eve party. We didn't stay for long, but just more of a "Hi and goodbye" thing. When we got back the kids opened up their siblings' gifts.

 Here they are getting ready, while watching Santa via NORAD.

 In their Christmas PJs. Miles hated his onesie, ha! They all looked cute, though . . . The sibling gifts were fun and sweet. They all use their own money. Miles got Jonas a knit tie, gave Emmy a drawing he made per her request, and got Lucy something . . . a hand-me-down item of sorts, I think. Jonas got books for the girls and a knit-tie for Miles. Emmy spent a lot of money, buying treats for the them all, plus a funny John Lennon candle for Miles, some awesome "manly" soap for Jonas, and some super-expensive "unicorn" lip-gloss for Lucy, as well as cute treble-clef earrings. Lucy got Miles a prism thing, Jonas some cool slime, and Emmy some earrings and a mood ring. Fun, fun!

We watched an episode of The Middle and then it was time for bed . . .

The kids all slept downstairs in the boys' room. That helps us (the parents) as we get ready for the morning! They played Monopoly for a bit and then I gave them some Melatonin (since Emmy complained sooooo much about how she sleeps horribly on Christmas Eve . . .), and then they read books and finally fell asleep. :)

Christmas morning! The kids came in at 7am and woke Ben and I up with a "Merry Christmas!"

 Lucy running down to see what Santa delivered!

 Jonas was super-surprised and happy with his phone! (A Gabb phone - one that just lets you call and text. No social media, online access, etc. So perfect.)

 Miles giving the thumbs-up for his wireless headphones.

 Emmy was delighted with her Gabb phone, too!

 The girls tried on their beautiful dresses from Grandma Dixie.

 Santa gave the boys crickets to eat. Jonas' were flavored sour cream and onion; Miles' were salt and vinegar. They ate them with friends today. Gross.

 Emmy getting her first phone call - from Dad. :)

 Lucy loving her "fake" phone and Polly Pocket toys.

 Emmy taking a picture of Dad for her contact list. He fluffed out his hair for a funny effect. :)

 Lucy loved her unicorn slippers and bathrobe!

The boys were surprised with a Stranger Things lego set. It's pretty awesome!

 Emmy and Jonas love their phones! Emmy set Uncle Derek's picture as her home screen. So awesome!

 I am pretty sure Jonas and Emmy were texting each other here. :)

 Santa didn't forget the dogs. Brigham enjoyed eating his bone thing! Bella enjoyed becoming a possessive devil over hers!

Here the boys were working on their lego set. With Miles listening on his headphones. :)

The rest of the day was spent with new toys, walking the dogs (well, for the parents), and eating a ham dinner. Jonas had the almond in his rice pudding on Christmas Eve and so he got to chose our Christmas movie (for the third year in a row). He originally chose Avatar (much to my chagrin) and ended up not liking it and so we watched Home Alone. It was only my kids' second time watching it (years ago) and so it was fun to watch it again!

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread houses 2019

I know the week isn't over yet, but I'm sure our fun festivities are . . . :) Ben and I both work tomorrow, Emmy is babysitting at our house all day, and Ben is on-call all weekend long. So, yep, our fun is over! (But next week we are heading out to my parents' place and already have some fun plans lined up. I'm super excited.)

We used to do gingerbread houses on Ben's birthday, but then that became too much. He usually gets home after 5 on his birthday and so trying to squeeze in dinner, gifts, cake, gingerbread houses, maybe a movie, possibly on a school night, etc. - it was too much. So the new plan (maybe this is the 2nd year of the plan) is doing our gingerbread houses the Sunday before Christmas (which, as it turns out, will be Ben's birthday next year - haha).

So Sunday, after delivering toffee to a bunch of friends, (I make about 20 tins of toffee - a few are given out to teachers. For the rest of the toffee, we each pick 3 families to give to. It's fun for the kids to choose and it's pretty cool who they end up choosing . . .), we decorated our houses. As always, it was a lot of fun and I love how they turned out!

Ben's cute school house.

My house.

Miles' cabin, complete with a fire, and cool tree, and . . . 

 an outhouse. :)

Jonas' awesome cabin in the gumdrop forest.

 Emmy's sweet house.

 Lucy's fun house, complete with a snowman.

A Release . . . and Then a Call

So if you actually ready my posts (no judging here if you don't!), then you might have caught the little blurb on me getting a call from a High Councilman on my trip to Moab. The call was to inform me of my release from serving as a counselor in the Stake YW's presidency. It's a calling I have done for about 2 1/2 years. I was told to be expecting a phone call from my bishop in the near future.

The Stake YW president (she's also one of my favorite friends) was also there in Moab. After I got my phone call that Friday evening, I remembered that as we were pulling in to Moab earlier that day, that she had gotten a call from a member in our stake presidency ("Oh, hi President Nelson" was what I had overheard. :) ). So I figured it was about my release. So we were awesome and as we sat next to each other, we texted about a few things (we couldn't openly talk about it as a bunch of other ladies were there). Turns out the Kandace knew more than I did at that point. Well, perhaps I should say than I "officially" knew. 

As soon as I got the release and then was told about the bishop calling me, I was 99% sure I would be called as the ward YW president. It's something that has floated through my mind many times, especially in the past couple of months. I didn't know when I would get that calling, but was pretty sure it was in my future.

So, lo and behold, after tithing settlement that Sunday, our kids were dismissed and the bishop extended me the call to serve as the ward's YW president. Yay! Scary! I am really excited about it, though, and was pleasantly surprised and delighted that Emmy is excited, too! (Although she will miss her old YW's prez.)

My unique presidency is made up of myself and a co-president from the Spanish branch (our youth are combined), as well as two counselors. They are a great group of ladies and I'm really excited to serve with them and to love our YW.

My mom was curious about the "stats" of the YW. So, just for fun: There are 20 girls listed on the directory. I would say 8 of them are active/partly-active. We will be getting no new YW in 2020, unless someone moves in to the ward that age. Oops, I did forget the branch. I can't access them. But I think there are 2 active/partly active girls from there.

We met as a presidency last night and talked about lessons, activities, goals, camp, and more. Oh it'll be some good times ahead! (Oh, and a ton of work, of course.). Oh, I should also mention that I think the Lord truly looks out for us. How interesting the timing of me getting a new job and being allowed to quit my night job at the hospital - which would have had me gone for half of the activity nights. I'm glad that's not the case!

Alright, it's time to Go & Do!

His Golden Birthday

Well Jonas had a great Golden Birthday! We just hardly saw him! But skiing at Telluride was great and so we're glad he got to do that on his birthday. And as soon as he and Miles got home from skiing, it was ward-party time. A lot going on.

Since we had a full day on Saturday, we decided to have Jonas' birthday dinner and movie on Friday night. Jonas wanted Orange chicken . . . so I asked online for a good recipe and our neighbors came through. I had never made it before, but it turned out really good! Jonas loved it. That night we watched "Jumanji: Into the Jungle." The boys had seen it but not the rest of us. It was a pretty fun show.

Jonas and his birthday dinner wish.

Then Saturday the boys were off with Csilla by 6:45am and home around 6:00pm. 

 He had picked out this sweatshirt for his birthday and so he got that as soon as he got up. Very cool.

This was the only picture I got from Telluride - lunchtime!

We had dinner at the ward party and then headed back home. Jonas opened his gifts:

 He likes Reese's and since it was his Golden Birthday, we went big. :) He got some great clothes, a book that looks like a fun read, cash, a book to build things to blow-up our backyard, a movie gift-certificate (from his siblings), and a Garmin watch. He loves it all and the watch has been a big hit. Which is good because he's a tough one to buy for! I love that he's old enough and wise enough to figure out the watch by himself, ha. It can track his steps, distance, pace, fluid intake, stress level, tell him the temperature, etc., etc. He is able to change the background and currently has a BYU one. It's cool.

After presents we had cake and ice-cream. But since Jonas isn't the biggest ice-cream fan, we had bought milk shakes (which he does like) - peppermint flavor from Crash Burger. YUM. The cake was delicious, too.

 A Ford Mustang cake for our very own Jonas FORD, who also happens to be obsessed by cars - especially Mustangs - at the moment. :)

 It looked pretty cool with the candles!

 Ha, Jonas heard how you can snuff out a candle with your licked-upon fingers and it won't hurt . . . he was a little nervous about it (as you can see from the blurry hand being pulled away).

Ha, he finally got brave enough! He said it didn't hurt . . . :)

Happy Golden Birthday Jonas!