Christmas Vacation!

Our Christmas break started off with a long drive to Utah. The roads were okay except for in Wyoming. They were especially bad in Rawlins! A friend once told me that Rawlins is the armpit of the state and I think I believe her. Everytime we travel through Rawlins the roads are nasty. (Well, except for in the summer) We ended up getting stranded at a Flying J's in Rawlins because they closed the interstate. We thought it was just because of the blowing snow and bad road condidtions but we found out later that there was a bad wreck too! So sad. We waited at the Flying J's for about 4 hours and then we were on our way!

We spent the first week of our break, including Christmas day, at my parents' house. Most of my brothers and sisters made it to our annual Christmas party that was held on the 23rd. It was a blast! Tabitha wasn't used to being around so many people and kids (I have 27 nieces and nephews) but she had a good time too. She loved the music we sang and would dance around and wave her arm back and forth like she was leading the song. (If you listen carefully on the video clip you can hear all of us singing different verses to Silent Night. We had a hard time remembering the words to the last two verses! ha!)

She loved carrying around this long green pole at my parents' house. It was her favorite!

Tabitha got a new coat, hat and gloves for Christmas. And here she is with her cousin Bella. They are about the same age and had a good time playing with eachother. We got to visit with lots of family and friends there in Utah.

We spent the second week of our vacation, including new years, up in Idaho at David's parents' house. We watched many good movies and ate tastey, tastey food. (I've realized that I'm not the best picture taker because I don't have any pictures of anyone except me and David and Tabi. Lame-o! I've got to work on my skills.) Tabitha's Grandma got her this cute Christmas outfit. She cooperated for a few shots and then off came the headband!

Tabitha's aunt Cassidy got this cute princess tent for Christmas and Tabitha loved playing with it. She mainly liked to show off her amazing strength by lifting it and draging it around.

We got to go to the Rexburg, Idaho LDS temple open house while we were there. Isn't it beautiful. It was such a neat experience! We're so glad we caught it at the right time. David and I met in Rexburg at BYU-Idaho and it was fun going back to our roots. I've decided I could definitely live in Idaho again.

All in all, it was a fantastic break and the drive home was pretty uneventful too (except for a small stretch, I bet you can guess where...yup, Rawlins!). Tabi had a hard time traveling that long but we made it and are so glad that we went. It's nice to be home and it's so great to see all of our friends here in Kirksville again. :-)