Saturday, December 27, 2008

Our Christmas Delight!

Nathan and I had the wonderful opportunity of spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my grandparents and great aunts. Christmas Eve was spent playing the notorious Hand And Foot card game that my family is famous for, and some other fun card games. We munched on goodies that ward members had brought them and enjoyed some much needed laughter.

On Christmas morning my little sister Katie woke Nathan and I up around 7:30 am. It seemed like we had just barely gone to sleep. I don't sleep much anymore and my constant tossing and turning usually wakes Nathan up as well, needless to say we were still tired. My little sister was very insistent on opening the gifts right then, but since she had to wait for grandpa and aunt Dee we let her open her stocking gifts. This gave us the time for aunt Dee to arrive and grandpa to finish getting ready. My grandpa then delivered a brief devotional and family prayer, which included a moment of silence in honor of my mom. My grandma and I bawled.

Nathan got to play the "sorting santa" and he was very excited. It was the first time he'd held that position on christmas and he loved passing out the gifts to everyone. He surprised me with a camcorder! We are both graduating soon and starting new chapters of our life, now we can begin to document them on DVD's and not just in photos. This gift will come in handy I can already tell! My mom had actually gotten Nathan and I some christmas presents, she got Nathan a Wii accessories sports package, and me she got a waffle iron (there is an inside joke with that). I couldn't open it, it was too hard, so it is still half wrapped under our tree. Waiting for a day when I'm stronger.

Christmas afternoon Nathan and I went to Faye and Mikes place to watch the boys open their gifts. It was so cute to see Adam handing gifts to his brothers saying "this from me". Faye and Mike got their boys 72 hour kits, which was really cool. Mike made the comment that "this Christmas they were following the prophet". That really left an impression on me that I will not soon forget. Nathan was super excited to receive his bean bag that Faye made him. Good thing Brayden was there to help us get it into the car, it barely fit, taking up the WHOLE back seat! Betcha we looked pretty funny to the other drivers! ha ha ha :)

We had to drive home that evening because Nathan had to work the next morning. The roads were great, we had some rain but not too bad until we hit Willard. The rain turned to snow and the wind picked up creating near blackout conditions. The snow was coming down fast and hard, and sticking to the ground creating very slick roads. We made it to Brigham City by going 15 mph on i15. We tried going up the canyon but we only made it about 50 ft before we lost traction and decided to whether out the storm. We stayed in the first motel we could find, the fabulous kind where the bathroom doesn't have a doorknob.

We are SO thankful that Burger King was open, we were able to have a unique Christmas dinner there. We had to walk there because the roads were not drivable unless you had 4 wheel drive. As we left the next morning we got stuck trying to get out of the motel parking lot. Luckily some nice people helped us out and we were on our way. We made it back to Logan but realized that our street hadn't been plowed. With the fresh foot of new snow we knew we couldn't make it to our drive way. Nathan and I spent the next hour and a half digging out our driveway and shoveling our street, trying to make a pathway to drive up it. We still got stuck. Luckily a neighbor towed us up to our driveway. We laugh now but it was kinda frustrating. They didn't plow our street until late that evening.

Throughout this whole ordeal it gave Nathan and I a great opprotunity to serve others. We helped dig out our upstairs neighbors. Shoveling goes sooooo much faster when you have help. We are grateful for the moisture, but more grateful for the free set of snow tires Nathan was able to get at work today. I simply told him "That's because we pay our tithing!" Blessings do come when you obey the Lord, and I am grateful for the smallest of smallest ones :)

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