Blessed by Christmas Craziness... 3 families, such limited time!

Who knew that being away from home could be so INSANE!! My Christmas started at 7 am when I got back onto SKYPE with my family and watch the Christmas mania begin at Pat's house!! The kids were so excited (minus Chloe who was still in comatose state!)! It was fun to see their excitement and feel the spirit of Christmas magic in the air. After talking with my family, Verna and I took the yummy egg casserole and went to The Layton's for Christmas Brunch. The family really treats me well, it is always a riot and good company! They spoiled me this year with TONS of towels, 600 thread count sheets, different kinds of jewelery pieces, lotions, and accessories. I felt very loved and blessed by their generosity!
The all time favorite part was to watch the kids get their little go-carts from their Grandparents. They were all about it, lined up, helmets on and spent loads of times racing each other up and down the drive way!! (this is a tradition. Each year they get some kind of bike thing) The Mom's even got some action with it, even to the toddler's dismay :)
Many, many laughs! I love the laughing picture I captured with Verna too!

Afterwards I took Verna home to rest and headed to The Whitings who were ANXIOUSLY AWAITING my arrival. We had a relaxing Christmas Day together. We exchanged our gifts to each other, once again I was given WAY MORE than I deserved. Monica gave me a watch making kit and after hearing my love for Cabbage Patch kids and hearing my "splash em kid" story she bought me a "Giggling with Meg" cabbage patch doll. It is seriously the cutest thing and will make me keep giggling on the hard days! Monica, Laurisa and Jos even gave me new head gear.. I am obsessed and wear all of them, all the time! We watched The Christmas Blessing and just had such a relaxing afternoon!

Following our relaxing time, I went back to pick up Verna's and we headed to Jake and Kelly's for a panini party! They were DELICIOUS! It was so fun to just sit around and get to know them all a little more. I found out that they are cousin's of the Orem High Beeson's! Small world.

Returned Verna back home, helped her get ready for bed and then headed back to the Whiting's to play the game I gave them for Christmas, Sedarahc (Reverse Charades) . All of you need this game! It is such a blast and was developed by former EFY counselors. Here is the explanation so you can see how many hours of fun you can have playing!

SEDARAHC (“suh-DARE-ic”) is indeed, charades with a twist—spelled backwards and played in reverse! Instead of the usual—one person acting out words for the team to guess, SEDARAHC spices things up so the entire team acts out words for one person to guess. It’s fast-paced, fiercely fun team competition that’s an absolute riot with large groups, families, kids, at parties or among a few close friends. You can even play it with pets (although we don’t recommend it). Carry it with you to work, to the gym, to the DMV—the possibilities of SEDARAHC breakout sessions are endless. But be warned…you’re in for big and dangerous doses of fun!

This is the kind of funny that you have when you are playing this game! Seriously, every home needs this game!More fun and laugh's to come with this game.. I guarantee it!!

All in all, I was so BLESSED this season. I got to spend time with 3 families I love. Never felt lonely, always had something fun and adventurous and then I got to come home and finish off this day in prayer of Thanksgiving to my Heavenly Father and the one that made it all possible our dear Savior Jesus Christ with whom I celebrate his birth and glorify his name.
What a celebration!

Twas the night before Christmas...

This Christmas eve was completely different than ANY I have ever had and it was kind of fun to change it up a little and then end it with my family on skype.

Since I was in AZ I was able to go with the Wade Whiting family to Aunt Lynelle and Uncle Glen Jackson's house in Mesa. I am very familiar with them so it was fun to take part of this Wright family tradition! They have Mexican Fiesta Christmas Eve. Most of the siblings and cousins were there. We had yummy tamale's, quesadilla and I brought black bean salsa which was a huge hit!

We had many laughs (thanks to Richie, he is a hoot)! We had some performances by Kristin's little girl as well of The Whiting kids with the traditional "Sister's" song and Mitch and Jake gave us a fun Jack Johnson Christmas rendition. Richie, Terrie and Debbie were our crowd dancin'performers. The highlight was to have Santa come and I even got to get a updated Santa picture :) Thank you Jackson's for being so wonderful and ALWAYS hosting family parties! It was a great night!

After leaving the party we went back to the Whiting and did the traditional opening up jammies on Christmas eve tradition. We had Christmas music on and even got some more Whiting entertainment. After the opening of their PJ's I got to meet with my family on SKYPE and watch them all open the PJ's I had picked out for them and ready The Christmas Jars's book with them via SKYPE. I committed my family to work on Christmas Jar's this year and next year on Christmas eve we will choose someone to deliver the Christmas Jar too anonymously! I am so thankful for technology and that even though I am miles away, I could be a part of my family tradition and feel like I am there with them.. I miss these faces!

The Whiting Family Reunion!

JULY 30 -August 2

2009
I am thankful to Monica for doing such a great job with picture taking!! I just grabbed some of her photos from this glorious event and they are great!!
We stayed around Utah this year! It was so fun to explore our own state!

We went to The Mt. Oquirruh temple open house. It was much more reverent this time around. What a beautiful house of the Lord!

I got to go to This is the Place State park for the first time and would HIGHLY recommend it to ANY family, any age! There were pioneer crafts to be done, music played throughout, we got to go to see what an old school day would be like, there were pony rides for the kids, a little candy shop, a train ride all for $8! Well worth the money! I also heard that Christmas time is AMAZING there! I am planning to return!
I got to feed this great crew for 4 meals during the week and LOVED it! Thank you everyone for being so gracious and eating what I had prepared! You are troopers!

We had a blast whether it was trying on pioneer clothing, throwing horse dung (yes Wade started it!) or the lovely solo's that were sung in a church with some GREAT acoustics!This is the Place State Park is definitely a treat for young and old.. no chance you can get bored!

I love this family and really love when we are all together.. we missed Justin and Beth...at least they both came a few weeks before to see us or we would have been ripped off!

My favorite of all the activities would be WHITING IDOL!! There is some serious acting talent in this family! From the parents on down! We got the privilege of seeing an older and younger version of Sony and Cher. I think the both were out of this world AMAZING!! We had Hans and Frans show up from Saturday night live with a rendition of "Muscular" from the wicked song Popular! Loved that! We had various children perform great delights! Jeff even wowed us with his poetry memorization and presenting skills!

Our Judges were: Simon (Matt Heaps) Paula (Jill Heaps) and Kara (Monica Whiting) Still Not sure what happened to Randy! These judges were true to their character and as Randy would put it...WE LOVE YOU DAWG!

Saturday I wasn't able to do any of the activities and heard I REALLY missed out. But I was able to be at Nunn's park for a fun night of laughter, food and Charades. We stayed up till 3 am that night ending it with a nice stroll in the neighborhood.

We didn't want all the fun to be over! Even the Buhrley's stayed longer than they planned to continue the family adventure!! Sunday we celebrated Lynn's Birthday and had a blast together!

What great adventure, family building and togetherness we enjoyed!! Thank you for adopting me in and letting me in on the FUN!!

I LOVE YOU!!

Next year??? Bear Lake anyone?!