Christmas There

We arrived in ID after a direct flight SLC then a hopper to Boise.  Nat and Adrien were at the airport, too (they had flown into SLC a couple days earlier, stayed with our oldest brother, rented a car and met us in Boise to help drive everyone to my folks).  We made a couple stops on the way.  First to my dad's favorite restaurant in the entire world with the most amazing dinner stakes (too bad it was lunch):  Golden Coral.  I also had to run in to Michaels to get some binding rings for my mom's gift.  It was her birthday.  

After getting settled and eating a nice dinner, Nat and I shooed Mom out of the kitchen and made an ice cream cake for her.  It was lame, but fun!  We scooped vanilla ice cream into a bowl, smoothed it down, then flipped it onto a plate to make a dome atop the already sliced bananas.  Next we surrounded it with 6 cream puffs and placed frozen raspberries between them.  Placing a candle in each cream puff and marking the center with chocolate sprinkles reading "60", we presented the cake to Mom with the traditional Happy Birthday song.  She got a kick out of it.

She opened her gifts:  Yummy chocolates from Nat & Adrien and a collection of 60 thoughts on my mom from 30 or so different people.

  She was happy.

 Wes loves book and Grandpa, so this is a perfect match.

 Wes learned how to play Chinese Checkers.  We played nearly every day.

 Wesley fell asleep about 5-minutes into a show.  I can't remember why he was so exhausted.  Maybe it was just all the travel finally catching up with him.

 

My granma (d left out on purpose) is a hoot.  We played a game and she had to perform a challenge of making the animal sounds of any animal we called out.  She did good, but it got confusing after a few animals having to make their sounds immediately.  When "monkey" was called out, she raised both hands above her head and began to scratch her scalp, "Oh, what does a money do?"  It was funny because she was doing it!

 

Christmas breakfast was simple and traditional:  Mom's cinnamon rolls.

 

After church (my Catholic granma came, too), we opened gifts.  I brought one gift of each boy and a combined gift from ID just so they'd have something from us to open.

Wesley was happy to help.

He loves his Lego Star Wars little man pj's.

 Dad got this head massager from Mom.  It might look strange, but that thing really works!

Madsen's First Christmas

 Cute couple.

 My sister, Carrie, and her family came later Christmas evening and we enjoyed a nice dinner together.  Andy and I made German food for Christmas Eve, we ate delicious turkey for Christmas, then Adrien made Peruvian food the next night.

 Carrie's family opened gifts after dinner.  I was bummed that my Amazon order was not complete for their family.  Oh well.  They have a tradition in their family that each child opens a gift in turn.  I was amazed at how patient the other 5 were when one was opening.  I guess I haven't had to even toy with that idea until now, now that we have more than one child.

 Wesley loved playing with his cousins.  Michael, James, Steven, and Wesley found lots of fun things to do around the farm.  One of which was jumping in the bed of the truck.  It was like a trampoline.

 Granma loves babies and was more than happy to hold Madsen.

 Dad got a new tractor (finally) and was able to take the boys for a ride.  I had been telling Wesley every time we were traveling to ID that he could ride with Grandpa on the tractor, and, inevitably, every time the tractor was broken.  This time I didn't say anything and he got to ride.

 Dad use to take us up in the bucket and drive around the orchard when we were younger.  It was like a roller coaster ride.  He would raise and lower, tilt and pull.  It was a blast.  I am glad Wesley got to experience that with his grandpa.

 Up so high.  Hold on boys!

 Woah!

 Wesley is not scared, he just bonked his head.

 Later that afternoon, Nat and I hiked the foot hills.  I felt so out of shape, but I did just get over what I think was the 24-hour flu (aches, fever, dizziness) and still was coughy, not to mention the elevation is almost 2000-feet higher in ID.  Enough excuses because we made it to the top of the highest ridge.  Oh, and I threw an itty-bitty snowball at Nat on the way up (it didn't snow the whole time we were there - that's because we brought all our snow clothes!)

It was a nice hike.  I am glad to live near Nat.  We use to fight like cats and dogs, and now we can call on each other for anything.  (But lets face it, I call on him more than he does me:  Um, Wes has these bumps.  What do you think they are?  How bad does a cut need to be before I go to the doctors?  I think I broke my ankle.)  He's a good little (BIG) brother. 

 Dad is so good with Wesley.  He is always sick, but pushes his pain away to play with his grandson.  Anytime I lost Wesley, I could be sure he as with Grandpa.

We went to Walmart to get family pictures taken.  I will NEVER have pictures taken there again!  I'm sure different Walmarts have different standards, but this was terrible:  the camera is fixed on a desk (point and click for any idiot), their backdrops are black or white and messy, pricing is terrible ($10 extra for every alteration - including cropping!!!)  I bought the cd, editied them on my own computer, and printed them for $2.50 at Walmart photo center. (please excuse the sideways photos - Blogger seems to think this is how they need to be and won't let me change them even though they are straight in my folder)

This afternoon, both of them had played each other out.  Just look at the sequence.

 We played games together nearly every evening.  Mom tried so hard to not make the tower fall.

 

 Mom had marshmallows, candies, and skewers to make marshmallow characters.  Wesley used an enter skewer, loaded it with about 8 marshmallows, put two candied sunflowers on the end marshmallow, and called it a caterpillar.  Then, he ate it for dessert that night.

 

Speaking of eating marshmallows! (Don't worry, Dr. Sears, he didn't eat it, just got it slobbery and sticky.)

 Andy and I love Taco Time.  We don't have them in the East.  For our anniversary we went to one.  14 years!  The theme for 14 is ivory, but it's illegal, so I got Andy these:

Cheers!  Oh, yeah, I broke my thumb on the 13th (pulling wires in the basement, smashed it on the joist, it's an oblique avulsion fracture, my orthos name is Dr. Sunshine :), he was kind enough to give me a removable cast so I could bathe my children, should come off the first week of January - here's hoping!)

This is the craziest game ever:  Ratuki.  It's like Speed mixed with SkipBo, mixed with the Tasmanian Devil! Do you see those dishes of salsa.  Well, Andy and Nat decided to make salsa one night: mild, medium, and HOT (15 habaneros hot!).  Nat was cleaning up his mess like a good boy.  He rinsed off the cutting board he cut hit crazy peppers on with scalding water.  That made the worst chemical reaction I have ever witnessed (experience).  All the little particles of spiciness evaporated into the air leaving the air in the kitchen unbreathable!  Our eyes stung, every breath resulted in a bout of whooping cough, it was bad - for hours!

I don't know why, but Wesley decided to eat his snack of yogurt very messily.

For New Years Eve, we went to Mom's friend's, Patty, house.  She is one of the crazy light people, but it is merely a reflection of her character:  she loves to decorate and is full of light.  Her tree has to be at least 14-feet high.  Wesley pulled Mom down to his level and this was their conversation: 

W:  Grandma?  Where are the elves?

G:  Well, there are some elf figurines over there.

W:  No, I mean the REAL elves?

G:  Well, they're at the North Pole getting things ready for next year's Christmas.

W:  But Grandma, this IS the North Pole.

That has to be one of my all time favorite Wesisms.

 

We had fun watching a bit of tv and eating too much food.  Madsen fell asleep shortly after arriving then Wesley joined him in the little room where he was sleeping to watch a movie. The ball dropped and we left.

After church, Grandma J and Grandpa Dale met us in town.  They were coming back from WA (my cousin blessed her baby Christmas day) and were able to make a quick stop to visit.  Andy wanted to take Wesley to the park because they still had a real snake slide (they've been taken out of parks around the country because they are "unsafe" - bah!).  So, we met at the park.  It was a nice day, a bit cold, but nice for a half hour visit.  Besides her beautiful white hair, my Grandma J looks just like I've always remembered her.  As for Grandpa Dale, he just uses a cane now.

Wes climbing up, uP, UP. (I know, not a great keeping the sabbath day holy activity - bad parents!)

Down he goes - so fast and full of static! Everything is full of static out West.  Wesley rarely asks for anything to drink at home, but at Grandma's house, every 10-minutes he wanted a cup of water.

Andy even took Madsen down the slide.

Madsen didn't last the whole visit.

As tradition states, the newest baby must be photographed in the reindeer sleigh. Next year it will be Carrie's #7.  We're trying so hard to get her to find out the gender.  6 times she's not found out.  I told her to tell the tech to put it in an envelope and mail it to us so we could plan for gifts.

I love going home to ID, I also love going home to VA.  Leaving was easier this time because my folks are coming in May for Adrien's graduation from college and Nat's graduation from Medical School.  On the flight home, Madsen tested the Delta cookie for texture, flavor, and digestibility.  Texture - check.  Flavor - check.  Digestibility - check.....uncheck.  He hasn't had real food yet (and by real I mean rice cereal),  but he has tasted things like yogurt, ice cream, marshmallows, and now a Delta cookie.

A beautiful sunset over the Great Salt Lake.

We arrived home at 2am.  The next morning we slept in until 10am (blessings of still being on MT).  The holiday was great.  Seeing and being with family was even better.  Now to start planning for our 2012 Christmas trip.  Mexico, Belize, Honduras anyone?