Christmas

I have gotta finish up this Christmas post! It's now mid January and all I've blogged about so far is "pre-Christmas"!

Every year that I can remember we've acted out the nativity story on Christmas Eve. I really love doing this- reading the story from the Bible and taking some time to think about the true meaning of Christmas. It's so easy to get caught up in all the chaos surrounding this holiday. It was especially fun that Jasper is old enough to be excited about dressing up and has enough of an attention span to listen to the story. Here are a couple of pictures from our Christmas Eve nativity story:





Christmas morning was so fun! Santa brought Jasper and Gid firetrucks! They were super excited about them. They had seen these firetrucks over Thanksgiving and had been talking about them ever since. I filled their stockings with a bunch of goodwill treasures- matchbox cars, scuba men, and sea creatures.





Rob and my dad got matching Carharts!



Cute cousin David with one of the books his mom and dad gave him:



My dad got a really, really cool puzzle game for Christmas. My mom picked it up at DaVinci Days and it is made by a local Corvallis company. We had a really good time playing it (Rob was mad in this pictures because I was beating him :)



Christmas afternoon, Rob, Bobby and my Dad went to play Frisbee with a bunch of Corvallis friends. I was going to go too but I fell asleep.... They had a big mud fight afterward:



Then we left for Utah! After a sixteen hour drive made possible by a portable DVD player and made comfortable by my parents' borrowed car, we arrived safe and sound. Once we got there, it was all worth it but our boys are at such a difficult age for a long car trip like that.

Rob left the morning morning after we arrived and hit the slopes with all his high school buddies. They had a really good time. I got to see my college roomie Brooke and hang out with all the Pextons which was great. The next morning Rob, Ally, Kim and I all went skiing together up at Snowbird where Ally is the front desk manager of the resort. She hooked us up with free lift tickets! Rob's sister Elena and her family (especially Uncle Matt with whom Jasper shares a special bond of late) watched Jasper and Gid. We were so grateful that they were willing to do this for us. The boys had a great time with their grown-up cousins :)






Kim


Rob's frozen beard


Me


Egbert sibs


Thanks Ally!

We spent a morning at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving point. It was spectacular. Full to the brim of dino fossils. Jasper and Gid were in little boy heaven.





We got dumped on while we were staying at Rob's dad's house. I think it snowed two feet over two days. We spent a couple of mornings out in the snow.












Grandpa and Jasper working on a dinosaur model

We always have tons of fun and a packed schedule when we visit Utah. I didn't get pictures of everything but our other activities included a party with all of Rob's high school friends, wives, and kiddos, Ally's baby blessing at Larry and Glenda's house, a tour of the BYU art museum Carl Bloch exhibit, Liz and Dan's Temple Square recital (which we barely missed this year :( because we left Woodland Hills a bit behind schedule), hanging out at the Planetarium and The Gateway, and a Happy New Years!!!