Christmas Celebrations!

Well, here we are. It's almost May and I'm finally getting around to chronicling our Christmas vacation. We drove 12 hours to Portland, Oregon to visit my side of the family. It was one of the most relaxing vacations I've had in a long time. There was plenty of time for Thomas to take naps and for us to rest on the couch visiting. Don't be deceived. I enjoy playing hard with the best of them, but this time around everything was at a much slower pace.

We started by driving 6 hours to Boise where Ammon's sister lives. We stayed there for the night and then we were on our way. And here is a plug for Thomas. He didn't get out of the car once and only started fussing about half an hour before we got to Mona's house. The rest of the time he was easily entertained and soothed. Oh boy have we been blessed with an amazing child! The next day we ran into a little snow in the mountains, but nothing we would have needed to get chains out for. Thomas was just as calm as the day before, making the trip almost pleasant (some areas of Idaho and Oregon aren't the best to look at.)

When we got there we went straight to the Schneider family Christmas party. I chatted with a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen in years. Tommy enjoyed the singing part and the watching little kids part. That evening we went to the temple to do some family names I had researched. It was really neat doing work for those I knew a little more about. The feeling of appreciation was much more powerful.

The next couple days were relaxed. We spent most of it at Dad's house chatting, eating, watching movies, and puking. That's right, Ammon got sick with a 24 hour bug and stayed home from church on Sunday. Later that evening, Tommy started puking. And then as I was cleaning up the mess my family had made, I started hurling. I'm still not sure if that was because of the bug or morning sickness. I definitely didn't feel as retched as Ammon looked. Either way, it was a good thing that we didn't have anything too busy planned. We stayed home and rested so that by the time all of my sisters showed up we were well and they didn't catch whatever we had.

Christmas Eve, there was a party at my Nana and Grandpaw's house. Again I got to see a ton of people I hadn't seen in a long time. There was good food, good games, and good people. Nothing more I could have asked for.

Christmas was a Wednesday. I asked my dad Tuesday night if they had gotten anything for stockings. He said, "no," so I told him what I had planned for my little family and got down to work. Well, come Christmas morning there were a whole bunch of things in our stockings that I hadn't put there. I must still be a little girl to my dad, that he feels he has to be secretive about Santa and stay up later than me to do anything about it. Oh well, it's just one more thing I can chuckle about.

For Christmas, Thomas got lots of noisy toys. Oh, those wonderful, doting grandparents! We showed him how to open presents, but after each one he wanted to play with them. It took a while to finish with his gifts. Well worth the wait, though. He is so fun to watch.

Kylynn was there with us before Christmas. Ann, Melissa, Zack, Mara, and Michelle showed up the next day. We got right down to visiting, laughing, and playing games. It was wonderful having all of them in the same room. It has been too long.

One thing I have to mention. Ann has the monopoly on baby holding and cuddling. They just seem to like it when she holds them. Mara was with her at least 50% of the time while there. Well, not so with my little boy. Michelle was definitely the winner of little Tommy's heart. He loved being held by her and playing with her. He would lean over and reach for Michelle when Ann was holding him. He even did this a couple of times when I was holding him. Such a cutie!

One of the days we were there we went to Portland. We ate at the food carts, rode a tram that goes over part of the city, and visited a huge bookstore.

It all ended too soon. Before we knew it we were headed back to Boise and then on to home. I had a great time and can't wait to see them all again, come September.

Sorry for the lack of photos. We took a grand total of three while we were there.

A Day of Thanksgiving

So the title is slightly misleading. I will be talking about our Thanksgiving holiday, but I want to start with the other things we've been doing since the last post. So Thanksgiving will have to wait until last.

Things have been pretty normal around here. Naps. Reading time. Lunch. Walks. The park. You get the idea. One of the exciting things we've done involves food. I served my mission in Hungary and not unlike every other missionary I claim the food there to be superior to most other foods. So one week in October we made two Hungarian dishes. The first one I had never made before. Porkolt and Nokedli. That means a meaty stew with special noodles. The porkolt (stew) is very greasy, as you can see, but quite tasty. The nokedli (noodles) were very fun to make and tasty to eat. You use a grater to grate the noodle dough into boiling water. Similar to making funnel cake, except there are many little drops instead of one long strand. Plus it's not fried, it's boiled. Here are some pictures.

Nokedli, finished product.

Porkolt, finished product.

The other dish I have made many times before. Rakott Krumpli (stacked potatoes). It is a casserole of sorts with pepperoni sausage, potatoes, eggs, and a yummy sauce of sour cream and spices. Unfortunately for you, I didn't take any pictures.

I've talked about Thomas climbing everywhere. Well, one Sunday he climbed into the stroller storage pocket. He gets stuck every time, but still insists on doing it. He usually throws something in the pocket like a crayon or truck and then attempts to get it back. Here are some pictures.

I don't know how pleased he was to find his mama taking pictures of him instead of saving him. I laugh at him every time. He might as well get used to it.

Another thing I've been doing is a book group. So far we have read three books. At best about half the people will have read it when it comes time to meet. I think most of them are the type of people who join a book group because they want a motivation to read more. There are only a couple of us who are there because we read a lot anyway and want someone to talk to about it. Don't be surprised to find that I am one of the latter. This month we are reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I've managed a couple of pages, but I am not a Dickens fan. Other books I've read recently are Persuasion (Austen), Ender's Shadow (Scott Card), and I am working on the Iliad (Homer). I don't know how long that one will take me. Old epic poetry. Hmm.

Now we are to the Thanksgiving portion of this post.

My dad, Teresa, and Kylynn came from Oregon and California for the holiday. Teresa's brother Joe lives in Provo and quite a few of her siblings live in Utah. So they all got together and we joined them. I haven't been that stuffed for a long while. Some of the things we did we puzzles, going to the BYU bookstore, watching football, eating at Mama Chu's, eating pie (of course), visiting, and a whole host of other things I can't think of right now. It was nice to have some family nearby. I don't think I've had Thanksgiving with my side of the family since high school in 2004.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we headed to Idaho Falls via Lewiston, UT. Our nephew was baptized that Saturday. His two older brothers gave talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. They were very good. At first I thought that someone else had written the talks and they had read them, but after asking Sam, he said that he and Jimmy had a little help but that they wrote their own talks. I was quite impressed. After the baptism, we went to a place called Leo's Place. It is a pizza joint with an arcade and play-land for the kids. It was fun to watch all the little ones run around playing. Tommy also liked watching them play. The pizza was good too. Here's Tommy on one of the rides. It took some getting used to, but after a while he didn't want to leave.

On the way home we stopped by Rachael and Clay's and hung out with them for a couple of hours. It's nice to have family to visit so nearby. Now we are home doing our normal things. Almost. I feel like Christmas is sneaking up on us. There is still quite a bit to do, and only a couple of weeks to do it.

One last little tidbit. This year I learned that Thanksgiving became a holiday during the Civil War. In the middle of the fighting Pres. Lincoln called a day of thanksgiving and it has been a national holiday ever since. True the origin of the idea is with the pilgrims, but at one of the bloodiest times of our history a great leader decided that we needed a day to remember what we are grateful for. If they had things to be grateful for, then we definitely do.
Toodle Pip.
Jackie and Family