The Christmas Season

This year for Christmas, Paula (my mother-in-law) flew in from Colorado on Christmas Eve and we drove up to Idaho to spend the holidays with Ashton's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other extended family. Although I had been up there once (we stayed at his grandparent's house for a night on our way up to Yellowstone last year), I had never spent a holiday up there. There was never a dull moment and I was in for a ride.

We started the festivities out with present opening Christmas Eve night at Doug and Shelley's house (Aunt and Uncle, but not in that order). There I met a few cousins and we all enjoyed a lot of talking and general craziness. Ashton was finally established an adult as he was 9th in line to open presents (it went oldest to youngest, each opening a present per round). I, on the other hand, was established as part of the kids still.

The next morning, we woke up to snow and wind. That afternoon, everyone was supposed to go back to Doug and Shelley's to open up stockings, which Santa had filled with goodies during the night while we slept. Ashton and I, however, were both sick with the flu and so Grandma Jan, Grandpa Bish, Aunt Nan (Grandma Jan's sister), and Paula went without us. So, we enjoyed a quiet house and curled up on the couch to take a 3 hour nap, which we took an hour at a time as we would wake each other up when we had to get up to use the bathroom. We finished out the evening with soup, crackers, old episodes of the Muppet Show, and opening up our stockings when they were brought back for us. It doesn't sound like much, but we had a good time anyways.

The next day went better, as both Ashton and I had recovered pretty well from our sickness. The girls, Aunt Nan, Grandma Jan, Paula, Shelley, and I, all went out for lunch and shopping up in Idaho Falls, while the boys stayed home and did whatever it is that boys do (I guess they had adventures of their own and Ashton worried about how I was doing with the posse). We had some adventures even before we got out of the parking lot in Shelley's truck. Aunt Nan got teased quite a bit throughout the day, but put up with it pretty well. She was happy though when people found a new target.

We first stopped at Aunt Sharon's (Grandpa Bish's sister) where we marveled at her beautifully decorated house. After that, we had lunch and then headed to the Mall. We had some good times in there with a lot of teasing and hunting for good deals.

After we got back, we played some cards. They all taught me how to play "Hand and Foot," which turned out to be really entertaining and the girls, of course, won. There was a lot of laughter and jokes. I probably showed a little too much of my "true colors" as I joined in the teasing and I guess did too well for my first time playing for Grandpa Bish's liking. (His parting words were, "The word is, 'revenge'." Followed promptly by Paula's, "Remember, don't listen to anything he says.")

The following day, we headed back to Utah. We had a few delays, because of some only partially cleared roads, traffic because of the roads, and a dirty windshield that wouldn't come clean because the windshield wiper fluid wouldn't come out until after we made it into the Salt Lake airport. We had to stop a few times to throw some snow on the windshield. We made it, however, and without too many problems.

All in all, a good vacation.

Snow

It snowed yesterday and I couldn't help, but take some pictures. I didn't take pictures before it stopped snowing, but there was plenty of snow on the bushes so they became my focal point. So here they are!

Christmas Celebration

So, here's the moment some of you have been waiting for. A picture post! It's been long overdue, but that couldn't be helped. Last night we went up to my father-in-law's house for a Christmas celebration with his family. We had a great time and of course, got some great pictures.

We watched Sadie while Nate, Anjanette, and Ashton's dad took Katelyn sledding.
Sadie was pretty fascinated by Ashton.

Katelyn wearing the Santa hat.

Then started a game of passing around the hat.

Ok, last Santa hat picture. He retracted his condition of this not going online. hehe

Teach Grandpa to lie on the floor...

All together

Small, Quiet Moments

As always, life has its ups and downs. Sometimes more ups than downs and sometimes more downs than ups. One of the hardest things for me recently is to learn to appreciate the small and quiet moments, and to recognize them for their importance in life and in healing.

People often can point out one or two big moments that have changed their lives. I think that it's easy to recognize the big moments as important instances, even big moments of crisis have their role. In these moments, I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned how I deal with my problems and how I don't deal with my problems.

And having grown up in a life full of crisis and stress, I feel at home there. Although my whole life I've been waiting to be done with school, and the stress that comes with school, the fact is, I hardly know what to do with myself now that I don't have that. I realized the other day, that I tend to create some problems where there aren't any, feeling that life has to be intense in order to progress. To reassure some of you, I don't create extreme problems out of thin air, making things up, and picking fights, or anything of the sort. I guess a more appropriate or accurate way of saying it is that when things are quiet and calm, I have a tendency to think that something is wrong, or sometimes it's that I feel something will go wrong.

I'm coming to the realization, however, that these moments of calmness are just as important, if not more important to life. I've always believed that the small actions in life, such as smiling at a stranger, say a lot more than the big actions. I've just never extended that to seemingly small, quiet moments. I feel, however, that it's these small moments that create the future moments. Taking the time in a calm moment, when everything seems right, to ponder and reflect brings me peace and happiness. It, somehow, makes everything seem worth the stress and heartache, and can even make a happy time even happier.

I think that's what those moments are all about, building up a storage of good moments to sustain us through whatever we face. It just takes some time getting used to stopping and enjoying the calmness.