Christmas Morning

 
Jessica and Clayton were trying to get to Lehi and so they opened their gifts before everyone else.

After breakfast, Santa came to help us hand out the presents. 

What a gift to be in such a beautiful place to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Eve

It was Sunday and so we visited the local LDS Ward for Sacrament meeting. It is a tradition at reunions to take a picture after church while everyone is still dressed up.

Christmas Karaoke - everyone takes a turn singing one line of  the song. It is good for some great laughs.

After the silly songs, we turned to the Hymn book and sang our favorite Christmas Songs all together.

The kids acted out the Nativity Story while Linda read from a story book.

Then Dad read the story from the Bible.

Emily and Ashlyn sang "Mary Did you Know?" while Tyler accompanied them on his yukelele.

 

Then we opened our matching Christmas Pajamas!! 

Then things started to get silly.

Snow! and Celebrating 50 years

We woke up this morning to snow falling from the sky. When there was a break in the storm, the kids wanted to get outside to play. It was pretty cold and so it didn't last long.

Emily, Melanie, and Fiona made snow angels.

 After lunch we asked Mom and Dad to stay downstairs so that we could get ready to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Tyler took charge of making a banner.

Everyone sat down to a nice dinner of Salsbury Steak, potatoes, asparagus and pear salad. After dinner we decorated the Christmas tree with commemorative anniversary ornaments. Debbie bought some Merry Widow Candy from Logan because they were served at my parents wedding reception 50 years ago. 

 We decorated the Christmas tree in honor of the 50th Wedding Anniversary. There was a gold ribbon and special commemorative ornaments.

 After dinner, we had Mom and Dad play the newlywed game. 

 Then, we had a few gifts for them. Connie presented them with a quilt that represents their life together.

I made matching Christmas stockings for the family that they can hang up in future years to remind them of our fun time together. It also represents their posterity as a family tree of sorts.

Each of my siblings then said a few words in tribute to my parents. I had the advantage because I had thought about a few things I wanted to say and we went oldest to youngest. I said I admired how my parents look for the best in each other and how they watch out for each other.

The evening ended, as usual, with a family devotional and a story from Grandma.

A cabin overlooking Bear Lake

My parents wanted to have a reunion with all of their children to celebrate their return from South Korea and their 50th wedding anniversary. Graigry, Melanie, Fiona and I were in charge of purchasing the food for the reunion on our way to Bear Lake. To their credit, if it was on the list, it made it to the cabin. We ate very well.

We were the first group to the cabin and were blown away by how beautiful and roomy it was. The only time I left was to attend church on Christmas Eve.

  There was room for everyone to eat dinner together.

 This was one of two large living rooms. In this room, there were a lot of cooperative video games played.

 This game table got a lot of use. It worked well for games that had a lot of pieces like Risk and Settlers.

 Each evening, we ended the day with a family devotional and then a Christmas storybook reading by Grandma.

Kayla is working towards a makeup license and needed lots of models for practice.