What's happening in our world...

Sorry again for letting the blog get away from me, I am offering the same excuse as I always, do, we have been BUSY. My job is keeping me busy and Ellison is working hard at keeping up on our toes. Since I last posted, here are a few of the highlights:

Visit to the Hogle Zoo
Family Pictures
Halloween
New Moon
Thanksgiving

It had been FOREVER since I had been to the zoo, and Kam and I thought we would try to take Ellison before the weather turned too cold. We were lucky to have Chad and Heather join us for part of the day. We had fun exploring the zoo, and seeing all the animals, with the highlight being seeing the baby Elephant, Zuri.
Kam and I decided it was time for an update with the family pictures (it had been almost a year since we last took some). We headed up to Red Butte Gardens and got a few good shots in there.

For Halloween this year, we participated in many fun activities. My mom came for a visit the weekend before Halloween and we were able to go to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village with Janie (my sister in law) and her family. We had a great time hanging out with all the witches! For Halloween this year, we spent the weekend with Kam's brothers family in Ephyraim Utah. We dressed Ellison up like the princess she is, and she played the role well (as always). She dictated all we did that weekend as a ruling princess does. We had a great time eating chili, being chilly and Trunk or Treating with Kory, Tiffini and Hailey.

As many of you know, I am crazy about Twilight. I love everything about it, so when New Moon opened, I was disappointed I couldn't get to a Midnight showing, but I was able to see it the next evening. A couple of my good friends and I went to Famous Daves for dinner and then on to the movie. Needless to say, I LOVED the movie, and have been back to see it two more times since...making it three total...so far...

Thanksgiving this year was different than any other year, mainly because I had to work the day of. Kam's mom was able to fly out to Utah and visit us for the Thanksgiving holiday. I worked half a day and then Kam, Ellison and myself drove down to Ephraim, Utah and spent the Holiday with Kam's mom, Kory, Tiffini and Hailey. We had a good time eating, playing games, and making some Christmas decorations. We even woke up on black friday and braved the crowds at the Wal-Mart in Ephraim...suprisingly, it was REALLY busy!

All in all, we have been busy, but finding time to have some fun too.

We have had a few birthday's at our house that needed coverage. Kam turned the big 3-0 this year. We didn't do a big hoorah, but had a fun family party with Kory and Tiffini, Ellison and Hailey and Kam's parents with Kory and Tiffini graciously allowing us to use their house.
We called Kam's birthday the turdy 30, because he wasn't too happy about turning 30. We had a 30 themed birthday where we had 30 of everything. 30 balloons, 30 cupcakes arranged in the number 30, 30 candy bars, etc. We had a good time.

Ellison's birthday was also a fun memory. We held the party at a park in Lehi, and had a princess themed party. She had a princess cake, we had princess tea party food, a princess cake, princess decorations and a tiara pinata. The topper was that all the kids came dressed as princessess and they were adorable. Thanks to my talented sister in law Tiffini, Ellison had a dress fit for a princess!! We made tiara's, decorated cupcakes and hit the pinata. To end the birthday we had cake and played on the playground. A good time was had by all!!

We were fortunate enough to have met such awesome and life long friends in Mississippi. My friends decided to take me to lunch the day before Ellison and I left, and then that night, we had a moving party where we had about 30 people from the ward/work come and enjoy root beer floats and each others company. I couldn't ask for better friends! I love you guys tons!!

Ok, so the drama with the house has been plentiful. We put the house up for sale before I was offered the job in anticipation of moving back to Utah. We had just had all the flooring redone and felt that our house was in showing condition. We also did a few things like repainting, painting and decorating.
We attempted to sell the house ourselves, but when that brought in absolutely NO ONE, we turned to our wonderful realtor. Our realtor was great and through her efforts, we have a few showings before we had an offer on our house. We were so excited to recieve and offer until we heard what it was...17,000 off of asking price...are you kidding me?
We came off the price, but not 17,000 and resubmitted the offer. He came back with another low offer only coming up on his price about 5,000. We came back and told our realtor we will come back at 1,000 lower but no more. We were not happy with this guy. Our realtor told us his realtor had to have a talk with him about expectations on proper buying ettiquite and was quite embarressed by the offers we was presenting in the first place. Anyway, after all our negotiations, he finally came up on price and the house sold.
After we had moved out Kam turned off the utilities and left the house for the soon to be new owners. Well per protocol, the inspector came out to inspect the house and found TONS of problems with the house. We were astonished, how could he find so many problems? The house was only 6 years old. Well it turns out that the owner prior to ours, cut out some support beams in the attic that had to be replaced, along with some roofing issues and other small issues.
Thankfully we have some AWESOME friends in Mississippi, and Dale Jordan and Jeff Weathersby were able to get our house fixed up in time for closing. Meantime, the appraiser went out to the house and said he couldn't appraise it, because all the utilities were turned off...I thought I was going to rip my hair out. So, we had to go through the hassle of getting all the utilities turned back on so the appraiser could appraise the house, for exactly what we were selling it for (are you kidding me? We had just upgraded the flooring and other things...what a crock of crap!!).
In the end, the house is sold and gone, and we couldn't be more happy about it! We loved the house and have great memories there!!

So we moved from Mississippi about 2 months ago now, and I have surprised myself by how much I really miss it there. We made a lot of great friends, I had a job I really liked and doctors I trusted. We had a good time while we were there, and I will always look back fondly of my time there.
I left with Ellison on August 18th. We flew from Jackson to Las Vegas where my mom picked us up. We had a good time visiting with Chelsa and her cute little guy Griffen while we were there. We walked around the gardens at Bellagio and then had dinner.
I was able to stay in St. George for a few days with my mom and visit with my family and some friends. We had fun attempting to make a cake for Kaleb using homemade fondant (the temperature was entirely to warm to get the fondant to work well), and had just spending time with family in General.
My mom and I left St. George that weekend and travelled to SLC so I could find an apartment and attend MD appointments. Meanwhile, Kam was on the road driving the Budget truck.
Kam left Mississipp on August 21 and with his mom driving one of our cars, and his Brother Kipp helping and along for the ride, they made their way from Jackson to Witchita Kansas, where they stayed the first night. From there, they went to Rifle Colorado where he began to run into problems. Apparently the Rockies were to much for the truck to handle, and Kam broke down on the side of the road, in Colorado, where he stay for about 3 days. Kam's mom and Kipp continued into Utah.
Finally, after much time and frustration, Budget decided the truck was beyond repair and sent some people out to move our stuff from one truck to a new truck. Finally Kam was on the road again!
Meanwhile, I was feverishly looking for and trying to find apartments that were clean and would suit our needs. I also went in for my initial appointments with the MD's. I guess they are going to be good. I am liking my internal med MD more than the new vascular guy (I really liked my former MD's, and still plan on going back to Mississippi to see my Incredible vascular surgeon there). I didn't have much luck with finding an apartment, so I drove down to Ephraim and stay with Kam's brother Kory and his wife Tiffini and wait for Kam to make it.
Kam finally made it in town on Tuesday, and we stayed in Ephraim until Thursday. We finally made our way back to Salt Lake City where the apartment hunt began again. We were able to find a good apartment that suits our needs and it was available to be moved into that day!! Hallelujah!!
We have been here in the apartment since the end of August/beginning of September and are slowly getting adjusted. The job seems to be going ok and I am getting acclimated to their way of doing things.
We did sell our house in Mississippi. That was STRESSFUL, but we are glad it's gone. I will have to post later about the stress from the house. Anyhow, here we are. We are waiting for Kam to get a job, and then hopefully we will be able to move again, but this time into a house!!

Sorry it has been so long since we have last posted. Most of you know that our lives have been crazy busy with our move from Mississippi to Salt Lake City. I have a list of things I need to blog on, including:
1.The move and my new job
2. Ellison's birthday
3. Visits with family
4. Trip to the zoo.
Expect posts on those. Today, I decided I would post a recipe I tried. My Sis-in-law Tiffini, my Mother-in-law and I were saying how fun it would be to trade new recipes via blog, so I am going to start by posting this yummy recipe both Kam and I loved!

EASY ITALIAN CHICKEN:
2 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken breast cut into thick slices
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 envelope italian salad dressing seasoning
1 can/package mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 C. Sour cream

Layer chicken, soup, dressing mix, mushrooms salt and pepper in crock pot. Do not stir. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Add sour cream and stir. Serve alone, over hot noodles or rice.

I added some red pepper and zucchini in ours and it was delicious! Great for leftovers! If anyone has any great recipes, please share, I am always looking for easy, healthy food options!!

Since Lisa and I have been extremely busy I thought I would finally sit down and try to update what has been going on with us. Well as everyone that looks at this blog probably knows by now that we are moving back to UTAH! This happened about a month and a half ago but is at our doorstep as Lisa is flying out on the 18th and My Mom, Kipp and I will be driving all our crap out later that week. Besides that things have been crazy. Last couple of blogs noted that I had graduated from Law School. Unfortunately have spent the last 2-3 months continuing the 3 years of law school by studying for the bar. Whew! did that stink. All those long boring days and months boiled down the July 28th and 29th. Where after 2 days of testing I was done. (I hope) We still have 8-10 weeks of waiting to know if I passed or not. Either way after those 2 days I was quite relieved. At least for a few moments. Since then I have been packing things up as best as possible to get ready for the move. I was able to clean out our enormous messy attic with the help of Lisa's Mom. Unfortunately I wore myself out and the next week was recovery. My body was so sore and stiff I couldn't grip anything. Sucks to get old. Well on one of these disastrous days I was packing up stuff and cleaning things up at my mom's house. I went to do some laundry and the washing machine broke. Water was pouring everywhere. I couldn't get it to stop. Well I got all the towels I was trying to wash to try and soak up all the water. There was tons of water every where. Well after much finagling I found out that the connection tube for the adding of bleach had broken clean off and was unrepairable. As I was getting the dolly to take the washing machine out of the house, in bare feet, Ellison grabbed a light bulb, that I had to change to see all the flooding going on, threw it on the floor. It bounced once and then shattered. Both Ellison and I had no shoes on so I had to pick her up put her in a safe place and clean up the lightbulb mess. Once all that was settled I needed a way to get the towels somewhat clean and dry. So I took a massive laundry basket full of wet towels to the pool to rinse them off and let them dry pool side. Well as I was doing that Ellison got on to the steps of the pool. This is fine but the daredevil she is she got to the third step and jumped in. Fortunately I was right there but had to jump in fully clothed. This really stunk because my phone was in my pocket. So after getting her out I set my phone aside to try and dry out. So no real harm no foul right. She was fine she wasn't in the pool but for less than a second. As I was finishing the last few towels in the pool itself. As my back was turned she did the same stunt and jumped in again. That morning was just not going to end without somebody getting really hurt. Unfortunately that was too late since I had about 50% strength and agility in me being so sore from earlier. I was putting the towels pool side on the concrete. I then threw a few on top of one of the patio benches. As I threw the second one down a mass of hornets, wasps or some form of dangerous Mississippi annoyances came buzzing out with murder and pain on their mind. So once again I had to dash as quickly as possible under the pain grab Ellison and head for a safer place. The real tragedy is that if anything happened to either one of us I wouldn't have anyway to contact anyone since my Mom and Dad have no more land line in their land locked boondocks house. Since my cell phone was fried from earlier exploits I was alone by myself with only any boy scout training to get me through the rest of the day. After that I basically quit for the rest of the day. All that happened by 10:30A.M. I was done.
Well after that harrowing day I have gotten better and have just continued the effort to get ready to move. Lisa is almost done with her last week of work and we are still looking for an apartment. I know we better move on this right? Well now we are dealing with trying to sell our house. We have had a few people look at it and are dealing with an interested couple right now. Hope we can get this all settled in a few weeks that will help us a lot. Anyway until next time enjoy the stories and the few pics that are left on my phone after it got wet. Yes after a few days of using Lisa's old slider phone that also met a watery doom my phone is working once again. Unfortunately all the pics and video that was on my mini SD card are probably lost. So lame and frustrating but I have a few photos of Ellison on the phone that I can share.

Summer has come, and with it, has brought many activities and events that has kept us running! Since Kam's graduation, he has been studying and preparing for the bar. His days consists of studying approximately 8-10 hours, taking quizzes, etc. Thankfully, my Mom has been great and flew out here to help us take care of Ellison. We have loved having her stay with us and it's been so fun for Ellison to get to know her Grandma better!
I have been busy with work and youth. The second week of June was girls camp. After each day at work, I would pack up Ellison, and my mom, myself and Ellison would drive out to visit the girls at camp. We also had our youth fundraiser this month that was A LOT of work. We had a yard sale, bake sale and car wash. I suppose all the hard work was worth it, because we were very successful. This past weekend was youth conference. I went for one day, which was a nice break.
Kam and I quietly celebrated our 8th anniversary. We had dinner and walked around the outdoor mall.
We offically put our house up for sale. After trying to sell it ourselves with no luck, we decided to list. We are hoping this will spur some interest in the house and we can get it sold.
We have decided to start toilet training Ellison. She has been showing some interest, so we decided to try. We got her a little froggie potty, which she loves, and have been trying to get her to sit on it as much as possible. I think she is starting to get the idea, and we are hoping she makes the connection soon!
We have a lot of things changing in our lives and are staying busy always. We keep looking for a reprieve, never to find one. We are hoping once summer is over, things will settle a little for us, and we will have a chance to breathe again! Here are some pictures of our summer so far.

As usual we have been extremely busy with all we have going on, and the past few weeks have been no exception. In the past month, I have worked 3 out of the 4 weekends and Kam has been busy, working to finish up his last few weeks of law school.
Last Wednesday, Tiffini flew in with Hailey for the Canton Flea Market, Kam's graduation and Chris' retirement. We had a great time visiting with them, and Ellison loved all over Hailey (which is unusual for her and she is usually slightly aggresive with other kids). I also spent that evening with the girls in Young Womens and working out details for camp and such.
On Thursday, I spent a few hours of my day walking around the Canton Flea Market, making a cake, visiting the eye dr and running other errands. I finally ended my day by covering the cake I made with fondant and finishing the decorating. I might also add that I made the fondant myself, which was interesting and much better tasting than the fondant I used from Wal-Mart.
Friday was Kam's graduation. We raced out of the house at 8:30 in the morning in an effort to make it there by 9:00. The graduation started at 10:00 and was an emotional ceremony for me. It was great to see Kam finally graduate and receive a dipolma and a Juris Doctorate degree.
Following the graduation, there was a reception for the family's of all the law school grads, complete with finger foods and desserts. Yum! We also spent time visiting with Kam's friend Trey and his wife Amanda and then headed over to the airguard base for Chris' retirement ceremony.
Following the retirement ceremony, Kam's mom, myself and Tiffini frantically finished up our errands for the suprise party we threw that night for Kam and Chris.
We had a great BBQ and swim party for Kam and Chris at Kam's parent's house. The Shields, Dunnaways, Jordans, Wings, Ross', and Trey and his wife Amanda all came. It was fun! Saturday, we woke up to clean the house and then headed over to Kam's parents home. Tiffini and I were able to leave the babies and head out for lunch and to buy supplies to color hair. We spent that evening swimming and playing the Wii.
Sunday, we went to church and then spent the afternoon at Kam's parents house. Tiffini was kind enough to color and cut my hair, and then we made homemade doughnuts and played yard games (bocci ball and water balloon volleyball). On Monday I went back to work and then finished the evening at Kam's parents house eating dinner with Tiffini, Memaw, Kam and the babies.
Overall, we had a busy and great week. We have been frantically preparing for Kam to get to Utah for bar prep courses...he is flying out on Sunday. We are getting ready for another few months of craziness as we get ready for and take the bar!

We finally finished all the flooring for the house and it looks so good! Last week Nick Jones was able to install the laminate flooring in the living room and hallway and carpeting in all the bedrooms. I have decided to post before and after pictures, and although you may not be able to tell a big difference, trust me, it is! We also finally put the for sale sign in the yard today. I wonder how long it will take to sell, wish us luck!

We have finally begun the flooring process! Yesterday our friend Nick Shields and his cousin Cameron came over and happily for us, tore up the house! Not literally of course, but the flooring in the bathrooms, kitchen and laundry room. We have one bathroom tiled, and more than half of the kitchen which leaves the laundry room and master bath to be started. Nick said that he will probably be able to get everything tiled by today and then start grouting with the whole project completed by Friday. We are so excited and needless to say, the kitchen and bathrooms look soooo much better. The tile is being laid in a brick pattern and it makes the kitchen look so much more updated!
After the tile is finished being installed, we have new carpeting going into all three bedrooms and laminate flooring going into the living room and hallway. We have had a lot of great help with our flooring decisions, and can't thank Nick J and Nick S enough! We will post before and after pics of the kitchen and bathrooms as soon as the project is completed so stay tuned!

As always, we have been so incredibly busy that blogging has taken a backburner. I have been busy at work with a student. She is so much better than my last (thank goodness) and has taken up most of my "free time" at work. She is finishing out 4 of 8 weeks this week so she is almost halfway there!

Last week I went into see the Vascular Surgeon and he decided that the stenosis(vein narrowing) was significant enough to warrant surgery. So, on Thursday I went in for round 5 and had another surgery where he did a balloon dilation and placed another stent, totaling 6. Recovery hasn't been too bad, but I have been sore.

Kam has been busy getting his bar application ready. He got all his paperwork sent in and ready to go, only to find out he didn't pay all the fees, so lucky us dealt out more money!

Kam and I have also been busy trying to get the flooring replaced in the house. We had a friend over to measure the floor and have picked out the carpeting and laminate. Now all we need to pick out is the tile. I can't wait to get the project underway!

Ellison has been keeping us on our toes as always! She is constantly learning new words and amazes us daily with her attitude. The other day she kept telling me NO!, so I held her little face with my hands and sternly told her that we don't talk to our mom's that way. After her little lecture, she grabbed my face with her hands, and gave me a big kiss. Now how do you stay mad at that?

We are all doing well, keeping busy and having fun.

I was reading Stephenie Meyer's website the this morning and noticed they had a release date of November 20th for New Moon the movie! I can't wait to see how they interpert the book on the big screen! It will be interesting to see how they imagine Jacob phasing as well as how it will be portrayed with a new director. I just can't wait!
In other news, I finished Breaking Dawn last night. I really enjoyed the book and loved how it all turned out. It may just be wishful thinking but in a way I feel like she left the book slightly open for more to be written if she wants. For example, when Edward says the Volturi's ego's will eventually be healed after being beaten, they will come looking for them again and try to pick them off one by one...this could be a new story.
I would also be interested to hear more about Renesmee and Jacob and see where their story goes. Of course I also want her to finish the books from Edwards perspective, despite the leak, espically New Moon as he is absent for most of that book! It would be interesting to hear his side of the story and see what's going with him during his absence.
Anyhow, I have said it before and will say it again, I love Twilight. Love the books, and the movie. I can't wait to get my DVD in the mail, and I will be re-reading the books again. I can't wait for more to hopefully come!

1. Link this post to the person who tagged you: Tiffini
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. List 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I am getting my house ready to get new flooring! I have been painting the walls, Kam repaired the ceiling and I am going to have the clean the baseboards soon!

I love photography and playing around with the camera. I am not very good at it, and would love to take a class to learn techniques.

I love to bake and cook, but I am not very good at it. This is something else I need to take a class on.

I love the show Ace of Cakes and would love to learn how to decorate cakes using some kind of fondant or other medium.

I LOVE the Twilight series and have since I picked up the first book. I love reading and re-reading the books and don't see an end in sight!!

I now tag: Shelli, Robyn, Julie, Sarah, Marcie, Cailin.

Sorry it has been so long since I posted! We have been out of town for a week in Florida enjoying ourselves at Disneyworld and Universal Studios. We flew out a couple of Friday's ago and enjoyed an hour and half flight to Florida. When we got there, we were happily surprised to find that the car we were renting was upgraded to a minivan. Not that we like mini-van's but we were on the trip with Kam's family, so the more room the better!
Friday night we checked into our hotel for the night, went to dinner and hung out. On Saturday we went to Universal Studios and had a great time! There were a lot of fun rides and shows, some of the highlights include: Disaster, Simpson's, Shrek, and Fear Factor. Saturday afternoon, after leaving Universal Studio's, we met up with Kam's family at the house they rented for the week. We went grocery shopping for 15 people for the week and then hung out. On Sunday, Kam and I along with Kam's two brothers, his sister-in-law Tiffini and her baby Hailey and Kam's parents went to Epcot. We had a great time Soarin, going through the garden's on the Disney property, tasting coke from around the world, visiting the various countries they hightlight on the park and going from 0-60 mph on the racecar ride.
Monday, we went to the Magic Kingdom, Disneyworld's version of "Disneyland". Lucky us, we were rained on most of the day, but had a good time anyway. We rode on Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, the Monster's Inc show, It's a Small World amongst others. We were also able to see the MVP from the Super Bowl, as they threw a parade for him (don't ask me his name because I don't know it). We did however, leave early due to the rain.
Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios at Disney. It was fun to see the cute shows there (Indiana Jones, a car stunt show, and the block party parade). We rode of fun rides including Space Tours, Tower of Terror and Rockin' Rolla' Coaster.
Wednesday we went back to the Magic Kingdom so we could ride the rides we had missed due to the rain. Overall we had a great time at all the parks and are so grateful to Kam's parents/sister for making such a fun trip happen!

The answer to the question is Ellison. She has been sick for the past couple of weeks with a runny nose and cough. She never ran a fever, so I guessed she had the sniffles. Two days ago I came home from work and the poor thing was so congested and hoarse, she couldn't even cry sound. I felt terrible, so yesterday we hauled her off to the doctor.
Fortunately, she doesn't have any type of infection, but he gave her a prescription for the congestion stuff. He also told us to give her a few cold things like popsicles. So last night, Kam got popsicles and she greedily took the red popsicle. We supervised her while she ate the popsicle.
During the night, we were cleaning the house and Ellison was following us around. I was in the guest bedroom cleaning and she grabbed a vase and dropped it on the floor, breaking it. I quickly looked her over, and she looked fine to me. Well, a few minutes later, I saw little specks of red all over the carpet. I called Kam asking him to clean the red popsicle drips Ellison had spread and went into the kitchen...where Ellison followed me.
I was loading dishes into the dishwasher, and let Ellison climb up on the door and play. I noticed bloody water all over the dishwasher and then noticed Ellison's cut little foot and realized Kam wasn't cleaning up red popsicle, but blood. Needless to say Ellison is feeling much better and causing trouble just like before she was sick!

This is what I think everytime I realize how obsessed with Twilight I have become. Just before Christmas I decided to finally bite the bullet and indulge in the pandamonium. I had promised myself before this point that I couldn't get involved in a book series right now because I am so busy. Between Ellison, home, work, Young Women's and Kam's school, I just didn't see where I had the time.
I had been told on numerous occasions that I should read the book, and these urgings from others were only intensified when the movie was released. I had been around others when they were talking about the books and had an idea of what they were about.
One weekend I was shopping in Wal-Mart when I walked past the book aisle where the Twilight book was displayed. I decided to buy it to see what the hype was about, and then let it sit on the kitchen table for about a week. One Saturday morning, Ellison woke me up early and I decided to grab the book and read...it was all over then. I finished the book in about 4 days, and then re-read it again on the airplane ride to Utah. Once I finished it for the second time, I went and bought new moon and read the entire book while in Utah, and started reading it again for the second on the plane ride back to Mississippi.
The night we flew back in to Mississippi, I went to Borders and bought Eclipse. I have read that book all the way through, and am more than halfway through it for the second time. (I decided that since I read the other two books, two times through, I should do it for all). I have Breaking Dawn sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me to finish Eclipse.
Now, this is where the sickness comes in. I read the books at work, in the car, in the tub...everywhere! I have read the manuscript from Midnight Sun on Stephenie Meyers website: www.stepheniemeyer.com (which is awesome by the way and makes you love Edward even more. I can't wait until she finishes writing them someday)! I visit her website like daily and I have seen the movie 4 times. I have the soundtrack in my car, and listen to it daily and I just pre-ordered the special edition DVD. I told Kam for my birthday I want the Twilight box set.
So, I know I am totally obsessed, please bear with me, but I LOVE the Twilight books and I am sure there may be a few more posts on Twilight before this phase is over.

I promised my friend Cailin that I would post about our Christmas, after I got a phone call from her telling me how disappointed she was by not seeing one. So, Cailin, this one's for you!

We flew out to Utah on the 23rd from Jackson. After our flight from Jackson to Dallas was delayed by two hours, we were all too happy to make it to Vegas before Midnight. We met my mom and brother in law John at the Vegas airport, and then made our 2 hour journey home to St. George, arriving at 2 am!
On the 24th we went to a few stores to finish Christmas shopping for family in Utah (since American Airlines charges $15 dollars for every checked bag, we traveled lightly). We were also able to meet Kam's brother Kory, his wife Tiffini, and their little girl Hailey for lunch at Pirate Pizza. We then spent the evening hanging out with family.
On Christmas day, we went to visit my sister's house to see what Santa brought my niece Sydney, and then drove to my brother's house to see what Santa brought his kids. We stopped by to see Kory, Tiffini, Hailey and dropped our gifts for them off. We then went home and had breakfast with my mom. And opened our own gifts. Later that day everyone gathered at my mom's house and hung out.
On the 26th, Ryan and his wife Janie drove from Salt Lake to visit with us, and it was fun to see them. We were able to spend time playing games with them and hanging out. The 27th we went with my family to Pirate Pizza and then hiking on the Red Rocks, finishing the day playing games.
Throughout the rest of our vacation we mainly hung out with family and played games. Unfortunately we all got sick with a sore throat and cold and didn't feel like doing much. I finished two of the Twilight books during the vacation and had a great time discussing the details with my sister in law Amy, and my niece Lindy.
We flew back on 29th and opened gifts when we got home. It was a great vacation. Here are some pics for your enjoyment, we didn't take too many because were weren't feeling well!