Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is enjoying a great new year.  We got back from Oregon on New Year's Day, the girls are back in school as of yesterday, and I am finally working on two photoshoots I took the week before Christmas and have felt guilt ever since for not getting to them until now.  Of course, there wasn't much time to thoughtfully sit at my computer for hours at a time in the past two weeks...  Probably not for many of you!

We had a great Christmas.  Jenn, Matt, and Peter got home from Wisconsin a few days before Christmas, so we were able to spend much of the 24th with them, eating yummy food and opening some presents.  On Christmas morning, the girls "slept in" until 6:40 (we told them they couldn't wake us up before 6:30), we talked them into a morning snuggle in our bed for a bit, and then we headed downstairs a little after 7:00.  It is no surprise to anyone that our girls are spoiled: they really didn't need anything, but got plenty just the same.  Anna got the much anticipated Nintendo DS, Grace got a digital camera, and they both got a wooden marble run from Santa.  By 8:15, we were done opening presents, ate a yummy breakfast, and had all day to play with new things, pack for our trip, and watch the snow fall.

Unfortunately, watching the snow fall wasn't as relaxing as it could have been had we not needed to fly to Oregon that night.  You see, a huge storm was predicted for Christmas evening, and the fact that it was already snowing inches and inches in the morning did not sit well with paranoid, worry-wort me.  So, I was worried all day, wondering if we would really go, and worried we'd get stuck in the airport.

Well, we didn't get stuck in the airport, we got stuck on the plane...  We got to the airport in plenty of time in order to avoid driving in the storm and to allow Jenn to use our car to pick up Gramma and Poppy who were flying here from Oregon.  So, we got to see them for a minute before they headed up to visit Peter and his parents for a few days.  So, we were now at the airport with no car (which ended up being inconsequential anyway).  Then, the snow started.  And I mean, it really started.  The snow was falling horizontally and accumulating inches/minute.  They closed the airport.  Then they opened one runway and whisked us onto the plane.  We felt like we had caught a lucky break: it was only a half an hour after our planned departure and we were already getting on the plane!  Well, where our plane was in the terminal, all the snow and ice that was swirling horizontally got jammed up in the left engine, causing it to not work.  So, an hour later, we were finally on our way after they brought a huge blow dryer out to melt all that ice and snow.  At this point, our captain announces that the de-icing is taking longer than usual, like 10 minutes/plane and we are sixth in line, so we were looking at waiting another hour or so for the plane to take-off. Five and a half hours later, we finally took off (at 3:00am).  I still don't know what really happened.  There was lots of swirling snow, very little plane movement, very little communication from the pilot (I don't know how much more he knew), and very little sleeping.  The girls (and every other kid on that plane) were very, very good.  They didn't fall asleep until around midnight and even then it was very irregular, so by the time we landed in Eugene, it was 4:30am (Utah time) and we were extremely disoriented--I felt like for the whole time we kind of lost a day.

But, once in Oregon, we had a great time.  First we got to visit my mom, who gave the family a Wii and the Wii Fit for Christmas.  I am not a video game person at all, but that thing is awesome!  We had a blast playing it with my mom and practically had to drag ourselves away to do anything else, but we did: we went to see The Tale of Desperaux, we painted pottery, saw friends for breakfast, went yarn shopping (the girls were thrilled), and beaded bracelets.  And then returned to play bowling, golf, tennis, boxing, and ski jump.  Wow.  That thing is fun.  :-)  

Then we headed to Adam's parents who were back from their trip to Utah and ready to host us despite not having had power for four days before leaving.  Their home seemed to be in the epi-center of the big Oregon storm: trees were snapped all around them, leaving tree carnage everywhere.  I cannot imagine how much work that will be for Poppy to clean up.  Fortunately, Poppy knows all about trees and has a manly-man tractor and truck that should help.  It was nonetheless as beautiful as ever at their home.  We got to watch movies and play with daddy's Legos, and Adam and I even got to go on a date while the girls went to the amazing Gilbert House with Gramma and Poppy.  

Then, we headed back to my mom's on New Year's Eve to eat crab and play more Wii before packing it up to go back to Utah early the next morning.  Thankfully, the flight home was uneventful and quick, and we're all glad to be back.  It's been snowing lots lately, with beautiful sunny days with bright blue sky in between.  

Now things are slowly getting back to normal.  I took the Christmas decorations down yesterday, which always makes me a little sad, and shelved the Christmas music for another year.   

Anna gets her retainer off tomorrow, which you can only imagine how excited she is for that.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.  I've loved the Christmas cards we've gotten from so many of you--and I'm hoping more are still coming!