Sincerely a White Christmas

So, every other year, we go home to Mississippi for Christmas. This year, my parents decided to come visit 3 out of 4 of their kids in Utah. Unlike the last time they came out here, it was a white Christmas. Note my mom (Y in the background) and Henry in these pictures. Incidentally, we watched the movie White Christmas for the first time this year.

But the snow didn't prevent us from having a lot of fun. For one, we visited with friends and family members in the area. We saw our family friends the Sprys on a few occasions, despite the icy roads, which at one time were given a "treacherous driving" warning. We also made it to J-Dawgs, a BYU favorite, and toured the BYU Paleontology Museum plus the Sacred Gifts exhibit at the MOA. We also got to see the incredible Dead Sea Scrolls at the Leonardo Museum in SLC.

Christmas itself was without incident, although what made it special was we had two Christmases and we celebrated Christmas Eve one day early. This was due to scheduling arrangements with my sibling's in-laws. But who's complaining?! We got to have our traditional Christmas Eve biblical dinner. I walked by mom in the hallway to discover her getting into costume for the night. (In reality, someone threw a sheet at her while she was holding the baby.) The next day (Christmas Eve), we did Christmas morning at Bridget's house. You can see Bridget wearing the scarf I made her :). For second Christmas (actual Christmas day), we were with Rick and Karen and the boys. For Christmas night, we had a few relatives over, made a delicious meal, prepared pies, and opened stockings.

Later in the week, we did our traditional chimes with our Talbert cousins. They were good enough sports to come over for our Puerto Rican dinner, in which we ate Malta, tostones, yucca, and rice and beans. Rick is holding a sugar cane. Following the dinner, we tried to beat out a somewhat pleasant tune with these pipes Rick made for us. Jen gave us new bags/holders specially made for the chimes. Later on, we had a postum tasting night and then we tried a hot cocoa tasting test. For one of our last nights, we got to visit the Ice Castle in Midway.

Of course, the vacation was not complete without playing with the babies. We joke that Jordan is a Little Rick and Henry is a Little Bridget. And Travis, who got blessed while our parents were here, is a Mini Jordan. These small guys can walk all over me--and get away with it.

Sincerely,

Sabra