We had a great week of Christmas! It actually did feel like time slowed down a little bit, and that was really nice. We had a couple of fun family zoom meetings and it was great to reconnect with people and see their faces! We did a Shurtz family talent show one night with my family, and a Nativity reading with Dustin's family. I'm grateful for technology! I hope that even after the pandemic is over, that we can continue to connect with far away family using technology.
We made a trek out to Antelope Island to see the Christmas Star do its thing after 400 years. That was cool, if not slightly underwhelming, but that's ok! At least we could say we saw it!
We went up to Jen's to get some gifts and see her snakes. They have a couple of them and my kids have been dying to get up there to see them. They didn't disappoint.
On our way home we decided to go see the lights on 25th Street in Ogden that we had been hearing about from my sisters. They also did not disappoint! Very pretty!
Don't let Ryan's attire fool you. It was absolutely freezing!
Nicole and Matt sent us this awesome ornament made from the old carpet of my parent's house (that they surprise replaced earlier in the month). It's hard to see, but it is a lime green carpet Christmas tree.
On Christmas Eve, both girls had to work in the afternoon, which was a bummer (but could have been worse-Maren was originally scheduled to work until 9 PM that night! A Christmas miracle and answer to my prayers occurred when they changed her shift to end at 6:00. Who makes children work until 9:00 on Christmas Eve??). We had our traditional aebleskivers in the morning for breakfast, and then after the girls went to work, we took the boys bowling. I lost to everybody, which made for everybody ending happily (no one likes to lose in my family, so I was happy that my horrible bowling skills could maintain Christmas cheer).
So much delicious food all day!
Bethlehem Dinner that night. Avery got home from work after Dustin had left with everyone else, so she helped me get everything ready. It was a lovely evening and dinner. It is the favorite of us all.
This year the kids all slept in the preschool and stayed up late watching movies. It meant that they slept in until 7:00 the next morning! A first for us!
We surprised Avery with a Pepper Blanket to take to college!
The kids all pitched in and got Dustin a speaker for when we do outside movies.
The homemade gifts that the kids made for each other were fun. Avery made Grant a Family Old Maid card game, Maren made Ryan a bike jump, Ryan made Avery a Y Picture Collage to take to college, and Grant made Maren a holder for her lotions and makeup. These are always some of our favorite gifts and a fun part of Christmas!
A puzzle of our family from Grandpa and Grandma Shurtz.
We cleaned up Christmas just a couple of days later in anticipation of getting our carpets cleaned. Usually I want to keep it up for a while, but I think this year we felt ready to move forward. Bring on 2021!
Grant wound himself up in part of our service chain during clean up.
For New Year's Eve we ate homemade pizza, chocolate fondue, played games and watched some fireworks put on by our neighbor.
After seeing this picture, I decided that maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to clean our car more often...
We had a pretty low-key 2nd week of Christmas Break. We slept in, relaxed, watched movies and played video games and just generally had a lazy week. We did take the kids to play mini-golf and to dinner and on the way home, we found this amazing cemetery tree and lights, and had fun with it.
And now, we feel ready for 2021, and a fresh start and hopefully an end to this pandemic!!
No comments:
Post a Comment