Christmas morning we woke up at home, opened our stockings together upstairs, and then went down to the front room to open the gifts under the tree. The kids are now all independent shoppers and it was fun to see what they chose to give us and each other. The funny story from the gift opening comes from all of Steven's presents. No surprise that we all got BYU branded clothing, but hilarious how he paid for them. He's been a little tight for cash, so he used his meal plan dollars to buy our t-shirts and sweatshirts at Jamba Juice on campus. I still think that is so funny! He paid for his own meal plan, so it was coming from his own money, but pretty ingenious how he solved his cash-flow problem.
In the afternoon we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for more presents and Christmas dinner. It was an "Olson" year for everyone so we had quite a crowd!
On Boxing Day we drove down, just our family, to Whitefish for some skiing. Unfortunately Chloe got sick and spent our time there sitting and watching movies, poor girl. Ken and I alternated hanging out with her and skiing with the other kids.
Mason joined us part way into the ski trip, arriving just in time for the coldest day I have ever skied! It wasn't the temperature so much as the wind, but it was bitter. We spent quite a bit of time taking breaks in the ski lodge.
Carmen and Jaclyn.
We drove home on New Year's Eve Day, and cooked a dinner of Surf andTurf with crab claws and steaks:
Mason was appreciative and took a photo of his dinner.
What we didn't take any pictures of was the New Year's brunch we hosted the next morning. Boo! I have wanted to host a New Year's brunch for quite some time, and with Mason visiting I felt like I had a good excuse to have people over so that there were no complaints of him being in town and no one having the opportunity to meet him. Lucky for me Chloe is an early bird and a chef, she pretty much did the whole thing.
After that it was a couple of days of errands and laundry and then Mason, Jaclyn, and Steven headed back to Provo for winter semester at BYU. We miss them, but we are also enjoying more time with Carmen and Chloe. I am just so glad we had 4 children and that I still have kids at home!
2 comments:
How clever of Steven to be resourceful with his food money like that, it reminds of the movie Reality Bites when she uses her gas card to pay for people's gas and they give her cash instead.
The snow on those pine trees is amazing!
Still sad I missed the brunch.
Loved your Christmas eve games. Hilarious.
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