Christmas 2010

Now that it's nearing the end of January, its time to post for Christmas...

We got to have a long, relaxing vacation. We were going to leave for St. George on Monday the 20th but because of a coming storm we took off on Sunday.  And we're glad we did!  There was a stretch of road where we could barely see anything that night and it only got worse the next day.  In fact, for the first couple of days we were there, there were flood warnings throughout St. George (there was a stretch of road that was closed by our house!) and there was a dam that looked like it might fail. Crazy!!!

We rented a house this time.  So after waiting all day for our Odyssey to get its oil changed and recalled parts replaced, we finally went over to see it. And we were in awe. It was NICE.  There were 4 bedrooms, a fireplace, granite countertops, a little putting green and on and on.  Which is good because Steve got sick and we were stuck in the house for a few days.  They didn't go crazy in the house like they would have in a hotel!!

We also took care of passport pictures for all of the kids, did some shopping and visited with all of Steve's family.  It was so much fun! After a rather large mess of getting Christmas gifts (long, funny story that I can't share on here but if you ask, I'll tell you later) we had a fantastic Christmas.  We borrowed a small tree from Steve's parents' neighbor and had our own little Christmas. I even made egg nog milkshakes. YUMMY!!

Christmas afternoon we took off and headed home. It was hard to leave because the kids were having so much fun with cousins they don't get to see very often but we needed to make the next leg of our trip.   We got back around 10:30 that night and because the kids had slept in the car, we opened the gifts that couldn't fit in the car. 

The next morning we went to church and then headed on to Idaho. The roads were not so pretty but we made it and were happy to be there.  We opened the gifts from Grandpa and Grandma and cousins.  The kids loved it!  My brother's family also opened the gifts from us.

We enjoyed our time in Idaho. We played with cousins, enjoyed time with Grandma and Grandpa and just had quiet time.  We visited both of my grandmas which was a lot of fun too.  I woke up with a cold one day and I was very grateful to have time to just lay down.

New Year's Eve was great!  The kids played Twister which was fun to watch. Grandpa spun the wheel and Grandma took pictures.  Then we all sat in the hot tub.  Around midnight we pulled out the fryer my dad got my mom and we enjoyed mozzarella sticks, french fries, and cheesecake.  YUMMY!!!  For Christmas we all got a industrial french fry cutter and we tried it out. It is AWESOME.   My sister came over after her kids were asleep and we enjoyed talking until 3:30 in the morning.

Then it was time to go home.  We got home and shoveled our way out so we could actually make it into the house.   Now to see what 2011 brings us!!

Christmas Letter 2010

Every year I look forward to sending out Christmas cards.  And getting Christmas cards. Its nice get something in the mail you actually WANT.  I vowed I would never do the email card because its just not the same as getting letters from the mailbox.

So life happened this year and we got to Christmastime without getting to send cards. So you get a blog letter and email letter if I have your email address.  Enjoy!

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Dear Friends and Family,

Another year come and gone and what a year it has been!  Between running a bookstore, having a new little one in March,  sports, bookstore events, birthdays, school, school events and everything in between its amazing we came out alive!! But here we are and we’re much stronger for it, as the entire experience didn’t kill us... yet!!

Steve recently switched jobs and is now doing consulting for NEC.  He loves it and is in between projects right now, so kind of a vacation of sorts.  In church he started the year teaching nursery where he enjoyed singing different words to the songs, making up stories, encouraged play-dough tasting and tried to get the kids to color with white crayons.  Ethan was the only one who would flat out refuse to take the white crayon.  “No, it’s broken!”  The kids absolutely loved him, even when he kept giving them white crayons :)  He now teaches Sunday School for the 12 and 13 year old class.  He has done a great job of juggling being a Dad, Mom, and employee all at once, although sometimes he feels like he needs a straight jacket.  He has managed to get kids from school, feed them all and keep our house in order-ish.

Jaclyn has been working at the store non-stop since last November - and loved every second of it. She has had a few breaks here and there where awesome neighbors or her sister would take over (THANKS CHARLOTTE!!!).   She will be heartbroken the day the store closes (the 18th of this month) but will be happy to be home with her kids again!  She is now serving as 1st counselor in the Primary and enjoys hearing the children sing and everything else that comes with it.

Jakob is still doing his ALL (Accelerated Learning Lab) classes for 4th grade and loves it.  He’s enjoying the US and Utah History sections he’s learning. He is also going to be doing Knowledge Bowl in March.  He did competitive soccer this year and loved it.  He is a wonderful big brother and good helper!

Andy loves his 2nd grade class and does well in school. He’s sporting a big gap in his mouth with both front top teeth missing and just lost another one the other night. His exact words were “Jakob and I got bored so we pulled out my tooth.” Grrrreat!  The tooth-fairy actually has written him several notes in response to Andy’s requests to her, where she told him that she couldn’t bring him the $2 that he asked for because she got beat up by some bullies who had stolen her lunch money and then for another one of his teeth, he asked for $15, to which the response was that the toothfairy would have had a broken back carrying that kind of money around.

Ashley is all girl. She loves pink and getting her hair done.  She sings non-stop, even if she doesn’t know the right words.  She wears her skirts (with shorts) to play soccer - where she scores at least one goal each game.  She even scored seven goals when she was in Idaho visiting cousins! They needed another player and she was happy to help out.  After the game they asked if she was going to be there the next week!  She started Kindergarten this year and LOVES it.  She sings all the songs she learns and everyone else ends up with them in our heads!!

Gavin eats up everything he can learn from Ashley when she gets home from school. He can spell his name forward and backward and count to 20 - and back down to zero. His dimples and bright, happy eyes help to make you forget the mischief he can get himself into!  He really enjoys drawing on the walls...

Ethan is growing quickly day by day and amazes us with what he comes up with.  We got Letter Factory for Gavin for his birthday and Ethan can tell you every letter and its sound!  He knows what he wants and I often say he is Stubborn in human form.  But he can also be very sweet and his sense of humor is awesome.

Adelheid (Heidi) Pearl Weist was born on March 1st of this year.  She is a bundle of happiness and is an amazing little baby.  She’s my “bookstore baby” because she has spent nearly every day of her 9 1/2 months in the store with me. She greets people as they come in and I have several people say “Where’s my Heidi?” when they come into the store.  She had RSV when she was only 2 months old but by the second day in the hospital she was smiling at all the nurses and back to her cheery, happy self.

As the year ends, so does our bookstore.  We loved every minute of it.  We met lots of people, got to know new books and had all kinds of fun events. I got to use my Early Childhood degree by doing story times.  I met amazing authors and shared our store with them.  It was literally a dream come true. I’m sad its coming to an end.  My kids, however, are not.  On Sunday I sadly mentioned to my kids that it is our last week. My kids jumped up and down cheering “YAY! Mommy gets to stay home with us!” and continued talking about everything we’ll get to do with me at home.

We wish you the very best in the New Year and we hope that your dreams can come true!  Have a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Steve, Jaclyn, Jakob, Andy, Ashley, Gavin, Ethan and Heidi