We Had a Very Merry Christmas

I tried to remember to write a blog to wish everyone a very merry christmas, but as par for the course for my little brain, I forgot to. I do sincerely hope that you and your families had a great holiday. I sent out christmas cards. I got in trouble for not writing individual notes and each christmas card...by the way someone did not get our name printed on the cards (he stated that there was no step to do that) and because of that little error, no one would know who the card was from. It was a picture card--I do think that our dear friends and family know what we look like and I did write our name on the envelope with the return address.

On the 23rd, we received from Elder Jeremy, our very first handwrittened letter. It was his christmas present to us. He also included a few pics for us. This letter was three and a half pages long. For those of you that know me well, yes, I did cry.


Christmas Eve was fun. We had a nice dinner with all of the extened family members--aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins' kids and it was a blast!!! The little cousins got all dressed up and did the nativity scene. My cousin made all of the costumes--she is the "Martha Stewart" of the family. We each brought a gag gift and we picked numbers and took turns choosing gifts. The highlight of that activity was that my dad kept getting girly gifts--he did't want a girly gift. It was a great time had by all.

Our Christmas day was even nicer. We opened up our gifts. The best part was that I was very sneaky and surprised Ryan by giving him "guitar hero. He was shocked and very happy. We were able to talk to Jeremy. He is doing well. He has a bad cold and as her put it, "feel like crap". He sounded wonderful. We had a few of his friends over to talk to him too, along with my parents. We talked for an hour and a half--thank you Rhea for the wonderful idea of getting an international phone card!!
We also had christmas dinner at our house. Everything turned out great. We had the Coxs' over and we played a game and was able to talk to Elder Cox on the phone.

Here are some pictures from my wonderful christmas eve and christmas night!