Where Do I Start?

So much has happened since the last time I posted...I just spent a long time getting my pictures on the computer, weeding out the bad ones and fixing the good ones.  Now all there is left to do is post them, right?!

First off, I failed to post some new decorations that I got just now or even last year after Christmas ....

I have to stop buying as I am running out of places to put them all.

And here are some of the gifts I gave out to neighbors, friends, home teaching families and visiting teaching ladies......

Pretty proud of myself for getting them all done and handed out before we left.

Now, you are probably wondering what I mean by "before we left" ????  We started talking at Thanksgiving that we haven't been to Utah during Christmas time in years.  We don't tend to go very often as it is hard to do Christmas away and my hubby's work is always busy during the last week of the year.  But after much discussion, we decided that we could go the week BEFORE Christmas!  We were all so excited at that possibility.  Now all we had to do was work out the time off of work for both the guys.  T asked for several days off together knowing he wouldn't be able to get a whole week, but we found out less than a week before we were to leave, that he didn't get more than 3 days off.  With 2 days of travel time we knew that wouldn't work, so we looked into flying the guys over and them coming back with us girls.....that was too expensive since it was such short notice.  So the guys stayed home  to work and us girls went to play with Grandma and Grandpa and anyone else who wanted to.  We were very sad....me the most....as I wanted an actual family vacation as we haven't had one this year.  You can not count the death of my father-in-law as a vacation.....that is the only time we have gone anywhere out of state this year as a family.  I was looking forward to a family pix on Temple Square with the Christmas lights all aglow.  But it would not be this year....this is the first year in a long time that we haven't had a family vacation away from it all.  That is so very sad huh?!  But we had a great time....and we made it back just in time to spend the holiday with my guys!  Check out the next post for all the fun details!