The Climers came to visit!

A few days after Christmas (after we came home from Bear Lake) Mary Ann, Jonathon, and Michael came to visit for a week. It turned out to be quite a week. The first day here, Mary Ann got the stomach flu. The next 2 days, Jonathon had it. Then after that, Michael got a bad cold. He just kept getting sicker and sicker. Jonathon had to fly home for school but Mary Ann had arranged to stay a few more days with us. The day before she was to fly home, Michael was acting pretty sick and we decided to take him in to the doctor. We thought that he perhaps had an ear infection or something. After evaluating him, the doctor told us that he had RSV and needed to be hospitalized. So, Mary Ann missed her flight back and spent 3 days in the hospital with little Michael. Luckily, he improved quickly and she was able to fly back to Ohio on Saturday. All in all, it was a fairly stressful visit. We still loved getting to see them and had some good times while they were here.

Michael with Aunt Hannah.

Here's a fun game of Catch Phrase that we had going

Michael wasn't too sure about all of his uncles and aunts but was pretty patient. Here Ammon is pushing Michael around in a box.

This is the day that we took him in to the doctor. You can see that he doesn't feel very good.

Christmas in Bear Lake

Russ's brother Ron had someone offer to let us stay in their cabin for the week of Christmas. Our kids love to be with his kids and so we said "heck yeah!" We got there on Monday night and celebrated Christmas a few days early so that we'd have time to play with our Christmas stuff before we had to go home. (We had to check out of the cabin on Dec 26)

So here is the Christmas morning nativity:

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them . . .

And there came wise men from the east (or upstairs as the case may be) . . .

Gathered at the stable.

I often wonder about the reverence of this nativity. But we always have a good time. . .

Sledding at Bear Lake

We found a great spot for sledding while we were at the cabin. We just went on the road up above the cabin. We hardly ever saw any cars and so the kids just sledded on the road. They were able to go almost 1.5 miles down the road. They really got going pretty fast. We would follow behind with the van and pick them up and take them back to the top. It was WAY fun!

Ron and Joshua getting ready for the ride down.

The crew (Joshua, Betsy, Ammon, Hannah, Mattie, Jenna) ready for take-off.

On the ride back to the top.

Sledding makes a guy tired!

Hanging out in the cabin

The cabin was so fun. There was lots of time to just hang out, play games, visit etc.

The brothers just chillin'.

Ethan gave me some pop! He's my favorite cousin. (at least today!)

Mattie playing cards.

Jenna, Betsy, and Hannah in the middle of a game.

Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree at the cabin with the gifts spread around it.

December happenings

So, I got behind on posting. Things were so crazy busy in December, with concerts, programs, plays, service, santa's workshop, etc that I just didn't have time to post. So here's a catch up.

Here's Betsy all gussied up for her Treble Tones Christmas concert. It was a great concert!

I only got one picture of the many Santa's workshop projects that we did. :-( Here's a picture of Mattie making Dad some bags to hold the jumper cables, etc in the car. She sewed them by herself and did a great job!