I went home for Christmas...

Well, we went home... and it WAS AWESOME!!! We loved seeing everyone and hanging out! We miss everyone so much! But we're so glad we got to see everybody! (Well, everybody who lives in Idaho. Two of Hal's brothers (and wives/kids) don't live in Idaho, so we didn't get to see them...)

We showed up in Idaho (we flew from Houston to Idaho Falls) on Monday, the 21st, and were there until the next Tuesday. We got to spend time with both of our families: in Idaho Falls, Victor, Pocatello, Rexburg, and Blackfoot.

While hanging with the Allen family, we went to Pocatello (where Sky and Lacey live with their 2 girls) and had a family dinner with all of us: Dad, Mom, seven kids, 2 spouses, 1 girlfriend, and 3 small children (Sky and Lacey's 2 girls and a little boy Lacey tends during the day). Sadly, I don't have a picture of it... *cry* :( But there were lots of us! And it was super fun!

Sky and Lacey (mostly Lacey, but Sky helped pick fabric and provided encouragement) made Hal and I the most awesome-est blanket EVER for our bed! It's all pretty and WOW and has my favorite colors: hot pink, lime green, and yellow! And it made me want to cry (happy tears) when I saw it. Thanks Lacey!!! You're the bestest! I love it! It's the most gorgeous blanket ever! :)I copied this picture from Lacey's blog. She took this of us when we opened it. (I'm the girl in the middle of the couch... just in case you didn't know! Hal's sitting on my left. Seated on my other side is my brother Zac, he's 10. Standing on the right side of the picture is Ben, he's 18, and my 2 year old niece.)
It is a huge blanket! We have a California King size bed, and it totally drowns it! (That's how blankets should be, but still!) Anyways, pictures doesn't do the quilt justice... it's way prettier in person! And for some reason we can't get the cameras to show what I think looks like the real red, hot pink, orange, and lime green in the same shot! It's frustrating! But such is life! At least I can take pictures of it! :)

At the Allen house, in Victor, we did lots of stuffs! First off we got to talk and talk and talk. That's the best part about going home to see family: just talking! But we also played games: Kings in the Corner, Phase 10, Five Crowns, and Buzzword... I think that was it, maybe? Who knows! I get all mixed up!
Unfortunately my oldest brothers seem to have "stolen" their copies of Risk from my parents house, so we couldn't play Risk with my 'little' brother, Jake (he's 12) - total bummer! It's the only game he really wanted to play!

We also got to go for a snow machine ride up Pole Canyon. (It's a road that's right by my parents house, it runs right up into Targhee National Forest. Hal took lots of pictures. It was gorgeous!
I picked a lovely "flower bouquet" for my mother from the woods. (Shh!!! Don't tell on me! Although, I don't think they'd actually mind, since everything was dead!...) It consisted of frozen weeds. It actually was quite pretty!
Here's me, picking my flowers. Sadly enough, this expression (or one similar) is fairly common in our pictures of me... *sigh*... Apparently I walk around with weird-o looks all day...
One of my flowers... it's pretty, huh?
Because Hal is always behind the camera, we have very few pictures of him. However, we did take this one of him, while up there...

And this next picture...
Anyone know what we're looking at here? Right in the center of the picture... Guesses?
I'll tell you at the end of the post! :)

We also went for a sleigh ride. On this:
My parents, if you don't know, live (and own jointly with my Dad's brother) on a dairy farm. The farm has a sleigh which is pulled by horses, that they use to haul hay to the cattle that winter in the field behind the farm.
Jake, riding on a sled pulled behind the sleigh.
My Dad, and brothers David, Ben, Jake, and Zac "accompanied" us on our cold outing. They worked, I played!
Ben, David, and Zac. Dad is in the background.
That's me! Playing! One of my favorite things to do as a kid, was ride behind the sleigh.


Hal took this from inside the house, after we went back inside and they had to do another run...

We also got to help make a Christmas present for ourselves, from my mom... it's something that apparently she's been wanting to make for the last couple of years, and hasn't gotten to it. Mom had my Dad and brother cut some blocks that were like 4 inches square.
There was some uneven edges, so Dad got out his hacksaw to cut them off... it was kind of funny. I love how my Mom is holding the block so my Dad can saw one edge off. Sounds safe, doesn't it? Then Mom and Mem sanded them smooth with the electric sander (after Mom, Mem, Hal, and I had spent over an hour sanding by hand - and not getting very much sanded, one of my brothers came in and said "why aren't you using the electric sander?" Hmmm... So Mem used that for a while. It was a lot faster!)
After they were all smooth, Hal and I got to paint them!
I actually love painting so this was no hardship for me. Except the stencils. I had my first run-in with stencils. It went awful! Ugh! Stencils!
So, you take your blocks, sand them smooth, paint them red, and then stencil on letters to spell things like
and We made it so that one side said one, and the other side said the other, so you can put it in the window and read one word from the outside and another word from the inside.
Cute, huh? We had fun making them!

My mom had to work on Christmas Day, so they did Christmas presents and stuff on Christmas Eve. It was fun to be there for that! Good times, good times! I love how excited everyone gets, and how happy everyone is! It was hilarious to watch the antics of my family! Zac (he's 10) had David (he's 26) for Christmas this year, and he made David Chex mix. (Well, to be fair Mom helped... a lot...) And then Memorie (she's 22) "helped" Zac make up a treasure hunt for David to find his Chex mix. It was hilarious! David was finding notes, and Zac's trying to help him find the container of Chex mix, but he doesn't actually know where the clues are pointing to, since Mem made up the clues. It was really funny!

After we did the present thing at my parents house, we packed up and headed to Rexburg to Hal's parents house for Christmas with them.
Bradbury family adventures will be its own post.

While we were at the Bradbury house, I took a morning and went down to Pocatello again to see Lacey and the girls. It was super to see them again and spend a few hours with them. I got to see the 1 year old walk! She wasn't walking when we were down there on the 21st, but the next week she was walking all over the place! It was super fun! Boy kids do grow up fast! :)

Anyways, that's half of Christmas vacation! Wow! More on the other half later... after I get it written...
Back to this picture:
What are we looking at here?

It's my parents house! Right in the middle! This was taken when we went up into the forest (Targhee National Forest) while at my parents house.