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Christmas & New Years

Christmas! New Years!

It was a white Christmas, we got probably a foot overnight and that was joyous!

I did not know how much Truman would understand Christmas or if he would be excited about his bike or what, but he was so excited about his bike and got right on and rode it around! It was the absolute epitome of my Christmas miracle. I loved it. 

Burton did good rolling around and eating wrapping paper!

Truman totally got into the present thing and was thrilled about his books and gun. And bike!

Burton got his first tooth for Christmas!

We had many joyous family partyings on Christmas and it kicked our bums. The next morning all four of us were sick. 

But we still did manage to have a good end of the year.

I did not take pictures, but we had a relaxing visit in St. George with Melo and Mom and we stayed up until 3 on New Year's with the Carters and it was great and fun! 

It has been so warm that Billy is still able to work some, but he has also done some good kitchen work. We have pulls on our cabinets!!! What a whole new world! And i made some curtains out of our old sheets. It has already changed the kitchen. I can't wait for a backsplash!

Ok, caught up, phew!

Tennessee & Illinois

What a joyous trip around the family tree! And thank you a billion time to M&D for making it all happen, and especially being able to take Truman. That was a blast. 

Our first stop was Tennessee and it was so great! I wish that we could've stayed longer and had more time to spend with the Perezes. We had a wonderful little picnic and hike and I got to go running and the blessing was beautiful and playing Tichu was the bomb (get it?) and Genevieve and Eliana were the cutest, best girls. 

I clearly did not take enough pictures, but we had such fun! We even had a fun little gift exchange, which was definitely a highlight. 

Illinois was so great. I have loved my previous visits their and the connection I feel to our legacy and such and so I was especially glad to take my boys there so they could get a feel of it. Especially since one of them is Burton!  

Hanging with Minnie in the old house was the best. She is such a hoot!

Dad gave us an even better tour of the property than I had received before. This is a walnut tree he hopes to someday come and make a gun stock out of. 

The Billys at the ponds. 

John on a John

Truman looooved Felix, Minnie's cat. He was a very good, tolerant cat. 

Minnie and Burton! I loved it! And I think she did too. And I think he did too haha kind of. 

Minnie's house was such a great portion of the trip, so priceless. I'm so glad we made it out there with Burton and got to hear so many great stories that if Dad doesn't hurry up and compile into a book I certainly am going to. 

 On our way up to Chicago we stopped at the Lincoln Museum, of course. It was even better than the previous times I have visited. 

Then we got to see Grandpa Chuck and Orowan! That was a definite highlight too, and I think Chuck loved having the boys there. It was cool to hear his stories too, even though i was hoping Truman wouldn't terrorize their house too much the whole time. He didn't, phew! 

What a whirlwind! Mom was a champ traveling with Truman and Burton once again was a champion traveler. What good boys! THANK YOU THANK YOU for a wonderful family history trip, M&D. 

The day after we came home we had the Lamberts and Martha Harding over for lunch and that was also so great! It was fun to see how much Grant and Truman are alike since they share an exact birthday! And it was so great to catch up with Kellie and Zac. They are gems. 

Another great trip! Love Illinois!

Alaska!!!

We had such fun in Alaska! The only thing that could've made it better was if Truman could've come. But we had such fun.

We got there in time to take what we thought would be a quick drive up to Fairbanks. It was not quick. And there are a billion and one moose on the roads! We saw at least 6 on our drive up there and more the rest of the trip! 

We saw the very faintest trace of Northern Lights on our way up. I wish, wish, wish we had seen more!

The first morning we were there we went and saw the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and it was really cool and crazy! It goes all the way from the north to the south of the state and there it was! It was so cool! 

We also went ice fishing and it was the best! We caught 5 fish and one of them was a delicious salmon!

We went back to our place and cooked up the fish and they were sooo good!

We went to North Pole, AK! It was such a cute, fun little place. Every kind of Christmas and Alaska souvenir you could want. I loved it. 

And THE Santa. Cus we were at the North Pole, you know.

They wree having their annual ice festival there and the ice carving was CRAZY! And horrifying! 

Look at this train. Look at this smoke. That is all ice. Crazy.

And they had Santa's real reindee there! They were such interesting animals!

The next day we drove down to Denali and did some snowshoeing. That was fantastic! There were fresh moose signs all over! I was sure we were going to run into one of them.  

We spent our last day and night in Anchorage and that was so fun and so pretty.  

This was the lake by the place we stayed at (Mormons owned it, so that was awesome too!) This picture was taken at like 930 in the morning. Still so dark! It was just wild. 

In Anchorage I ran a 5k! My 16th state! It was a fun race through a cool forest. 

After the race we went and finally, finally caught our long-awaited glimpse of Denali! It was the BEST! You can't even see it, but we could! 

We went and hiked a loop of Flattop Mountain, upon which we saw another moose and which was exhilarating and beautiful. 

Then we took a drive out to a wildlife conservation center and the drive was absolutely amazing. So much of our driving up to this point had been in the dark and very bleak and unchanging, but man! This was incredible. 

And the place where we ended up was wild! ICE!

We went to see the Anchorage temple afterwards and it was so cute. But the highlight was definitely that the stake center in whose parking lot the temple resides was hosting a nativity showcase, which included the best live nativity I have ever seen. It was a highlight for sure! 

We made it happily home the next morning and were so glad to be reunited with Truman. Burton was a champ on the whole trip and we were so grateful we could take a fun adventure. Thank you Mom & Dad!!!