Here's what went on:
We all first met in Utah where we attended Addie's Christmas dance recital. William's sister, Melissa met us there. We laughed and had a wonderful time that night.
We drove to Island Park the next day, and our children met us there. Cecil, William's brother was very generous to let us use his four snowmobiles. Everyone had a great time riding them! We were grateful it snowed, and I was grateful it didn't snow too much so that the roads were safe and dry!
We spent a whole week with our children and grandchildren at our family cabin in Island Park. We had a very special and memorable time while together! We were all able to talk to Tanner on the phone on Christmas Day and that certainly was a highlight for us all. He's doing so well and we're so proud of him.
We were concerned and dependent on the Lord when my mother entered the hospital on Christmas Eve with great pain. She was put in the ICU on a major pain drip and two days later had emergency gall bladder surgery. I was able to be with her some in the hospital, and we are grateful she is recovering now! I was also grateful all our children were able to visit mom and see her.
A fun memory to share is that we cut down our Christmas tree in Island Park. It's a tree we'll always remember because it had two trunks and few branches, but a lot of pine cones! We decorated the tree with old fashioned decorations including stringed popcorn.
William's brother, Kreg and his wife Sue came to visit us at the cabin and William and Kreg had some bonding time in the snow!
Our family had a lot of fun playing "Minute to win it," "The Bubblegum game," "Zip, Zip, Bong" ( I won that one), and our traditional Christmas Bingo.
We cooked and ate delicious food. We watched movies, listened to Christmas music, and sat around and talked.
We made cookies, cocoa krispie gingerbread houses, and tortilla snowflakes. We drank lots of hot cocoa.
Sarah, our daughter-in-law took photos for our family and for each individual family. They were taken on our cabin's back porch. I can't wait to get them to post them.
We celebrated Jeffrey's, Ryan's and William's birthdays. Bart, William's brother invited us (and all other siblings) to his home to celebrate William's birthday and fed us pizza, birthday cake and ice cream. It was very kind!
We also visited Ron and Kari and Melissa at their homes and enjoyed being with them!
We spent a few days at William's parent's home and spent some wonderful times with them. We also visited with our sister-in-law Michele, and our nephew Bryan, although it was in the Idaho Falls hospital.
Overall, it was such a terrific vacation. Our children are getting older now and are wanting to have Christmas in their own homes, so we may not be together at Christmas for some time. So, this was especially wonderful!
3 comments:
Sounds like my kind of family bonding. So happy you could have this time with your children before, as you say, they start having Christmas at their own homes. This is a Christmas you will cherish. It looks just magical. I love the tree -so kooky that it becomes a favorite.
So happy for you, dear friend.
Thanks for posting these Mother. I love the one of Chloe making a funny face. We loved being with you guys and can't wait to do it again.
Awesome post! We're glad we could spend time with you. We appreciate that you were so dedicated to taking pictures. It's easy to not do it when we're having fun. Thanks for all you did to make it memorable.
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