Happy New Year!!

A new Year and I'm ready to start it...but it doesn't help that the last 2 days I've kids home sick...what is it with getting sick after having 2 weeks off of school ;)

The week after Christmas wasn't too much different than the week before...rain...staying inside...punctuated with family and friends (my favorite part of the holidays).

I was feeling a little melancholy this year with all my family spread out all over the country so the actual face to face visit from Angela and Robert to celebrate Christmas after Christmas was great.

After opening all the goodies we brought each other...like some fun handpainted items from Angela...

and gormet foods...

and headrubs from Jacob...

We headed over to Spaghetti factory for some grub.

Luckily Jeff called ahead and we avoided the 45 minutes wait.

We haven't been there in a while....suprisingly the waitress let us buy a kids meal for Taylor, ha ha, now we have more cups for our cup collection.

It was sure nice to hang out with Angela and Robert...they are debating on taking an out of state job so I was savoring the visit in case they do.

On Wednesday afternoon I took Taylor out to exchange some stuff he got for Christmas (It's too hard at this age to shop for clothes without the kids with you) and buy him some shoes....Taylor finally cares what kind of shoes he wears...I was happy they were basically free after I used all my Kohl's Cash on them.

That afternoon Jenae got to come over for cousin time while Jeff and I and Steve and Tahna went out to Castaways with Ron Richards, his fiancee and his daughter and son-in-law who were down for the Nebraska game.

We used to do more things with Ron but it's been awhile so it was nice to see them all again.

On Thursday Jeff and Taylor met up with Dale, Steve and some of their children for a day at Magic Mountain.

I took the younger two with me and went with Andrea and her kids to Knotts Berry Farm that day. Since the other camera is lost...I don't have any pictures. It was crowded but still fun.  My favorite part of the day was the Snoopy Christmas show on Ice. We even dragged the boys to it and I think they liked it as well.

Jeff bought tickets the Magic Mountaint tickets in the summer and never went so with a couple days left of the year they had to use them.

How nice of these guys to take time of work for a fun day with their kids.

Taylor loved the rides...at least those of them that were open...I guess 4 of the best ones were closed due to the wind. So he's ready to go back again. He said "None of the rides scared me"  I don't think I could've said the same :)

On the way home of course they had to eat dinner...they went to TGIF. I can't believe how big my nieces are getting...I remember when they were babies.

What good looking guys.

The only down side of the day was the horrendously long lines. I think they waited on average 2 hours for each ride.

New Years Eve we were invited to the Vincents for a New Years Eve dinner.

Brother Vincent is studying to be a chef so dinner was wonderful that night and it was nice way to start out the evening! We even got to meet Simone's sister from Brazil and her 2 children.

Lesil was down with us for the weekend so she could go to our New Year's Eve dance so she got to come with us.

As soon as we got done we raced them home so they could get ready for the dance. They both had fun and Lesil ended up catching the attention of a few of the local boys here...I guess that happens in a ward full of boys :)

It was a "thrift store" dance so Taylor wore the hand-me-down tux from his cousin and the bow tie from the wedding he played at and he had his outfit. He said most people wore their normal clothes so he got some attention.

His favorite part was making his tie askew so the girls would come and "fix it" as soon as it was fixed he would tweak it again.

After we got Taylor to the dance and I got Jacob and Ashley settled Jeff and I headed over to the Davis' house for a New Years Eve Party.

It was fun to celebrate the coming of the New Year with a game night.  We had fun playing pictionary, Taboo and some...

Rock Band...

Jeff got to practice his drumming skills (notice the tongue out in concentration)

The Davis' were great hosts! Thanks guys we had a lot of fun!!!

New Year's Day we all slept in and then went over to the Trupp's house for a New Years Day football and food get together. We hung out for a bit eating, visiting and letting the kids play games.

Boys...

against girls!!

Afterward we went to see Gulliver Travels...it was as stupid as the reviews said it was...but fun to get out and see a movie together.

We enjoyed Lesil (here they are playing Kinect) for a couple more days. She came with us to break the fast at the Gardners and we even got her and Jarek back again on Sunday when their way home was snowed out.

After feeling a little sad about my family that isn't close I ended the week feeling very grateful for all the family and friends that we do have close. I feel that the Lord has blessed us with great people in our lives for that we are truly grateful. We love you those both near and far! Thanks for being in our lives!