This year we spent Christmas in Idaho at Paige's house. Everyone was there except for Miranda who is still serving her mission in Japan (but not for much longer). We were also able to meet Abby's boyfriend, Jaxon. A good time was had by all. The only down side was when you put that many people in a confined place someone is bound to share a sickness. That is exactly what happened. We shared snotty noses and stomach aches.
Eric and I flew into Boise on Monday night. We stayed with Isaac and Kandace that night in Boise. The next morning we all headed to Buhl. We did some last minute shopping there so we didn't have to try to fit everything in our luggage on the flight.
On Christmas eve we went to Miracle Hot Springs and had fun swimming in the hot pools. The hot water felt really good especially in the cool, crisp Idaho air. For the rest of the day we played games and made our traditional soups, clam chowder and potato. Every year we have a "program" on Christmas Eve. People share their talents through poetry, music, readings, skits, chimes or whatever their imagination can think of. This year Isaac and Kandace added some fun with a few Holiday Minute to win it games. We have a lot of fun then we put on our serious faces and end the program with thoughts of our Savior. Eric and I try to give an ornament to our kids each year that has something to do with the Savior. Eric sang Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel and we talked about the many names the Savior is know by. This year we also read The Living Christ.
Christmas morning we got up and opened presents. Everyone was grateful for the gifts they received. But the best part was Isaac go some new games and that meant we had more fun ahead of us! No Robertson get together is complete without a few rounds of trivial pursuit (Eric and I usually win). We also had an epic Risk battle. Bailey dominated the world. The highlight of the day was getting to Skype with Miranda. She looked so good and the thing that stood out to me was how happy she was.
The big girls left the little kids with the men and did a little after Christmas shopping. We found a few good sales. Mostly we were just getting Abby things that were on her Christmas list that I couldn't by for her without her trying them on; things like snow boots.
Sunday we attended church as a family and then had dinner together and after that everyone started heading home. Eric and I went back to Boise with Isaac and Kandace. Our flight was leaving at 5 AM the next morning.
We got back to Texas on Monday afternoon. I came home with a cold so we used the next few days to recover. We spent New Years at home watching a movie and eating way too much food. Eric fell asleep before midnight. Happy New Year!
Now life is back to the normal routine. Eric went back to work after being off for about 2 weeks. Then he had to head back to Kuwait for a two week trip.
Here are some photos of our Christmas fun.
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| Quilt I made for Gwen |
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| Rudolph pulling Santa in the sleigh |
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| Bailey and Chad working together to complete a bell game. |
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| Group shot after playing stick the fluff ball to your nose. We all had Vaseline on our noses and we held the string in our teeth and tried to flip the fluff ball up to stick to the Vaseline. |
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| The Snowball (Marshmallows) toss. |
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| Abby reading 'Twas the Night Before Chrismas' |
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| Christmas morning getting ready to hand out the presents |
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| Getting really psyched to open all the presents |
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| A cute girl and her dog. |
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| Another Reindeer |
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| Paige, Brent and Brooke trying to figure our the bell game |
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| This is the fluff ball game...or else a dance party with some interesting moves? |
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| The winners are Brent and Isaac! |
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| Pop Pop and Gram throwing snowballs...I think we would have done better if we could have thrown from the little kids line. We were throwing them through the center of a wreath. |
