New Years Adventures

We headed out early Saturday morning to drive to Utah for the week.

 We were greeted by a beautiful sunrise and the fog above Donner Lake.

 Once we arrived we had dinner with part of the family, played some games, and had Neilson's Frozen Custard.  (Conner was sad we only went once on our trip!)

 It was fun having RK there for the first few days of our trip!

 Sunday, we woke up to SNOW!

 Sunday night everyone came over (except Chandler's family) to have dinner and open presents.  Calissa got this darling homemade doll from Grandma and Grandpa.

 Parker, Conner and Travis got these t-shirts.

 (I caught a cold and was miserable for the first 2-3 days!)  

 Monday we went out to breakfast and then went sledding. 

 Maddie, Parker, Calissa, Logan and Conner

 Azure and Rob

 Eisley and Jarom met us on Tuesday to see a movie.  We went to see Annie.  Chan and Jen came for dinner and then they opened their presents.

 Wednesday, we went to see my Grandpa.  It was fun to visit with him for a little bit.  I also got to see my cousin Carrie and catch up with her. 

 After visiting with Grandpa we met to go ice skating.

Travis and Calissa 

 Kaisen and Jordan 

 Calissa, Trav, Parker and Kaisen

Conner and I just watched from the chilly seats!

 Wednesday was New Year's Eve.  Melanee had balloons downstairs that were labeled with an hour.  Each hour from 6-midnight we went downstairs and popped a balloon.  6:00 said to eat dinner!

 7:00, we played a game of Holiday Mad Libs.  We had some funny stories!

 8:00, Calissa got to pop it and we played New Year's Bingo.

 9:00 was Conner's turn to pop and we had dessert, wassail, and set off a firework outside.  (If you look closely you can see at the middle top of the picture part of the firework).

 10:00 was Parker's turn.  We played charades and set off another firework.

 Parker 

 Conner

 Jordan

 Rob

 Jen

 Robert 

 Trav, thinking about what he's going to do. 

11:00 was a story and another firework.

Midnight was poppers!

We made a mess!

 We had a fun time and appreciate the thought that Melanee put into New Year's Eve.  It was fun to have an activity to do each hour.  In between activities people played games, visited, watch football and played on the Wii.

Thursday morning (New Year's Day) we got up and got packed up.  Trav's family came over for a big breakfast.  We enjoyed a late breakfast and then packed up our car to head to San Diego.  We were planning on staying in Utah until Saturday, but one of the young men in our ward was getting married in the San Diego temple on Friday and had invited us to be there.

 We drove to Las Vegas on Thursday night and stayed in a brand new Marriott there.  It was pretty nice!

 Calissa loved it because she had her own space.

 We went out to a yummy pizza place, swam in the hotel pool and worked out in the gym.  We got up early the next morning and started on the road to San Diego. 

 

 We arrived in time for the sealing.  The kids did baptisms while we were attending the sealing.  It's a beautiful temple! (Morgan did baptism's with the kids too.  As there were getting their temple clothes, the cute temple worker asked Calissa, "What size do you want dear?" and the same thing to the boys.  When she got to Morgan she said, "What about you, mom?"  Morgan's mouth dropped open and our boys both turned around and laughed and laughed and laughed!  Poor Morgan!  Kids teased her about that for the rest of the trip!  (Take it as a compliment Morgan!  You just act so much more mature!)

 After the wedding, we hopped back in the car to head about 45 miles north to our hotel which was by the reception.  Because of the lovely LA traffic, it took us almost 2 hours and we barely had time to check in before we headed out for the reception. 

 Here is Travis, Graham and Melissa 

 It was fun that the March's were there too!

Saturday morning we got up, packed up the car, and headed back home to Concord!  We had a great whirlwind trip and put over 2000 miles on our car.  We were glad we could spend time with family and also be able to attend Graham's sealing in San Diego!