Christmas 2022

     Another great Christmas in the books with all our kiddos home for the season.  With Christmas being on Sunday this year, we did a few things out of order--they got to open their stockings on Christmas Eve (since that's where all the candy is for our traditional Christmas movie at Harkins) and headed out to see "Puss in Boots" at the theatre.  Here they are are in their Christmas Eve pajamas.  

Just a cute Christmas Eve pic with Honcho & Carlie

    

    Christmas morning sure looked different this year.  We had church at 9 am so we slept in until we had to go to church.  Carlie played an oboe solo (What Child Is This?) and AFTER church we went home to open presents--10 years ago, our kids would have been up at 5 am and had everything open before church began:). Here's some of pics from this:  

Max's "Senior Quilt"

Max with his quilt and "Sheba Pillow"

Max doing what Max does...

Just couldn't resist, he is the PERFECT color for this!

Cutest lil' devil EVER!!!

This was our 2022 Christmas card:

    I don't know when our family will be together like this again so I have really been doing my best to cherish each and every day that I've had with them this break--our daily car/errand running/singing Christmas songs at the tops of our lungs trips have been my favorite part of the break so far.  I just love these kiddos of mine.  We're headed out on a family trip next week and I cannot wait!

Max & Ricky BLOW UP:)

 Our home is FILLED with teenage boys most weekends and we LOVE IT!!!  Max has a talent of bringing groups together that would probably never meet any other way.  This past weekend he had his "Branch Boys" along with his "Mesa Buds" and even a long time "Theatre Bud" all together at our house for a Mountain Dew party.  About 11 pm they tell us that they are going to a gas station to "make a TikTok."  We said it was fine as long as they didn't do anything stupid.  Well here is what they made that night--and it currently has over 162,000 views and 45,000 likes.  Now I'm not up on my TikTok knowledge but apparently that's pretty good.  I personally just think it's a dang cute/clever video.  Nice job boys:)

Ethan Graduates from BYUI!

     Chris and I have our first COLLEGE GRADUATE!!!  Ethan graduated high school with his Associates Degree in 2020 and 2.5 short years later, he graduated from BYUI with his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science.  He interned for Intel this past summer in AZ and was offered a full time position (plus a huge sign-on bonus) to come work for them full-time upon graduation.  

    We braved the cold as we flew up to Provo, UT to meet up with Carlie and then drive up to Rexburg, ID for the big event.  Funny travel story--we stopped at a gas station in McAmmon, ID to fill up with gas.  Chris set his phone on top of the car to warm up his hands.  He forgot it was there and off we drove.  As we were getting onto the freeway on ramp I heard something slide off the roof of the car.  I even asked, "What was that?"  We all assumed ice and kept on driving.  About 10 minutes after that, Chris realized what he had done.  I immediately tracked the phone's location and saw that we were getting further and further from it.  I called the gas station and an attendant went out by the gas pumps to look all around for the the phone but did not find it.  We were already running late and didn't want to miss the ceremony so we kept on driving--we made it just in time.  We had already decided to drive all the way back to Provo that same night so 7 hours later we returned to the same gas station (in the dark) to search for the phone.  It's pretty amazing how accurate "Find My Phone" is!  Chris and Ethan were walking along the on ramp and saw they were getting close.  Ethan called the phone and thankfully the phone landed face up so it lit right up and THEY FOUND IT!!!  The phone was miraculously in perfect condition--not even a crack in the screen.  And no one had picked it up!!!  

    So here we are at BYUI for Ethan's graduation--we even got to meet and sit with his cute girlfriend, Doran, the whole time.  We like her lots:)

To say we are proud is a HUGE understatement.  Way to go E.💙💙💙

Max's Senior Winter Formal

     This is a "girl-ask-guy" dance.  Max was asked pretty quickly after Homecoming--the girls work a lot faster than the boys do at Heritage.  Max was asked by Sammi Taylor.  She came late at night with a whole basketball-themed poster and ball to ask:

    And in true Max/over-the-top fashion, he answered with a life-sized "Rocky."  (He was much shorter than Max thought😂)

    

    The theme for the dance was "Iced-Out" so Max and Sammi ordered matching blingy necklaces.  One of Carlie's roommates described it perfectly when she said, "He looks like he's going to his Italian Uncle's funeral."  Max LOVED how he looked:

    And once again--being the boy mom--I don't get any good pictures of Max and his date.  All I get is Max and his guys.

Kyle & Max

Hyrum, Kyle, & Max

Kyle, Bryce, & Max

Austin & Max

Max & Ricky

    And like always, Max was the"hype man" and apparently caused quite the scene/mosh pit as he and Ricky acted out Taylor Swift's "Love Story."  So glad someone caught this film.  Enjoy Max proposing to his BFF Ricky:  (don't know how these two are ever going to go on missions and marry OTHER people someday:)

Thanksgiving 2022

    We spent another great Thanksgiving at my little brother's house in Spanish Fork, UT.  My dad came with us this year.  We flew this year because Chris's company had a ton of Frontier flight credit to use up before then end of the year.  I was a little nervous to fly the day before Thanksgiving but it was actually a pleasant experience with on-time flights both ways.  

HILARIOUS airport story and how I WISH I had a video:  We landed in Salt Lake City.  Chris and Tatum hurried on ahead to get our rental car.  Max and I hung back to walk slower with Papa Frank.  We came up thru the security area there was a HUGE crowd of people most obviously waiting for a Missionary to return.  There were signs, balloons, banners, & video cameras (one camera looked like a news station camera).  We were walking through this crowd feeling a little awkward because we were definitely not who they were waiting for when Max says out loud, "Is this ALL for me???  HOW did you know I was coming!!!  OH MY GOSH I LOVE UTAH!!!"  With that several people began applauding and cheering for him--it was loud enough that Chris and Tatum heard the cheering all the way over in baggage claim.  I was just laughing and saying "Please don't encourage the kid..."  Max just knows how to work a crowd.

    We ate LOTS of good food and just had a great time being together.  Travis started a new tradition of "Ugly Thanksgiving Shirts."  Not sure how to ever top these but I'll have to try.  My shirt has a picture of a goose and it says, "Geese are kinda my thing!"  This is just in reference to my traumatic childhood experiences growing up with geese--I HATE THEM more than any other animals on the planet.  When the Bible talks about "flying fiery serpents" I'm pretty sure they were describing geese.  Travis loves to tease me about this every chance he gets.  But hey, I'm a good sport so I proudly wore that awful shirt all day:)

    Travis's kids just got a new karaoke machine that we got to listen to all weekend long.  But here's a cute video of Taylee singing "I See the Light" (from Tangled) with Max.

 

Our new dog--"Honcho"

    Well, we went about a month with Lola being an only dog and it didn't go well.  She was lonely and tried to leave with us every time we went out to the garage to go anywhere.  I joined a couple "re-homing" groups on Facebook to start looking for a playmate for her.  Normally I would have just picked a new puppy out of my next litter but since I took my job at Heritage this year, I just don't have time to train a new puppy--and I'm taking this year off of puppy fostering.  I needed an "instant" good dog.  After about a month of watching....I found one!!!  

    Meet "Honcho."  He is a 105 pound Lab/Vizsla/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix and a 100% goofy good boy.  We fell in love with him instantly.  He was well-loved before but his owners were having to move into a smaller apartment and Honcho was a little too big to go with them.  He's such a happy dog and have just fit in perfectly into our home.  Just check him out:

    To illustrate what a good boy this dog is, I will tell you what we came home to last Sunday.  It had rained all day on Saturday and we have an area in our yard by our pool that we tore the decking out of this summer as the wood was rotting.  We need to get some more concrete/decking poured but just haven't gotten to it yet.  So it was a huge mud pit.  Lola looses her mind with mud.  It had been a really LONG weekend and I was really looking forward to a nice Sunday nap...

    
So do you see the difference of the amount of mud on Lola verses Honcho???  That tiny spot of mud on the back of his ear is all that I found on him!  He probably only got that much on him when he was trying to tell her to GET OUT of the mud!

     Thankfully Chris was out of town and I had Max and Tatum home to help me--it took Max about 45 minutes to get all that mud out of her fur😅 Tatum and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning.  No naps but I guess it was a least a good laugh.