Christmas Eve

We went to church on Sunday morning.  We sang Gesu Bambino with all our family during the sacrament meeting of Sam and Audrey's ward.  Since church was only the first hour on Christmas Eve, we also then stayed for the sacrament meeting of Daniel and Ashley's ward.  

Later, we had a big feast for dinner at Audrey and Sam's house.  We got to video chat with Nathan for a little bit, but I felt bad for him because they didn't have anything for dinner that night.  The member meal that was supposed to come that evening didn't make it until lunch the next day.  Their stove ran out of fuel or something so they couldn't cook anything until they got that re-filled the next day.  I was feeling guilty for our big feast when they had nothing.  

We had a fun Christmas Eve.  Audrey and Sam have a tradition of doing a puppet show.  They give about 30 minutes for everyone to make a puppet of one of the characters or props in the story.  Then Sam reads the story while doing a live video feed to FaceBook.  There's no practicing and only a short time to make the puppets.  This year was Charlie Brown's Christmas.  

After the puppet show, the tradition is to do a candy game, which is pretty hilarious.  Everyone brings a wrapped candy bar or candy, which also has an envelope with a random amount of money in it.  It's white elephant style for choosing a candy to un-wrap.  The unwrapped candy can be stolen up to 3 times before it's locked (the person gets to keep it without being stolen again).  At the end, everyone then opens their envelope to see what money they received along with their candy.  We had some creative wrapping, with at least one of them wrapped multiple times.  Noah had to unwrap several layers (and I didn't even get the final candy on video).  Hazel opened up gummy hotdogs, which were hilarious.  Papa actually stole those from Hazel, and then Evelyn stole them from Papa.  

Savannah wasn't happy to lose her Sour Punch straws right at the end to Ashley (who went first).  I ended up offering my "Sour Patch Kids" candy to her in exchange for Watermelon Sour Patch, but when Ashley realized that Savannah was really sad, she just gave the Sour Punch back to her.  It turns out that my "Sour Patch Kids" was just the box with other candy inside.  So Savannah would have been really upset with the contents.  I had tried to give Ashley the "Sour Patch Kids" but she knew what the contents were since they were the ones who wrapped that one up.  The joke came back around to her!  She actually wouldn't take any of the candy back, so I ended up with a Million Dollar chocolate bar AND the watermelon sour punch, and Savannah got the Sour Punch Straws.  Alex ended up with a giant Reeses Peanut Butter cup bars.  I'm not sure what candy ended up where, but there was also a giant Kit Kat Bar going around. 

Alison and Micah both ended up getting a $20 bill with their candy.  The whole thing was quite hilarious!

Christmas Vacation - Seaworld

We spent one day at Seaworld with Audrey's and Ashley's families.  We pretty much started off with a roller coaster ride, which turned out to be too much for Savannah.  It was called the Steel Eel, and I didn't like it very much either because of the steep ups and downs.  Savannah was pretty much done with rides after that, but we managed to talk her into riding one other one.  The Wave Breaker was a little more mild, and she liked that one.  We watched several shows the rest of the time.  Here is a compilation of the sea life shows.  We also watched a Live Nativity, with lots of singing, some live animals, and doves released at the end of the show.  It was really good. I liked the Christmas lights up throughout the park too.   

Seaworld Shows

The picture of Savannah and Mason is the START of the ride - she was still smiling at that point, because she had no idea what she was in for...

Christmas Vacation Misc

Audrey gave Owen a custom-made water bottle, to resemble the one he saw in Yosemite but didn't get.  He was pretty excited about it!  

The boys enjoyed hanging out playing games.  We played some dodgeball, kickball, and the adults went out to eat at Whiskey Cake restaurant.  

Christmas Vacation - Downtown San Antonio

 We spent one day in downtown San Antonio, starting the morning off with service at the Salvation Army.  We transferred a couple pallets of things to another room.  We then worked on preparing several bags of food.  We had a pretty efficient assembly line going to get the bags filled.  After the Salvation Army, we had lunch at Savvy Sliders.  Then we headed to the Riverwalk and the Alamo.  The Lego replica was a hit, made of over 50,000 pieces.  Weston left his hedgehog along the Riverwalk.  It fit perfectly in a spot along the way.  

Christmas Vacation - Birthday Party

We made it to Texas late Monday night on the 18th.  One of our first activities of our vacation was a birthday party for Savannah with her cousins.  Audrey did a hedgehog themed party, which was so cute.  We painted hedgehogs on rocks, which we later hid in random places throughout the city for other kids to find and re-hide somewhere else.  We had dinner, cake, ice cream, and went to the Lego Store to buy more Legos, as if we didn't have enough already... Savannah got some more cute Calico Critters too.

December Birthdays

We celebrated Owen's birthday right before our Christmas travels.  It wasn't a friend party year, so we just did his requested meals, with one of those going out to eat.  He finally got his long-awaited Lego set, which he knew he was getting because he paid for part of it.  He's pretty good at bargaining for what he wants.  His friends Jack and Grace made him a customized shirt, which he loves (there was a big discussion previously about the difference between storm troopers and clones). Owen wanted key lime pie and rootbeer floats for dessert.   

Since we were traveling, we decided to have Savannah open her birthday presents before we left, so we wouldn't have to cart them along.  We celebrated her birthday later with two parties. 

December Misc

We had a fun ward Christmas party, with dinner, dessert, and program.  The missionaries did the program, which made me think of Nathan and how he was probably doing similar things to serve.  I made cookie cups to contribute to the dessert. 

The youth had a fun hayride and caroling activity.  They also did a white elephant gift exchange activity.  The boys decided it would be hilarious to wrap up a framed picture of themselves for someone to open. They also decided it would be funny to have 3 different pictures of Owen.  Eventually, that led to Jared deciding he could do laser cut photos in wood shop at school.  They chose a few random silly pictures of Owen to use.  It did turn out to be hilarious, especially the expression on the face of the girl who opened the first picture of Owen.  She didn't even know him, so she was pretty disappointed with her gift!  However, Owen's friend stole the picture, so she didn't have to keep it.  One of Owen's youth leaders ended up with one of the pictures that he hung up in his office. 

Honoring the graduating primary kids 

(which became my new kids in the 11-13 year old Sunday School class)

Just a few random pics and a video of silly times...