Christmas in Utah

We're back from another fun trip to Utah. We left New York on the Saturday before Christmas. There is no nonstop flight from Albany to Salt Lake City, so we have to have a connection somewhere. Unfortunately, this time we connected through Chicago which, in retrospect, was not a good idea in the winter....three days before Christmas. Needless to say, we did not make our connection in Chicago due to heavy fog there, so we were scrambling for seats on any flight to Salt Lake that day (along with hundreds of other folks!). We did make it on a flight later that night - arriving only 9 hours later than we had planned! Jake and Nicole were kind enough to be flexible, and they picked up us at the airport on Saturday night.

Monday we had a "Girls Day Out", when all the girls in the family (including little Abby!) took a shopping trip to the Park City outlet mall. It was a lot of fun, and we did some great bargain shopping! I have to say, Dave and I reared some highly trained cheapskates - and our married kids wisely chose spouses who are great bargain hunters as well!

We spent Christmas Eve in Heber, and were joined by Matt, Amy, Jeff, and Rachel. It was lots of fun.

Christmas evening the family gathered at our home in Heber, and we enjoyed a Christmas dinner and present exchange. Lots of great socks were given, and the company was lovely too! The highlight of the present exchange probably had to be the "dad" shirts that all the boys in the family received. As you can see by the pictures, they were a great hit. I'm not sure the shirts will ever be worn again, but they were good for some laughs.

Later on that week Dave and I tried cross country skiing up at Sundance. It was very rustic, and very beautiful! The whole family also went snowmobiling out at Strawberry Reservoir. We had a lot of fun - even though it was incredibly cold that day!


The best part of the trip, of course, was catching up with all of the kids - they're all doing great! Rob and Mindy are wonderful parents. Abby is walking around like a pro now, and she was even very tolerant of all of us who wanted to hold her, have her blow kisses at us, and play with her. She's a real cutie! We can hardly wait to add Matt and Amy's little boy to our grandchild collection. It's going to be so much fun to have a little boy to spoil too! Amy makes a very cute pregnant mommy! Jake and Nicole are doing great too - their condo looks cute with all the painting and upgrades they've made. Jeff and Rachel entertained Bekah for an afternoon, and Bekah loved hanging out with them - they're always lots of fun.

In fact, Bekah loves being with her all of her siblings so much that she was very sad to have to leave Utah to come back to the frozen wastelands of New York state. And Dave and I felt pretty much the same way!