Christmas 2014 in Utah

We finished off our year of 2014 with celebrating Christmas with family in Utah. We ended our family vacation with the drive up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We love getting together there because everyone comes and we are all together in Grandma's house and are able to visit, play games, eat food, relax, and let the kids play. 

The roads were nice and clear as we drove, no snow surprisingly, but it did snow Christmas morning so we had a white Christmas which the kids loved. My girls had to get out and play at least until they got too cold, which didn't take very long.

Aubrey enjoyed playing with my phone and spent one afternoon having a photo shoot of everything in Grandma's house with the help of her two assistants, Taryn and Lucy. I had to delete a lot of pictures that were so close up of whatever she was shooting, that you couldn't even tell what it was. Here were some of my favorites of her helpers.

Everyone got matching pajamas to open on Christmas Eve again this year and they all looked so cute in their stripes. Even the Moms had stripey pajamas. The Dads had shirts that said they were on the naughty list this year which was pretty funny.

Christmas morning is always fun with everyone together. Santa always comes through and gets everyone what they asked for. Here are my girls with their Santa gifts - tablets for Abby and Tessa, a LeapPad for Aubrey, and a cash register for Taryn.

We did the traditional pinata with each of the grandkids getting a turn to hit it starting from the youngest. Here are some shots of our girls taking their turns. We of course have to divide the candy out later to make sure everyone gets their fair share.

 

The grandkids also put on the nativity with the older kids in charge of putting it all together. Tyler seems to always get cast as the donkey. And here are two of my angels. I pretty much love Taryn's pose. We always have a lot of angels with all the girls we have.

We also had our annual talent show. Everyone does something and this year my girls were prepared in advance. They had been practicing their numbers weeks before we left on our trip. Taryn and I did a duet of Jingle bells. I sang the verses and she sang the chorus. It was cute, but since I was in it, no picture. Aubrey sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Tessa sang a song also. She sang All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth which was awesome because she had the missing teeth for it. Abby performed multiple times. She played Silent Night on the piano while singing it in Japanese. She also did a duet on the piano with Anna that they prepared a couple days before Christmas and she did a singing duet with Sara that I think they prepared the day of the talent show.

 

The exciting event of the weekend was going ice skating. My girls had never been before but were excited to try. They were definitely frustrated at first, but with the help of the little pushers and sometimes from Grandpa and Mom and Dad, they were getting the hang of it by the end and said it was fun. Tyler, who is not a skater, was also a little nervous about going but he picked it up quickly and was great at helping push the little ones around. Taryn thought it was awesome because she just hooked her feet under the pusher, held on by her arms and just took a ride-no work required for her!

 I thought it was a lot of fun except for the scabs we ended up with above our ankles from the boots rubbing against our legs. Abby, Tessa, and I had it the worst and getting it wet in the shower was like torture. I felt really bad because I gave Tessa a hard time who wouldn't shower because she said it hurt, but I didn't realize how painful it really was until the next morning when I took my own shower. I had to apologize to her because she was right - the water on it really hurt!

Since we spent quite a bit of time at the rink, the kids were getting creative and really finding ways to skate and have fun. They all said they'd go back and do it again, painful legs and all!

 We drove home after the Christmas break and spent the rest of the school break at home as a family. We did New Years on our own and had fun playing with our new toys from Christmas and playing games and eating appetizer foods all day and night until the New Year came. I also got a New Year's Eve present - a new phone after my old one decided to take a swim in our freezing cold pool. I was not happy about it, but luckily I was up for an upgrade so it didn't cost to much. I have learned to leave my phone inside the house when I clean the pool now. Lesson learned!

Abby made it to the new year again and Tessa was super close. She asked for some of the bubbly drink about 15 minutes to midnight so she could try it and then fell asleep missing the New Year by like 10 minutes. We had a great 2014 year and can't wait to see what the year 2015 will bring.

THE Vacation (Part 3) - Las Vegas

The final portion of our vacation as we headed to Grandma and Grandpas for the Christmas holiday was a stop in Las Vegas. Since Tyler and I had made a few trips to Las Vegas for anniversaries, the girls have always wanted to go there too. They've seen our pictures and photo books and wanted to visit some of the places we had been to like the Bellagio fountains, the world's largest chocolate fountain, and the huge M&M store. We were excited to take the girls through there from our drive from California to Utah. We even ended up staying in the Excalibur hotel so we were happy to tell the girls that we would be staying in a castle hotel! This was the best picture I got with the hotel behind the family.

We got into Vegas really late after our last day in Legoland, but we woke up the girls so they could see the strip with all the lights on. They thought all the lights were pretty cool. The smokey smell all around was our least favorite part of course and even with all the cool buildings and attractions, it was a little weird noticing how different Las Vegas is from Disneyland. We spent the morning walking through some of the hotels with our main destination being the Bellagio with all of its Christmas decorations and its crepe store which is where we had breakfast. We took the tram between a couple hotels and walked through the Aria which has all the Crystals hanging that I thought the girls would like. This second picture was a car totally decked out with jewels that I believe said it was one of Liberace's cars. 

The main Lobby of the Bellagio hotel is still one of my favorite places because of the blown glass flowers on the ceiling. The girls had only ever seen pictures of it, so it was fun to finally show them in person. The Christmas decorations and huge Christmas tree were also fun to see. It was even decorated a little differently from when Tyler and I had been there four years ago.

Some things like the train around the tree and houses complete with smoking chimneys were the same.

Aubrey wanted her picture taken by everything. We loved the moving penguins but they took forever to peek out of their igloo so it was hard to get the girls to look at me for a picture when all they wanted was to see the penguins.

Our final destination was crepes for breakfast that were huge and delicious. This is where the world's largest chocolate fountain also resides. Abby wanted her picture taken here just like the one we have of Tyler. 

As we walked through other hotels and shopping areas, we stopped to take a few pictures by their Christmas decorations. These were some of our favorites.

We also did a fair amount of walking outside the hotels and showing the girls all the cool things about the hotels like the mini-Eiffel Tower and the huge Harley bike.

While walking through one of the shopping centers, we stopped to watch the Rainstorm that happens inside the mall. It was over a pond area and it really rains complete with thunder and lightening. We had to wait a few minutes for it to start, so we took some pictures. I even had Abby take a few so Tyler and I could be in a couple shots. All the ceilings are painted to look like outside, so I liked this picture of me and Tyler under the "blue sky" that's really just the mall ceiling.

Our final stops were the M&M and Hershey stores which are right across the street from one another. The Hershey store was new to me and Tyler, but we all loved seeing all the things you can buy made from chocolate. These colorful pictures were some of my favorites from the trip.

The girls liked the Statue of Liberty made from chocolate and we thought the world's largest chocolate bars that were for sale were a bit extreme. They were huge but they were also 50 bucks!

This final picture has a funny story to go along with it to just clarify my point of how different Las Vegas is from Disneyland. The girls got to pick out their own M&Ms from the M&M store and as Tyler finished paying, the girls and I started walking outside. It was still early for Las Vegas, so people were still starting to fill up the streets including the people dressed up like characters. The girls wanted their picture with Hello Kitty and with a Despicable Me minion that was right next to Hello Kitty, and me being in the Disneyland mind frame just went "Ok. Let's take pictures." As the girls filed in next to Hello Kitty while I got my camera ready, Tyler came out kind of upset and hissing in my ear that we have to pay. I hadn't even thought about it, but afterwards realized he was right. These people expected tips to take pictures with them. So this picture cost more than any of the pictures we got with all the princesses and characters in California, so every time I see it, I think how it should be framed or something. And because we had to tip Hello Kitty, we couldn't take any more pictures, which made the girls sad because they probably would have rather had their picture taken with the minion. Oh well. The joys of Las Vegas!

This was the final stop of our family vacation, although it was two days until Christmas so our fun was still getting started. We finished the rest of the Christmas break with family in Utah and had a fun time with family and enjoying the holiday, but this trip was one of our first long vacations with just our little family and I loved all the memories we made. We can't wait to make more as we plan more trips in our future.