Tucson Christmas 2013

We made the trip to Tucson last week. We drove all night to get it over with quickly, also hoping the kids would sleep through most of it. Michael woke up screaming almost every hour, acting incredibly sad and wanting a hug or his blanket on the ground or something, but Peter did surprisingly well with only 1 spurt of a 45 minute long crying spree. We did it in 18.5 hours. Long trip but we are glad to be here!

We got to attend the Rogers Christmas party in Pheonix. It was great to see family we haven't seen in about 2 years. Didn't get much pictures, except for this cute one of Russell and Enoch and Michael playing.

Christmas Eve we had a great evening at Alison and Brandon's house. Had a nativity read-along and costumes and a song and a great dinner. Alison also put together a great Christmas tree craft that the kids all loved.

Christmas day was very nice. I am very glad we're here. Started with a breakfast casserole around 8 made by grandma and grandpa, then presents. It was fun to see how quickly Enoch and Michael would change from being excited about their presents to jealous and overwhelmed about all other new toys. Sharon and I bought ourselves cruise tickets for our birthday and Christmas and anniversary gifts, and Mom's Christmas gift to us it going to be flying out to see the kids. The kids got shoes and hot wheels race car tracks and firetrucks from grandma and grandpa, and we gave them books, blocks, mr. potato heads, ninja turtle Uno, scrap book photo books we made them, and other stuff. It was a nice day hanging out with Mom and Dad and Alison and Brandon.

Fun little gif google made for me

Grandma made the boys super capes!

After fighting over presents, a fight broke out over bubble wrap. Cutting it in half resulted in 5 minutes of peace. Peter is playing with wrapping paper.

Finished the night having a good time playing zombie dice with sharon. Mom, and Dad.

HSP

Enoch developed a rash on his lower extremity yesterday. We wondered why he was so grumpy before we saw it. I immediately thought of a disease called HSP when I saw it, but was puzzled because the rash didn't look as severe and he didn't seem to have other symptoms like belly pain. It can lead to severe kidney damage, so we ended up in the ER today. Thank heavens friends in the ward watched Michael for us. Blood and urine tests came back normal, doctors agreed it was a mild form of HSP, and they said he should be fine. With CMV, strabismus, and cashew aspiration, we have had an interesting ride this year with our kids. All has ended well and we have so much to be grateful for!

Our second annual Thanksgiving Camping Trip

I'm not sure if this is a tradition we can keep up, but I hope so. Camping is so much work and it didn't help that I got a bad cold right before the trip that is still bad afterwards. All the kids are / were  a bit sick, I think, too, and Sharon came down with it right when we got home. Plus it was one of the coldest sets of days of the year, with lows at night of 33 degrees F. Plus Peter is only 5 months old and he's got all sorts of problems eating and sleeping. So I guess it sounds kind of crazy and proves that Sharon is an amazing mother and wife to be willing to camp 2 days with all that. I'm not going to deny the hard times such as when Peter cried for hours on end in the middle of the freezing night. On the other hand, it was a lot of fun and built some memories that we will never forget. Worth it.

Sharon made a Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday.

On Thursday we drove to Huntsville State Park. We camped in almost the exact same spot.

This year:

Last year:

Enoch and Michael had a blast.

Enoch was obsessed with sticks. He found and played and loved and lost and broke and cried over many of his favorite sticks.

I don't think anyone really got that cold. We sure figured out how to put layers on Peter.

I did lots of cooking with the dutch oven, but our favorite was fire roasted sweet potatoes with a sour cream brown sugar paprika sauce. The thanksgiving dutch oven leftover casserole and the dutch oven mountain man breakfast were also pretty good though!

One of my favorite parts was getting up before sunset the morning where it was 33 degrees and taking the canoe out on the lake. There was steam coming everywhere from off the lake, and it was fantasrtic. These pictures are cool, but they really don't do justice to how magical it was.

We have a lot to be grateful for, and I again want to thank Sharon for letting us go on this trip!

Brazos Bend

We went to Brazos Bend 2 weeks ago. We hadn't been since Mom and Dad came out for Michael's blessing 2 years ago. Our Texas Parks Pass was expiring soon so it was good motivation to go. It was fun to get out there, the weather was perfect, and it was just a nice way to spend a Saturday.

It's a beautiful place.

People go there largely for the alligators:

Otherwise, we just had fun BBQing, letting Enoch and Michael ride bikes, playing on the playground, and hiking around a bit.

Here P goes from sort of Asian but maybe not:

To very Asian:

Enoch riding out by his lonesome self