You got a while?

This is going to be a really long post because I haven't been on here in a while. Christmas was so awesome. Having my parents and my sisters here was a blast. I haven't spent a Christmas with them all in 8 years or so. I obviously need some photography lessons. Putting people half in shade/sun?You can't quite tell here but when Nick stands up straight he is about 1/2 taller than Jer who is officially 6ft 2 1/2 in. so Nick is 6'3 at 13 years old. So we managed to keep the really big secret for Christmas and now the kids are playing the Wii on a 60 in. television. Before you start thinking what terrible, selfish people we must be--just know we were only thinking of the economy and trying to do our part by spending obscene amounts of money on ourselves. We may even invite some orphans over to watch us play the Wii. Our kindness knows no bounds.
Now I am going to have to do a little product review here. This may be useful to someone at some point. First of all, a game I bought last year--Bananagrams--continues to be a big hit around here. It's like Scrabble but not lame. I love it. Word games are a big favorite with us and now that the boys are getting older and smarter--they are quite a bit of fun to play with. We have spent this vacation playing tons and tons of games--Rummikub, Quiddler, Boggle, Stratego, Nerts, Rush Hour (this is a solitaire puzzle game), Jurassic Jumble (this belongs to my sister who has an archaelogy degree and is working on a geology degree at the UofU--it's like Pit and Spoons mixed together and is way fun), and of course Bananagrams. The coolest thing about Bananagrams is the versatility of it--you can play it alone, you can play with the real directions or make up your own. I like to do rounds where you can't go out until you have a 6 letter word, then a 7, then 8, and so on--we haven't made it past 11 yet. My sisters showed us another way that's perfect for two--you each take half the tiles then assign each other a "theme" on go--Becky and I did one where I gave her "geology" and she gave me "chocolate"--I so won :-). It has all this going for it and a cute zip-up banana to keep the tiles in. If you don't own it, you should. Unless you hate word games, then this would be dumb. Now for the electronics--we used the money my mom and dad always send to buy a Blu-ray player to go with the giant tv but we bought one of the ones that can stream Netflix (which I love--we've been subscribers from their early days) and it is SO awesome. They still need more of a selection to instantly stream but not having to own the actual dvd's or wait for them in the mail is really awesome. I finally watched a super-cute movie I somehow missed called The Game Plan with some guy called the Rock or something. Anyway--I thought this movie was adorable and this is also how I learned about the existence of the Bedazzler. That little girl was Bedazzling everything and I was so jealous. Note to Jer--I actually want the Dazzle Monkey--not the junky Bedazzler. It's 6 times as much but you can't put a price on love, right? The only negative review from me this year is for the Nerf Vulcan gun. Poor Spencer got to use it for 5 seconds before it quit working and when I returned it to Walmart they said everyone was returning them. Spencer choose the Wii game Family Fun Night instead and we haven't stopped playing it. It is just a collection of several well-known games like Yahtzee, Battleship, Sorry, Connect 4, Sorry Sliders and the best part--Boggle. I'm just mad we didn't have this when my sisters were here. The best part of having these in a Wii game is there are no little pieces everywhere!

We did finish the gingerbread house and the only part I really had a hand in was the trim on the windows on one side of the house. I always want to direct everyone but then everyone just starts putting stuff everywhere and I never have the heart to ruin their fun. Isn't that the point anyway? Below are Hershey Kiss tags on the roof--Nick felt it was more authentic that way. This is how they always end up anyway. :-)
Now for the little gingerbread story. I had the house all put together before my family got here and they were properly impressed with my glowing windows and all. I went to make the royal icing (which I'd made perfectly the day before--the house was practically concreted together) to decorate the house with and after running the Bosch for 20 minutes I still had sludge. I blamed the weather, the mixer, etc.--then dumped it out to start a fresh batch. Suddenly my sister pointed out I wasn't using the same canister of Meringue Powder--the other time I'd apparently used Baking Powder. Nice job, Linda. The containers are both green and white so it was completely not my fault. So a few minutes of mixing and voila--perfect Royal Icing. I ran out of Vanilla and decided to dump in Maple flavoring. Same sister goes, Isn't that a little dark? I go, yeah, but so is vanilla and dump it in. If you look carefully you will see most of the icing on the house is beige. Look out Martha.

We also went to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with my family the day after Christmas and that was a lot of fun. Then we went to check out the lights at Opryland in Nashville and that was fun too. There's a huge mall next to it that has an IMAX theater so I'm excited--I've never been to one before. We went into the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center after looking at the lights out front and I've never been so surprised in my life. This hotel or whatever it was--is gigantic! There's a little river in the middle of it and a gazillion stores and restaurants--all next to hotel rooms and ballrooms and it is just huge. It's like Disneyworld without any of the fun stuff. But sparkle is good. And don't forget the best stocking stuffers--crazy string!

That's what you get for that last Stratego game Becky! :-)

Every year Jeremy makes up an awesome New Year's Resolution list and waits patiently for me to come up with something decent to accomplish. This year was different--I had my list done by 9am New Year's day and he still hasn't completed his. That might be because this is THE year--the one where he completes his Master's degree. Pretty good goal. I'll share a little from my list--number 8 and 9 were to buy and learn to use Heelys and a Dazzle Monkey, respectively. I pretty much told Jeremy this was my birthday wish-list... along with a huge container of canned grapefruit. My ambition knows no bounds. I actually almost bought Heelys for everyone a few years ago and Jer stopped me by asking me how I liked the thought of spending the whole year in and out of the emergency room. I've never broken anything in my entire life so I'm obviously immune. This is so when I go to Walmart and need to get contact stuff on one side before shopping on the grocery side and then I'm buying milk and oh, no...I forgot air filters...I've got to go all the way back to the other side...no prob, I've got my Heely's on. Maybe I shouldn't spend so much time at Walmart. Amazon even has them in an Adult Glitter version. They must have been thinking of me.

It was very sad to have my family leave but I am just really glad they got to stay as long as they did. It's never long enough though.

I hate that another Christmas is over--the kids keep getting older every year (go figure--I know I don't) and we are running out of Christmases where we will all be together! I hope everyone had a great holiday and an awesome start to 2009!