Do you think it is possible for me not to do a marathon post?
I don't think so.
We had a great holiday and hope the rest of you did as well. Here is some of what we have been up to.
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Mason Chase Davis
Some of our best friends out here (Chase and Raquel) had their first baby at the beginning of December. He is so dang cute and we are so happy for them. Raquel had him at the same hospital where Sherri works, so enjoyed going and visiting them everyday until they left.
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Sherri is on the activities committee now and her first big event was the Christmas party. They did "A Night in Bethlehem" and it turned out really nice. We had it set up so people came dressed in robes and head scarves and sat on blankets on the floor to watch a live nativity. They came in paid their taxes (canned goods) and were able to purchase different foods (cheese, hummus, nuts etc). The committee worked really hard and it all turned out great.
This is where everyone entered. They were greeted by a centurion/tax collector and given their money to purchase the food
The set for the nativity
Sheep courtesy of Sherri's brother who is an amazing artist. He whipped up these drawings and sent them to Sherri so she could trace them and put them on cardboard.
This is what it looked like with everyone sitting and eating on the floor
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2 week trip to Utah for Christmas!
Sherri and her mom made homemade carmels, chocolate covered nuts and toffee. It was all so yummy, it's always so much better homemade than store bought don't ya think?
Sherri had fun helping Sarah and Grant make cookies for Santa. There was a lot more little fingers being dipped in frosting than there was decorating so Sherri and Kasey did most of it.They left these out for Santa with the cutest note.
**Look closely, do you just love Sherri's tiara and earrings? Sarah was always wanting to play dress up and role play and Sherri was happy to oblige.
We were up til 2am with these guys one night playing games and chatting. Such good times, we miss them all so much!
Shayne's Granpda Perry and all the grandkids. You can barely see his little head in there if you look close!
So good to see Shawnya and her 9 kids, they are all growing up so fast!
We got to see a lot of friends and family that we haven't seen forever it was great fun!
And of course in addition to all the people we saw we always love visiting Shayne's parents dogs. We were missing ours so it was fun to have them around.
Sherri's family is full of traditions. On Christmas Eve every year they go to the church and mess around in the gym. If we get the wood floor then there is usually some basketball going on but since we had the carpet this year we opted for a game of soccer. Sherri caught some nice action shots!
Also a tradition on Christmas Eve is to have pizza for dinner. We had The Pie - soooo good! Sherri's mom couldn't not believe how big this pizza was. The one on top is a medium so you get the idea. The bottom one is their monster pizza, I think it feeds up to 10 people.
Yet another Christmas Eve tradition is for Sherri's mom to tell us all the Christmas Story. She does it on this flannel board and it never gets old, no matter how old we may be. This year we did it Christmas morning since the kids had to go to bed early on Christmas Eve.
Quick story: Kasey (Sherri's brother's wife) is amazingly talented at so many things, one of those being sewing. She is always making something and it seems to take her no time at all. Sarah found this fabric at the store and told her mom that she wanted a dress like that for Christmas. They left the material under the tree for one of Santa's elves to pick up and wahlah, he made her this beautiful dress she can wear for dress up. Of course she had to immediately put it on and wore it while she opened the rest of her presents. Good job Kasey/Santa it looks awesome, when we have kids we're telling them Santa's workshop is at your house!
Sherri and her sister both received a pair of Ugg boots that they'd been wanting
Kasey's mom took us all out for a girl's night to the Nutcracker and it was so much fun! The boys stayed home to watch the bowl games that were on.
Sarah dressed up like a Sugar Plum fairy. Once again her mom made this cute outfit. All her little comments made the show even better.
We all had to take a turn posing in the chair like Sarah!
All the girls - Sherri just loves girls nights.
Thanks Adele, we had so much fun and think this should be a new tradition!!
We were able to go skiing with Shayne's parents one day and had tons of fun! We all skiied while Shayne snowboarded.
Sherri also went skiing a few times with her dad. One of the days it was below 10 degrees and really windy. As you can see they bundled up to keep warm. Sherri and her dad are somewhere under there.
Lots of time was spent on the couch doing this:
We went to quite a few movies, played lots of games, watched a lot of football!
Dinner with Shayne's parents at Tempanyaki Japanese Steak house.
Lunch at the Soup Kitchen - sooooo good!
Sushi at Mikado with all of Sherri's siblings
One of our favorite things to do on vacations is eat out. Sherri just liked the fact she didn't have to cook whether it was eating out or something homemade by one of our moms. Cafe Rio and In N Out Burger aren't pictured above but we visited more than once, and they are soooo delish! The food always tastes even better when you haven't had it forever.
Besides all our friends and family, this is what we will miss most!
Our plane coming home was so small we had to board on and off outside, so of course Sherri had to snap a picture.
We spent New Year's with these 2 fun people! It was pretty low key since we hadn't been home long. Sherri had worked the 2 days previous and we were still on Utah time. This picture must have been before James got his New Year's kiss! Now we know where Lexie gets that stink face from!
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We had a wonderful holiday and hope you all did too. We can't believe it is already 2010. Now back to work and school - can't wait for our next trip, whenever that may be!
