Christmas Vacation

For Christmas this year we went to California to be with Brice's family. We had a great time and visited with lots of family and friends.

On our way to California, we stopped in the gorge for lunch. Ryker had on some loud striped PJ's and we put Raelin's shoes on him because they were big enough to fit over the jammie feet. Then we put on his red coat. And this is what you get:
(I have a picture that is closer up, but the background on this one is too cool not to use.)

On Christmas morning Ryker and Raelin opened lots of presents and had a fun morning playing with new toys. Actually, Ryker just wanted to eat candy all day. And he proceeded to eat as much candy as he could get his grubby little hands on all week until at the end of the week he was throwing up. That still didn't stop him! He just wanted more and more sweets. Now that the holidays are over, we are trying to break his sugar addiction. Candy is definitely the way to his heart!

Raelin had asked for roller skates and ice skates for Christmas from Santa and Santa gave her some ice skates! I think that she had come to expect that Santa always gives kids what they ask for because she wasn't all that surprised. But she was excited about getting nail polish in her stocking! She's looking at her pretty painted nails in this picture.

In the afternoon, we had a huge feast! Brice's mom had spent a few days preparing a ton of hors d'oeuvres and we had lots of deserts that Brice's sister brought. Oh, and she made these oreo truffles that were the most delectable thing I have EVER eaten! So we had a family feast (minus Wes who had had his appendix removed :0( the day before.) and it was wonderful!
[Upon re-reading this sentence, I realized it needed some clarification. We did not eat family minus Wes for our feast, but rather ate our feast, without Wes to accompany us, because he was in the hospital]

A few days later we went down to visit Brice's sister and her family. The cousins all had a great time playing together and getting rowdy with Uncle Brice. I think this picture depicts the first mellow thing Brice has ever done with the kids. Usually the kids get so loud and rough that one of the adults goes over to tell them to quiet down only to find that Uncle Brice is riling them up and causing all the fuss. It was pretty cute to watch all the kids collect one by one to hear Brice read a story to them.

We visited with our friends Kari and Glen and made our annual visit to Jack and Sue Reynolds and had a lovely time visiting with both of those families. Kira had a particularly great time at Kari and Glen's house because they have a Golden Retriever for her to play with. She got to play with the Dennert's dogs during our visit to them (lots of games and laughter there), but I think she was a bit intimidated by the duo.

On Saturday my friend Karly got married. Brice and I went out to the Newport Temple for the wedding and afterwards spent a few hours in the temple doing temple work. It was so nice to have a calm and relaxing day at the temple instead of our usual rush to make it before they close at the end of a crazy day with kids and school and work. That day we could just take our sweet time because Brice's mom had volunteered to take the kids for the whole day! After the temple, we still had some time to kill before the reception, so we went to the beach. Ah, the beach...

Usually when we go to California I think, "Yeah, I've missed it here," but this time, as soon as we got there I thought, "I LOVE California! What am I doing in Utah?!?" I discovered that I missed things about California more that I thought I did. I missed the diversity, the palm trees, the beach, fancy houses up on the hills, the maze of freeways (weird thing to miss, but I get tired of the 15 being my only option), California drivers, the ghetto, all the different places to go and things to do, watching my kids play with all their cousins, and the weather! The weather was beautiful! Where else can you enjoy 63 degree weather in December?

So, anyway, we went to the beach and played around at some tide pools at sunset. We had a great day together where we weren't in a hurry and we didn't have to take 13 potty breaks per hour or settle any squabbles or load kids into and out of the car. It was such a beautiful day and we had a wonderful time.

After the tide pools we went to the reception and it was a great crowd. The wedding party really let loose and they were completely entertaining. The groom and his groomsmen lip-sync'ed to a Backstreet Boys' song and it was hilarious! The dinner was great and I got to see a lot of people from back in the day. Also, (this was a weird coincidence) the groom's sister is married to a guy that Brice knows from his mission! So it was fun to talk to all sorts of friends from our pasts.

The next day we went home and it sure was good to get here. We'd been gone for a little over a week and it was nice to sleep in our own beds. My parents had come by while we were gone to play Santa for the kids and ended up playing Santa for Brice and I as well. They cleaned our house for us! We had tried and tried to get to the house cleaning part before we left, but there was just way too much to get done and we didn't quite get everything done we wanted to. But thanks to my parents we came home to a spotless house and that was sure nice.

We went to my parent's house on New Year's Day to do Christmas celebrations with them, and that was lots of fun too. We ate good food, watched football and Planet Earth and opened presents. The kids got a cool table for their train set, Ryker got a big tractor that he just loves, and Raelin got a big box of craft stuff, her favorite. What a fun-filled holiday season! Thank you to everybody who participated in making our Christmas a merry one!

One last story I have to share because it is so...Somers.
We drive a little Saturn Ion. With Brice, Raelin, Ryker, and me there isn't a whole lot of room left, but we needed to fit luggage and dogs someplace (it's hard to pawn a nuisance puppy off on anyone and there's no way our house would survive if we left them here, so we decided it would be best to take the dogs with us). So we borrowed a roof pouch from my parents and put as much of the luggage up there as possible and the rest in the cab and we put the dogs in the trunk. It was actually Jax's idea. Before Ryker, we would put the seat-back down and he would ride on top of it and he liked to climb into the trunk to rest and cool off. So, why not put them there to go to California? So we did, andwhen we were in Barstow, we all got out in a parking lot to stretch our legs. Brice and William (we caravaned out there with the other Utah Somers') got the dogs out to walk a little and after a while we got ready to leave. A lady came and knocked on Brice's window and said, "We saw y'all put your dogs in the trunk and I just wanted to let you know that we called the cops." We laughed and said thanks and drove off. I called a CHP friend of ours to asked him about it because I was curious if there really was a law about it. He looked it up and discovered, much to his amazement, that there was nothing wrong with it. People put cats in the trunk all the time. For dogs, it's like being in their crate--almost. So on we went laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, when the lights go on behind us. The officer came to my window and said, "Do you have a dog in your trunk?" I said, "Yes." Brice said, "Two, in fact." (We were feeling rather confident after my call to Kevin.) The officer looked at me confused and said, "Yeaaah, that's not okay." I told him about my call to Kevin and he asked to see the dogs. He observed that Jax is a big dog, asked for Brice's driver's license, and said he was going to see what he could find out. After being in his patrol car FOOORRREEEVVER, he came back to my window and asked where we were going. We told him and he said, "Well, from the outside looking in, it looks really bad, but when you stop and think about it there's really nothing wrong with it. At least it's not your kids in the trunk, right?" So we chatted for a minute longer and he sent us on our way. Who but a Somers gets pulled over for having a dog in the trunk!?!