Family in Town

Grandma Naomi, Grandpa Kip, and Sarah arrived on Thrusday around dinner time. We ate turkey noodle soup and hot rolls, visited, and put everyone to bed fairly early. We decided that we'd spend Friday hanging out at the house. Grandma played family with Mercy and curled up with the kids to watch Kung Fu Panda on Hyrum's new tablet. Grandpa and Matthew made a trip to Home Depot and then spent most of the day installing garage door insulation. We also tried playing Hyrum's new game Escape with the kids, but it was a bit too intense for them. We had enchilada's for dinner and after the kids were in bed the adults played several more rounds of Escape and ate cookies and ice cream.

Saturday was mostly taken up with Hyrum's baptism. We did find time in the afternoon though to work on the wooden cars Hyrum got for his birthday and play some games. We had Frito Pie for dinner and spent the evening playing Wii Sports. Despite it being New Year's Eve, we only stayed up until 10:30 pm. 

Our Sunday schedule for the new year includes church at 9:00 am. Normally I'll have ward council at 7:30, but it being New Year's day we didn't have our normal leadership meetings. Church went well despite having several of my primary teachers gone. Naomi and Sarah helped out with the Sunbeams and Matthew and Kip taught the five year olds. I have sharing time this month and get to teach the kids about Agency. After church and left over's for lunch, Naomi, Sarah, and I drove over to the UNM campus to walk around a bit and let Sarah get another feel for the place. Her applications are in at the UofU, Utah State, and UNM and now we just have to see who gives her the best scholarship. My parents and sister joined us at 5:30 pm for dinner. I served butter chicken curry and homemade naan. The bread was perhaps a bit ambitious considering the number of people I was feeding and my limited broiling capacity, but Sarah helped out and the meal was delicious. We stayed up late that night playing One Night: Ultimate Warewolf. 

This morning was slow and lazy. The boys played some Wii sports and Mercy enjoyed cuddling with whoever would sit still long enough for her to crawl into their lap. In the afternoon we took our guests to a few of our favorite places: Southwest Decoratives (a fabric/quilting shop), Woodworker's Supply (where we got popcorn and a couple different colors of Brewax), and Guitar Center (where the boys like to play the drums and try out all the pianos). We then came home for Family Night. Matthew picked up Kubo from the Redbox and a variety of movie night treats. The kids had a great time, though the show had a few parts that were a bit scary for them. We had carrot soup and toast for dinner, put the kids to bed, and stayed up a bit past 10:00 pm playing the Warewolf game again. We would have all liked to play longer, but the Kress' are leaving early tomorrow morning in hopes of beating some predicted bad weather, so we called it a night relatively early. 

It was great to have so much family in town, especially to support Hyrum at his baptism. It was also particularly nice to have such a laid back, fun couple of days to close out a busy month and start up a brand new year.