Christmas time always full of warm
memories and favorite
traditions.
When I think of
Christmas time as a child I remember gathering with my dad
family Christmas day. We always took one of our new toys over to
Grandmas house to show our cousins what we got. Maybe it was a mistake that year we got New Kid on the Block Dolls, darn cousins like to tease. I remember just playing all day with the
cousins. As we got older I remember the wonderful meals we shared.
Christmas
Eve was always a favorite once the potatoe soup tradition started. Perhaps the best soup ever ...way to go dad! It was always fun to drop off Christmas
treats to friends and neighbors. Then to sit around the rest of the evening and beg mom and dad to let us open a
present. The last couple of years have been fun competing to be the last person to drop
gifts in the stockings. The last person gets an early peak at all the gifts. Of course there was the tradition of leaving cookies for
Santa, carrots for the
reindeer and some cheese for
Santa mouse. For some reason all of us girls would pile in the same bed on Christmas Eve. That was easy when we were little, I
remember it getting harder as we grew but we still did it. Last year as a joke I was sleeping in Ambers bed and Monica climmbed in between us. She stayed the whole night...the tradition lives on.
Christmas
morning we would all wake up and have to stand in the hallway and wait while dad turned on the Christmas
music and the tree lights all while making comments about all the gifts he saw. We would get so annoyed he took longer every year. Opening presents was done one person at a time. My favorite part was always the
stockings, I just always loved the treasures inside. We could always count on our toothbrush from
Santa mouse. Ambers was always purple and Monicas was green or blue so I could count on a pink one or the occasional teal. Amber brought a fun tradition to our
family, the pull-a-part breakfast. Oh so warm and gooey. Thanks for that one Amber.
More recent Christmases have been spent with my Moms side of the family. Wonderful dinners shared and intense
Monopoly games played. Which reminds me of the year we got Monopoly for Christmas I was the first to go bankrupt due to some whining my mom kept me in the game! Don't forget the Christmas nap usually a couple of us
cousins could be found piled on each other on one of the couches.
Who can forget the Christmas in
Puerto Pinasco. What a fun trip that was even if half of us were sick. There was the sandman building contest on the
beach and the Christmas Pinata. Grandma and
Grandpa took us to a nice dinner and I remember Morgan trying to pay for her own meal because she did not realize the prices were in Pesos and she felt so bad for ordering what she did.
My favorite Christmas with some
friends was the year the Divingboard Professionals (my friends band) played at the ward Christmas party and their groupies sang along.
So many fun memories... and so many more to make.
You are my Sunshine
I love you Grandpa!
I hope you have always known how much we love you!
Unfortunatly, we only took water cameras with us to shore in Belize so I do not have many pictures to share. In Belize we went cave tubing. The limestone caves were beautiful and the experience was truly memorable. Esecially the race back to the boat. We feared we were going to be left behind. As promised our guides got us back in time.
Our last port was Grand Cayman. I was most excited about this stop because I was going to go snorkling. Before we went snorkling we visited sting ray city. We hoped on a catamaran and went out to a sandbar in the beautiful clear ocean and played with the rays. This was a time full of I was going to say smiles and laughter but lets be honest they were squeals of delight. The sting rays new we had food and they were searching for it. You could be standing really close to the person next to you and the rays would still squeeze between you. It was so much fun. We got to feed them hold them and kiss them, then they gave us back rubs. It was great. Kissing a sting ray brings you 7 years of good luck. French kissing brings you a lifetime of good luck. Naturally, I frenched the sting ray. After this we went to the reef and snorkled. I have no pictures unfortunatly. But let me tell you it was beautiful. 
