sisters, sisters

 All of us together with Mom at Ruth's yesterday!  Ruth was baking dozens of cookies for Pie Chiropractic gifts so we kept her company.  We have this one week together before the Johnson's leave Saturday, and the Mannings leave Sunday.  It's Christmas week!

Love my sisters!

another half marathon

On Saturday Rachel and I ran our own half marathon together!  It was something we wanted to do before the end of the year and feels good to have made it happen.  Summer 2020 we had record heat in July and August so we ran less and did more strength and yoga.  It's not fun running in 90 + degree weather at 5:30 in the morning.  Then in September Rachel and I got into hiking to prepare for hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.  So amazing!  And also different from running.

After the Grand Canyon our Saturday runs got long.  The Saturday after the Grand Canyon we ran 6 miles, and 6 the next, then 8, then 8, then 10.  By that 10 miles Saturday Rachel's knee was bothering her.  We upped our miles a little too fast so we baked off for a couple weeks.  We ran our 10k Turkey Trot and another 6 miles the next weekend before jumping up to 10 miles a week ago, and then 13.1 last Saturday!

We slowed down the last few miles for Rachel's knee, but still beat her PR (personal record) by a few minutes and kept the overall time 5 miles under an hour and a half.  I would have liked to be under an 11:00 minute per mile pace but feel good.  Still had some juice at the end, it would have been nice to be faster those last miles.

Andrew surprised us by coming on his bike the last half mile to cheer us on!  It was the sweetest thing.  We did our traditional #1 photo after.

It's amazing to be here after having done another half marathon.  Counting them up I did my first one with my cousin Elizabeth Curtis in 2011.  Then in 2016, two babies later, I ran my second half marathon with Dan McKay.  I never blogged about it (I did post on instagram here) but the next year in 2017 I ran my first marathon after training with a bunch of friends.  Training for that I ran many runs a half marathon distance and longer (probably around 5).  That was the year I was the team captain of a ragnar team (best ragnar ever!) and ran a half marathon during one of my ragnar legs and got an extra medal I didn't know about until after the race.  Then a year ago my running buddy, Rachel Willis, signed up for the Gilbert half marathon so I trained with her and did my own half marathon after a long run with Rachel.  

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me.  All in all I've run around 10 half marathon or longer distances.  So proud of myself and look forward to many more similar runs and hikes. 

returned missionaries

 

On Thursday my parents returned from their mission.  It took them about three days to drive so Monday was their last day.  We are so proud of them and their service in Nauvoo and Carthage.  Such special church history sites.  Here are a few photos Dad sent during the 17 months of their service.

During Covid they were able to host a lot of Zoom tours at Carthage at the house of Joseph Smith's martyrdom.

This is the room it happened.

Since Mom and Dad were FM missionaries (facilities management)  they did a lot of mowing, sometimes of push mowers and sometimes on fancy big mowers like the one above.

Jospeh and Hyrum kept them company during quarantine.

It's really cold by the Mississippi River and these chunks of ice came from the river and floated to the side.

On cold days they would work in the green house with other missionaries.

Carthage has a visitor's center mom cold play the piano in.

I look forward to hearing more stories in person in coming months and years.  This was a time we will not forget.

cookie exchange

 

Rachel invited me to a cookie exchange with her family.  It's something they started this year and will likely continue.  I got carried away and made 12 dozen Cookie in a Cloud when only 7 were need to bring to the exchange (an 8th dozen at home for yourself).  Making all these cookies took me back to Jacob Lake Inn, summer 2005, when I worked in the bakery and baking these cookies and more every other day were the norm.  We were able to give 9 plates of cookies away already and have enough for two more.  That's including the cookies from the exchange we mixed together.

Time consuming but worth it.  My cookies were a favorite!

Look forward to seeing these ladies next year!  Maybe I'll start one with my sisters or friends.

The Seymore's are here!

 

Everyone is so thrilled the Seymore's are here from Germany this Christmas!  They feel very fortunate to be here because of Covid, and the military was only allowing one person from Garrett's dental office to leave, and he still had to work hard to push the paperwork to be here now.  The traveled all day Monday and arrived that night, and we got to see that Tuesday afternoon.  It's been since last August that they were here.

Elliot showing off how tall he is!  Since he last saw them he has surpassed Mom, me, Julie, and Ruth in hight.  Not Nora yet.  Damon and Rupert were playing soldier/guards to Beatrix and Aubrey.  Aubrey and Bea really look like cousins in these photos.  Cousins everywhere and the Seymore kids have grown so much!

Jason wanted to show Rupert how to make snowflakes for the windows, and later Julie wrote out the "welcome home" banner we all decorated for Mom and Dad's return today!  Mom and Dad had their last day on their mission Monday, set off Tuesday and have been traveling the last couple days.

Christmas tree progression

 

We put up our Christmas tree!  We picked it out on Saturday but had it in the office because of Andrew's party that night.  Sunday Andrew was gone most the day, then we had family council, and Monday we had FHE and decorated gingerbread houses.  Tuesday night Andrew worked late but didn't want to wait another day.

She's looking pretty!  Pretty much all our ornaments are homemade or gifted.  I have started getting monogram ornaments for the kids the last couple years, mostly from Anthropologie.  They have the prettiest felt ones.  This year I got all but the "Z" so I need to come up with a plan B for Zara.

I thought we got a Noble fir tree this year but we lucked out with a Fraser for the first time!  So happy about this because it's the best of both worlds.  Douglass firs smell the best, and noble first look pretty, and the Fraser smells amazing and looks beautiful!  There are also a few mini pinecones on it.  I'm a big fan.

A friend, Somer Lang gave us that pickle one.  Apparently there's a German tradition/family game around it.  I'll have to look that up but it sounds like fun!

We just put this one up in the boys room.  It's new since the girls got a white one from Lizzy.  Still needs a few ornaments.  The red garland is a yarn chain I made a couple years ago.

The girls' tree has a fat pink garland that came with there tree and they made their own ornaments.  Feeling extra festive now.

gingerbread houses

For our Family Home Evening activity Monday night we decorated gingerbread houses.  We used this kit last year and it's our favorite!  The frosting is a great "glue" and since the houses are small they don't topple easily.  There are just the right amount of candy decorations which are colorful and festive, plus it's only $10.  We also had some hot cocoa.  

 The only flaw is that there are only 4, and next year Beatrix will want her own.  Maybe Elliot will help her instead of have his own.  Do you buy a gingerbread house kit, make from scratch, make graham cracker houses, or something else?  We've done a lot of graham cracker houses in the past, and I made this cute little gingerbread village for Andrew's birthday cake this year.

Love these kids and their cute gingerbread houses.

Andrew's 80's/90's birthday party

 

A few weeks before Andrew's 40th birthday I asked for some ideas of things he would want to do to make it special.  One of them was to have a quiz night.  Another was an 80's 90's themed get together where you dress up.  This party was a combination of that.  

^ ^ Nicole & Jon Gillespie - Dan McKay & Jon  ^ ^

We had this sweet backdrop I found on amazon.  The inflatable props I got as well and Gwen, next door, had the other props.  We lucked out in borrowing a few of Gwen's party things since she just had an 80's party Halloween night.

The Cook's gifted Andrew a remote control car that says "mid-life crisis on it", and the Willis' gifted him 40 "beers"  root beers. 

^ ^ A & M in popular 90's cartoon shirts, Rachel & Corey Willis ^ ^

^ ^  Daniel & Brooke McKay, Kyle & Laura Cook ^ ^

Lots of 80's and 90's junk food.  Andrew picked some up at the store that day and didn't know who was coming and got about twice as much as seen, which is WAY more than needed - so nostalgic for everyone.  I don't think anyone like the cheese whiz, but the fruit by the foot, bugles, mozzarella sticks, and bagel bites were popular.

We played an 80's quiz game which Andrew and I won!  We also played the name game twice, where we all picked a name in the theme and one person read them out and you go around and guess and try to be the last person guessed.  As you guess people correct they join your team.  It's a family favorite! We also played Telestrations.  It's like telephone with drawing.  You write a phrase, the next person draws it, the next person guesses the phrase based on the picture and you pass the papers around until they get back to you.  This caused the most laughter!  Seriously hilarious!

We love these people and wish everyone I invited came (this was half the invite list) and are so glad they came out to make a fun night and celebrate Andrew turning 40.  Nicole planned the party for me as a trade for taking her family photos last month and it all came together.  Planning parties overwhelms me and she's so good at it so this worked out great.