Merry Christmas!

Well we have had a wonderful Christmas in our new home in Umatilla. It has been pretty low-key, but nice. I cooked an ambitious Christmas Eve dinner, consisting of stuffed beef-tenderloin, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, roasted sweet potatoes, crescent rolls, and of course sparkling cider. It turned out pretty well and we had a nice quiet dinner with just our family. Christmas morning Olive woke up about 7:30, and we had to wake Eden up so they could check out what Santa brought them. After breakfast and unwrapping presents we got dressed up for Church. They put on a lovely Christmas program. We had a wonderful Christmas meal with our Bishop and his family, and then on a whim we went and checked out a local landmark, Hat Rock. It was pretty neat, and a beautiful view of the Columbia River. Then we drove around a bit more and were graced by lovely renditions of Christmas Carols by Eden and Olive. It has been a great Christmas!

We made it!

Well it was so nice having someone else do all the work for our move to Oregon. I don't know if we'll ever be able to move again on our own.

We have started to get settled in, and we even went out and chopped down a Christmas Tree for our new home. It was a fun adventure, but we soon discovered that trees in the forest are bigger than they appear. We found one that had some dead branches near the bottom, but looked really nice from about four or five feet up. We thought the top portion was probably only 8 feet or so, but we got it home and had to chop off another three feet to get it to fit. Maybe next year we will take something to measure with.

It was fun to go where there was snow, because I don't think we will get much more where we are. Right now, everything is just covered in ice, and being so close to the Columbia River, I think we are going to have a lot of fog.

There is a lot about Utah that we will miss, but we are getting a feel for the area, and enjoying our time celebrating the holiday season. We went out for our Thanksgiving meal which made things super easy, and then saw the new Muppet movie which I loved.

Plus before we left, we had a fun little celebration. We got a hotel room in Ogden and got all dressed up to see Clytie Adam's production of the Nutcracker. My mom choreographed the mice portion and it is something that we have been able to go see each year, and we'll miss being able to do that in the future. We had fun swimming in the hotel pool, and going to the Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden, which is always fun as well. The girls got some new Christmas pajamas and it was our own little early Christmas celebration.

Happy Halloween! plus belated updates

Little Miss Muffet
sat on a tuffet,
eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider,
who sat down besider her,
and frightened Miss Muffet away.

 Actually, they get along quite well,

but you never know when the spider may come out and get you! 

Its been fun doing Halloween this year, and the girls have the nursery rhyme memorized.


Anyways, to backtrack, we have been busy and I have been awful with keeping this blog up to date.

Over Labor Day, Dietrich's nephew William and his family came by. They were driving across the country, and stopped in Utah for a few days and so we took them up to Deer Valley to ride the chairlifts and hike around a little bit. The kids especially loved throwing rocks. It's amazing what little it takes to entertain them.

We also braved the crowds at Swiss Days, but didn't end up staying long. Although the girls did go on a pony ride, whichthey got a kick out of. After that we headed up to Bear Lake for the rest of the weekend, which is always fun.
Then on September 18th,  Eden turned 5 years old. She had a fun sleepover with my mom, and went on rides at Jungle Jim's, and got a manicure with flourescent pink nail polish. She had a great time doing that and felt extra special. We did a birthday breakfast for her and she was so excited to go to Primary and have the kids sing Happy Birthday to her at church. Dietrich had to leave on her birthday to fly to Seattle for an interview with Amazon, and a few weeks after that we found out that he got the job! So we are now in the process of moving to Oregon! We are excited for this new adventure, but sad to be leaving family and friends here in Utah.

Luckily though, we were able to squeeze in a trip to Las Vegas to see my cousin and her family. My Grandma Lucille drove me and the girls and my Aunt down there and we had a really great time. the highlight for me was seeing Cirque de Soleil's Mystere. It was amazing. The kids enjoyed playing at a really neat park, going to a bounce house,  seeing the Cat in the Hat on the Strip, going to M&M's factory, seeing the gardens and fountains at the Bellagio, and doing Halloween games and trick-or treating at the Springs Preserve. We squeezed in a ton, and even managed to make really neat seashell wreaths on top of all that. It was a great trip and we're so happy we had a chance to spend time with family before our big move.