Adventures Continue...

Holiday Season:
December 13- Jan 1

I love the holiday break. No school, no work (for now), lots of food and family. Dan and I had decorated our apartment with a small tree, which of course I forgot to take a picture of. This year has been a little different than most. There wasn't any snow and I now had two families instead of one. We spent the first few days in Farmington so that Dan could work on Jamie and Brent's basement. Then went to St. George around December 20th. We left kinda late but we decided to stop and see Yuba Lake. It was pitch black and chilly but the stars were so cool. It was a lot of fun to spend time in St. George. We had family pictures, hung out with his family, went rock climbing and more. Christmas eve day it was so warm and the boys went bouldering while I watched. It was so weird to have it be that warm the day before Christmas. I'm a "White Christmas" type of person. That night Primavera had prepared a special Mexican dinner. They had raised a goat for a few months (it once even chased Dan), with the intent to eat it on Christmas. They did all the work and we were all interested to see how it would come out. While I was eating breakfast before going bouldering, the goats head was in a bucket, starring at me. It was however, better than I had anticipated and I loved having a traditional Mexican Christmas. Another tradition they do is open all their presents at Midnight instead of waiting until morning. The whole family was over and the craziness began. It was a lot of fun and there was wrapping paper and happy faces all around. It was around 2 in the morning before we went to bed and it was definitely new for me to sleep in on Christmas day. It was a nice relaxing day and it was fun to be able to spend time with his family, especially since his mom was visiting from Seattle where she has been receiving her treatments for her cancer. It was a special Christmas. We had to leave around 5 p.m Christmas Day in order to get back to Farmington to have our big Christmas family exchange the next day. Once again we had a crazy time with the big Bishop Bash. More chaos ensued and it wasn't until after new years that things started to calm down. We all went and saw the new Mission Impossible movie, went and did baptisms at the Logan Temple, played games, played A TON of volleyball and enjoyed the noise, mess and chaos that comes with our big family. I even got to celebrate Kami's b-day at the pie which has been a tradition stemming from our SVU days.

New Years was probably one of my favorite nights. It started out slow. It used to be that the whole neighborhood would be over, we had tons of food and there was so much going on. There are a lot of children in the Bishop house and so we a few years ago we came up with a plan. We turn the clocks forward and at 8 pm the clocks turn midnight and we all celebrate with the kids. This way they are able to have a fun new years and still get some sleep and the adults can then enjoy New Years. It has been a tradition for the last few years that everyone jumps in the frozen pond. This year seemed a little bit more calm and nobody was really up for the polar plunge. Except of course my mom. At the last minute we decided we couldn't let our tradition end. So Jill, Kelsi, Aubrey and myself ran out at midnight for the big plunge. Since it has been such a warm year the edges of the pond hadn't frozen. So instead we just ran straight in, breaking the ice as we went. Not the greatest idea. My poor mom ran in and rammed right into the ice, knocking the wind out of her. I hit my head and Kelsi scraped her knee up. After we got out we realized my mom was bleeding. Her whole arm and leg had been scraped up, we even thought she might need stitches. It was the best war wound we've ever had in the polar plunge. Tradition continues! Things calmed down and everyone headed back to their normal lives, until next year.

Christmas at the Flores':