Carne Asada Christmas

We have joined the world of bloggers! This is exciting, I feel like a little kid on Christmas. That is saying something considering neither Cody nor I had any idea what a blog was even a year ago. We have come so far.

We made it home safely on Friday after a full two-week vacation. We met Dad in Yuma and then again in Mesa and then met Jarom in Holbrook, it was a complicated trip (to say the least) but we finally made it to Becky's at 1:30 am (of course, would we get anywhere earlier?). The next morning we left bright and early (11 am) and drove up to Colorado to be with Julie and Ted and their family for Christmas. We did not hit hardly any icy roads. Our time in Colorado was filled with eating really good food (carne asada every night and morning! mmmm (no joke, and it was good every time)), playing the Wii that the kids got from "Santa" (a family friend), (Emilee's arm is still sore from playing), watching Emma be her cute girly self and laughing at her feisty personality, watching Dad get wrapped around Emma's little finger and loving it (he gave her anything she wanted even a manicure), rough-housing with Joe and Ti and Tate, and tubing. It was all so much fun, the perfect place to spend this Christmas. It was my first white Christmas ever. We also got to go up to Winter Park and stay at Julie and Ted's condo. We played in the snow and played games, we even spent some time in the hot tub. But the highlight of it all was tubing!!! In Winter park there is this huge snow-covered (well everything is snow-covered) hill with a rope pull and tube rental. You only get an hour but you get to go down the hill as many times as you can. You get going sooooo fast, it is super steep and long. It was so fun. Cody and I and Julie and Ted and Ti, Tate and Joe and Jarom and Pat all went while Dad stayed home with Emma (we don't think he minded). We went down several times all in a group and individually. It was the best. I think I forgot to mention that it was 5 degrees F out. Cold!! but none of us got cold partly because we were all dressed in some of Ted's warm snow clothes but mostly because we were all running around and so excited. We got home and Emma showed us her multi-colored fingernails done by Grandpa. The rest of our trip went smoothly except for a minor lost key setback that prevented us from leaving on Friday. We went to get in the van to leave but we could not find the keys anywhere. We searched high and low, everywhere. Cody was the last to have them so he felt terrible and was looking everywhere, even started digging through the piles of snow. But to no avail. We had a locksmith come and make us a new copy. I still feel horrible about it. I would probably still be shoveling through the snow if Ted had not explained to me how futile it was.

On the way back we traveled all the way from Loveland, stopped over in Eagar again and parted ways and arrived in Tucson and Safford and LA on Saturday (technically we all arrived on Sunday, we left Loveland at 4am and arrived in Tucson at 12:30am Sunday). Poor Jarom had the farthest to go because he had to work on Sunday afternoon. Cody and I went on to Tucson and stayed with some friends. We hiked Picacho peak and just played and hung out with our friends there. We spent New Year's Eve and day in Safford. I was trying to tell Cody all of our relative's names but there are sooooo many, it will take a while. But you'd be surprised I was doing pretty good, I think I memorized all the names of the adults that were there. But I wasn't about to attempt to start memorizing the kids names. Dad was there so of course he cooked carne asada for everyone. It was kind of cold so I went and got my other jacket and put it on. I felt something in the pocket and lo and behold the missing keys were right there in my jacket pocket. I have no memory of ever giving them to her. I remembered then that after Cody parked the van as we left Loveland with Julie on our way to Winter Park he put the keys in my jacket pocket. Too bad neither one of us remembered this when we were searching all over, but it was probably for the best. After Safford, we spent a few more days in Tucson (among other things we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and guess what we ate? Carne Asada) and then went back to Yuma and then to San Diego. It was a long and fun-filled trip but it is good to be home.

To finish, I want to share a Christmas story. Early in December Emilee and I went shopping for a Christmas tree. We went to Home Depot and perused the fake Christmas trees and the cut Christmas trees but in the end we bought a smaller potted living tree. My family often buys potted living Christmas trees that we can plant in our yard after Christmas. We bought it even though we don’t have a yard. (I was planning on planting it secretly at night after Christmas somewhere close to our apartment complex.) We decorated the tree and were careful to make sure it got plenty of water and sun.

As our trip to Colorado and Arizona approached Emilee and I both begin to think of ways to serve the families and individuals that we home and visit teach. I convinced Emilee to make pumpkin bread for the families I teach, but Emilee came up with a much better idea for one of the ladies she visit teaches. This sister is single and is passing through some difficult times and had expressed to Emilee how much she dislikes the holiday season. She said that the holidays are really hard for her because she has no family to spend them with. She even said that she didn’t put up a tree for Christmas. This sparked Emilee’s thinking and she came up with the idea to leave our tree fully decorated on her doorstep. We did this the day before we left on vacation and had not heard anything about it until today. Today, Emilee found out from this sister that our tree had made her holiday season. This sister was so happy at church today, she says that she plans on keeping the tree on her sunny balcony, and hopes that she can use it next Christmas too. I wish you all could have seen how happy this news made Emilee today. I think that Emilee had felt a little bit of the true spirit of Christmas through her generosity and service.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and we wish you a happy new year!

Cody and Emilee

P.S. All in all we ate Carne Asada 6 times on our trip! Sweet!!!