Christmas vacation and New Years in a blog post.

Our vacation to Oregon started out with high hopes. We only wanted two things: Clear roads for driving up and back, and snow to play in while we were there. We arrived in Boise on the December 19th with the first part of our wish granted. Clear, wonderful roads for driving. We stayed with Krissy and Brian. We bought tickets to Bogus Basin for the 22 of December to do a two hour tubing session. In the mean time, we enjoyed visiting back and forth with Ky and Krissy and their families. Garry, Trey, Tanner, Taz, Ella and I went to Avitar one day while Ky, Kris, Cynjyn and Kres went to the Frog Princess. Tuesday morning came and we woke up to snow!! Yeah, it was snowing, but the bad news was our sledding was cancelled due to LACK of snow up on the mountain. Here are three sad children because they won't be able to go tubing.

However, we also had three happy children because it was snowing.

They made snow angels,

a small igloo,

and improvised their own tubing hill with some of Krissy's boxes and a small hill.

Beckham was a little overwhelmed by us all invading his house and space, but quickly warmed up to us and especially loved Tanner because he would "walk" him places. We traveled to La Grande on the 23rd and again had clear roads and made it there safely.

Christmas eve we had a houseful. All of the Goon's except Talon, Randy and his family, Krissy and Brian and Ky and her family and Grandma and Grandpa. We had quite the feast that evening, but my favorite was the chocolate fondue!!

Lucky for us, Grandpa has a barn, so each year we go up there, we reinact the nativity. Here are Garry and Grandma as spectator in the barn.

Grandpa reads the story from Luke.

Ella is the angel, Cynj in Mary, Kres is Joseph, and Beckham is Baby Jesus.

Trampis, Tanner and Taz are the three wisemen.

After the nativity, we played the chocolate bar game,

Musical bear,

had the gift exchange and played Mafia.

Then, the stockings were hung,

the goody plate prepared for the Jolly one and his reindeer,

and the children all nestled snug in their beds!






Trampis got to sleep in the living room because Santa was bringing his stuff to the motel room where his mom and dad were sleeping.

Oh, yea, I forgot to mention that Grandpa had bought two new TVs. One for his room and one for Grandmas. Garry and Brian mounted Grandpa's in his room. Now, here's a joke for you, how many men does it take to hook up a TV??

Apparently, 3. Clay jumped in to help on the big one in Grandma's room.

Christmas morning saw the kids up at 6:00 am all bleary-eyed, but anxious.

Beckham was the first one up! We let Kres sleep in though!!

The kids think Grandma is mean because they only get to open their stockings and then they have to eat breakfast before they can tear into everything else. With a houseful of people, we had to put up three tables so we could all eat breakfast.

Then we all stake our claim in the dining room and pass out presents. We go one at a time in birth order opening each present so that way it lasts longer and we can all see what everyone got. Here's grandma and grandpa with their stash.

Garry is helping Lola with her presents.

Here is Taz's stash,

Tanner's and

Cynjyn's. (Ella opened hers at the hotel with her mom and dad).

Now, here's our funny story of the year. Our kids draw names so that they can get something nice for a sibling. Talon drew Taz's name. Taz had been saving his money to buy an Xb0x. We told him we weren't getting him one because we'd gotten a cruise for us as the main gift this year. So, he went on saving and almost had enough to buy one, but we wouldn't let him until after Christmas. Meanwhile, Talon's friend at work had an extra one and sold it to Talon for $50.00. So Talon jumped on that. So we decided to get him a bunch of games for Christmas. So, fast forward to Christmas morning, Taz get's an Xbox game from Santa under the tree. Garry and appear worried that Santa confused Talon and Taz's gifts and left Talon's in La Grande and must have given Talon Taz's Wii game in Las Vegas. Taz looks a little confused and worried. So, we go on with the morning and it's time to open presents. Taz picks his first one and it's another Xbox game, oh, no, did Garry and I confuse his with Talon's AGAIN?? Still, he looks worried. He gets to choose his second present, another Xbox game. Garry and I are so sorry Taz!! Finally, he chooses to open Talon's present for him!! An Xbox, all is well and Taz is smiling the whole morning. Now, the funny thing is; Brian comes up to us after all is said and done and says that we really had him going. He thought we really had confused Talon and Taz and he was getting really worried and sad for Taz!! Never fear, all is well and Talon got the BIGGEST hug from Taz the minute we got back to LV.

Christmas day was spent working and playing. My parents have been putting on a Christmas dinner for my dad's 5 brother's and their families for 25 years. They always have it sometime after Christmas, before New Years. They reserve the church and we start around 10 and go to about 10 at night. We have a movie watching room, a game playing room, a food room and of course the gym for volleyball, basketball and soccer. My parents provide the dinner everyear as their Christmas present to Dad's siblings. Every else brings snacks for later in the day. We eat at 1:00 and play and snack the rest of the day. So, this celebration was the day after Christmas so that is why we spent the day working. The kids wrapped potatoes for the potatoe bar, then Randy, Darla and Clay took them to Sherlock Holmes while the rest of us stayed home to finish up the preparations.

We did manage to have a yummy Christmas dinner. Cynjyn and Ella decorated the table.

We had turkey and Brian brought a prime rib and cooked it and we had rolls and broc. salad, and mashed potatoes and cheesy potatoes and stuffing and 4 layer dessert and peanut butter ice cream pie.

No one went away hungry!!

Mom and dad kept the Waite family party simple this year. They both haven't been feeling good, with mom recovering from back surgery and dad just having no energy. Usually they (we) make 5 or six salads and desserts and a couple of main meals. This year, we had bbq beef and homemade rolls, a potato bar and a salad bar. We bought two big cakes for dessert and wrote on them ourselves. This is the last year mom and dad will do this as it is so much work. Next year will be potluck and we will rotate families in charge of arranging it all. So there was a bittersweetness to it this year as it is so much work!!

Robert and his family showed up for the Waite party. Rob has tickets to the BSU/TCU game in Arizona for him, Jodi, Trey, Dad, Brian and Wayne. Rob was trying to spiff up Dad's wardrobe. He wanted him to look presentable for the game. Usually dad either wears a flannel shirt with suspenders and jeans for farming, or a white shirt with two pockets for his casual wear. Rob bought him an outfit and mother TOLD him he was to wear it and not complain because the shirt wasn't white and didn't have pockets. Garry and I had gotten him a blue jacket at Mom's request so he'd stop wearing him flannel jackets to weddings and such in the winter. So, here is Dad modeling his new outfit with our jacket. He truly looks like a BSU fan now and he seemed pretty happy about the outfit.

Kres was obsessed with the hot tub and wanted to go in everyday with anyone who'd take him. This day, it happened to be his mom and Cynjyn.

Garry once again was a trooper and went out everyday to help dad feed the cows. It was windy and cold, but his snow gear he'd bought for Bogus Basin kept him warm and cozy.

Taz, Cynj and I went out one day. They weren't afraid to be in the midst of it all.

Taz even got a picture by his beloved Bull.

Lucky for him there was a brand new calf he got to wrestle and hold down while it got tagged.

There favorite part was when grandpa let them steer the truck up and down the lane. They love to feel like they are driving.

With grandma not feeling up to her old self, we got to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant TWICE!! El Erradero!!

Now, we were trying to be good and watch the weather for the perfect time to go back. Unfortunatly, the kids didn't get any snow to play in while we were there. We headed back to Boise on the 29th. We stopped to eat lunch in Ontario and the kids found this frozen patch to "skate" on.

When we got to Boise, Brian's sister Alisa had made Cynjyn a cake for her birthday. Alisa is just starting her own side business and wanted to practice perfecting her purse cake. Cynjyn loved it.

Thanks Alisa!!


Even after watching the weather everyday, we woke to this the day we left Boise. We left at 5:00 am and the roads were awful. It calmed down a little once we got throught Twin Falls, but it was a very stressful morning.

We stopped in Ely for dinner and the kids got to play in the snow there. They were bummed that it snowed the day we LEFT!

We were relieved to back in Vegas safely. NY eve was spent quietly. Taz and Cynj spent the night at the Bailey's (Taz took a break to go to a friends NY Eve party from 6-9:30). So it was just Garry, Tanner, Talon, Tiffany and I for dinner. We had lettuce wraps and egg rolls and our fav. slushy punch.

Then Tal and Tiff left and so Garry, Tanner and I watched Angels and Demons and watched the fireworks on TV.

I literally took the picture of Tanner at the stroke of midnight,

Then handed him the camera and he took this one of us. I know this was long, but I needed to document it for posterities sake. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!