Big Al's

December 22, 2015: We had an adventure one day at the bowling alley in Boise. Ky had taken her boys and Grandma and Grandpa there and they had some pretty good deals.  So we spent the morning there.  It was very cutely decorated for Christmas.

Ky, Kris, Talon, Taz, Cynjyn, Beckham and Kres bowled. 

With help from Annalyn of course.

She was hungry, so we found a lemon at the bar and she chomped on that for a good 15 minutes. 

Friendly competition.

We all ordered food and it was massive.

Plenty for everyone.

It was a fun morning. 

Our bowling deal got us 5 $ token cards to be spent at the arcade upstairs.  Talon played Deal or No Deal and got the 200 ticket jackpot!

His cousins were thrilled because they got his tickets, Talon got the thrill of winning...it was a win win situation.

Everyone loved the arcade.

After the bowling, Grandma and Grandpa too Kres, Beckham and Annalyn home and the rest of us went to Star Wars the Force Awakens.  Except Krissy and Cynjyn, they went to Mockingjay 2.

It was an epic fun day.

Misc Moments

December 2015: I wanted to include some moments from our trip that didn't really fit into anything, so these are kinda random. Mikel was talking about how she LovED Buddy the Elf, we stopped in Ash Springs to use the bathroom and they had him on the window.  This was on the way up to Idaho. 

Cynjyn mimicked the Grinch.

We stopped in Ely for lunch and Taz added extra meat to his sandwich, they were comparing his to Cynjyn's normal one.

On the way home it was snowing in Ely so I grabbed a last family selfi.  Garry posed for the first one which didn't turn out then he was off to the car!  No time for him for selfi's.

Cynjyn curled my hair for me a couple of times on our trip.  I wish she was always at my beck and call!

Annalyn was obsessed with shoes.  If there were shoes laying around, she wanted them on her feet.  Even Talon's slippers.

Talon bonded with all his younger cousins...I guess he's practicing for fatherhood!

And of course, we didn't neglect Lola!  She still got plenty of lovin!

Food, Family, Games

December 26-29, 2015:  We headed to La Grande the day after Christmas.  It was going to be a short visit.  This trip was all about food.  Talon had been waiting 8 long years for his licorice ice cream and El Erradero Mexican food.  Our first stop was Hought's for the ice cream.  Mikel wasn't too fond of her first bite of licorice ice cream and opted for huckleberry instead. 

Then while we ate our ice cream in the car we stopped at Nell's for curly fries and fried pickles for Cynjyn.  All I can say is YUMMO to both!

We broke out grandma's snow gear for 4wheeling and tubing. 

 We took a drive Sunday after church and Cynjyn got out because the snow looked deep and she wanted to see it.  Talon quickly jumped out after her saying he was going to need to rescue her if she sunk, but alas, it wasn't too deep, just pretty.

We had been waiting to go to dinner at El Erradero for Talon's birthday.  It was the first dinner we had in LG.  It did not disappoint.  Talon ordered two, TWO, 2, meals so that he could get all he wanted.  Garry just happened to mention to the waiter that he was ordering two because it was his birthday.  So then the waiter made a big deal out of that and wanted to bring him a free shot on the house and a free daiquiri and kept trying to get him to say yes.  It was so funny.

He finally settled for a free dessert of fried ice cream.  The waiter asked Talon if he wanted chocolate or strawberry, but didn't tell us what it was for, so Talon said both.  Then when he brought the ice cream, it was covered in strawberry daiquiri because that was all he could find.  He was determined to get Talon that alcohol.  So he and Garry cut the ice cream open and scrapped off as much strawberry as they could and Talon ate the inside. 

Fun times for sure and worth the wait.

Taz had a calculus packet due and so he had grandpa help him with that.  They spent about three hours one night.  Taz didn't need much help, he could figure it out, Grandpa was just there to check it and help him make sure it was correct.

We were able to make it to the annual Waite Christmas party reunion.  It was cool because I made Reed gather everyone together to take a group picture.  Ky and I went home and counted the people that were there and the ones that weren't.  74 of us were in attendance and 95 were missing.  That's pretty impressive for my Grandma and Grandpa's posterity. 

We had to get some last minute game playing in.  Trampis came over to play with us.  It was a night filled with laughter and fun. 

 Annalyn warmed up to everyone!  It was cool seeing her comfortable with everyone even though Taz was clearly her favorite. 

You'd think it was winter time the way everyone was bundled up.  Mikel and Cynjyn were missing the LV weather sometimes.  The sleeping arrangements were interesting.  Talon and Mikel slept in the LR. 

 All too soon the trip was over and it was time to head back.  Ella went with us to spend an extra day with us in Boise.  I loved being in LG in the winter.  It was fun and cold and fun.

The big night, the big day

December 24-25, 2015 We did Christmas Eve//Day at Krissy's house.  We had our Christmas Eve dinner of yumminess: Chicken Satay and peanut sauce, lil smokies, bean dip, cheese and crackers, deviled eggs, veggie dip and nachos. 

I wanted a few pictures before we started the evening. 

Ky was in charge of games for the night.  She did a great job!  She had premade the teams and so this was team number 1: Grandpa, Clay, Krissy, Garry, Cynjyn, and Beckham.

Team number 2: Talon, Kres, Grandma, me, Ky, Taz and Annalyn (they came as a pair since Annalyn was obsessed with Taz and wanted to be with him every minute.)

Our first game was based on a game Jimmy Fallon plays about a box and lying.  One person was given a box with unusual things in it and they told the other person what was in the box.  That other person guessed if they were lying or telling the truth. 

Then we played a game where a team mate held a little NERF basketball hoop on their forehead and the teammate across from them had to throw it in and get a basket, you did this to all the team members and the team that accomplished this the quickest won.  Sadly, I didn't snap any pictures of this,  I was to busy playing it.  Then we played Family Feud.  We buzzed in and shook hands and everything.  That was fun!  Then we did the traditional gift game where you draw a number and pick a gift to unwrap or steal.  There was some trading at the end of the game and everyone pretty much got what they wanted.  Sadly, no picture of that either. But Tanner was in Las Vegas with Robert Jodi and Trey and they did the same game.  Jodi was taking pictures of their adventures for me and snapped this one of Tanner.  He got Kingsmen DVD for his gift!

Ky's family spent the night in Brian and Krissy's trailer and so after all the fun, it was time to get everyone settled for the night.  I helped Beckham prepare a plate for Santa and the reindeer and we put it by the fireplace.  See, there is the bb hoop in the background!

We didn't get to bed until after midnight.  Apparently Kres was so excited that he was up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.  The night before, he had sorted all his presents into one spot and had even picked out what order he was going to open them in.  We forgot to bring stockings up, so Santa found some chairs and pushed them together and filled our chairs with goodies to greet us when we woke up. 

After breakfast (biscuits and gravy per request from my kids) we gathered to let the mayhem begin.

We went around one by one with the kids opening presents one at a time in birth order starting with Annalyn and ending with Talon.

Talon had already got a lap top for bday/Christmas so he only had a couple of gifts to open and to make it worse, the gifts from grandma and grandpa had not yet arrived. 

Talon had wanted some trivia games especially from the 90's.  We played them later in the day though and he realized how difficult trivial pursuit games actually are!

Cynjyn was happy with the pants she got from Hot Topic, at least after she realized she shouldn't wear them on her head!

Annalyn  loved her new chair from gma and gpa.

Taz organized all his gifts and started texting his friends with his favorite treasures.  Namely his rock climbing grip board and card decks.

We got everything we asked for too!  I got a Minc and a sweater and shoes and a phone to computer USB port.  Garry got a bigger shaving bag and a new camera bag. 

Talon and Brian picked up Mikel from the airport at noon and we snapped a picture. 

 We had dinner about 4.  Prime rib and turkey.  We had three tables, a teen/young adult table.

 a kids table right next to them.

 And the adult table.  Dinner was yummy thanks to mom and Brian. 

It was great being together at Christmas time.