Happy Holidays

 The holiday seasoon flew by, as it always does now. But we had a great time!

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. Since we put the carpet squares in the big garage upstairs its pleasant to be out there, and there is a ton of space. It worked really well for everyone to be able to move around and talk to everyone, and for the babies to have some space to run around, or people could go inside with them to rest. We had nearly the whole Arbon crew, plus Pop and Ryan, so 44 people in total. It's so fun getting everyone together, I love it.

The weather has been record-breakingly warm so far, which made it a little harder for me to get into the Christmas spirit. I pulled out the decorations a week or two before Thanksgiving (Ava had been asking since Nov 1). But then it just hasn't snowed! I didn't realize how much that cozy feeling of being inside with the tree while its cold outside impacts the whole feeling of the holiday, but it really does. That aside, we had a great time.

We hosted the Arbon family Christmas party here as well, and it was so fun. Sue and Angie do a great job planning the whole thing, and Sue brought the cutest decorations. It was the Arbon Reindeer Games and I was on the winning team with Bus. We did pretty well in the relay games, but then we killed it in the trivia. Trivia is my bag.

We spent Christmas Eve with my family, as usual. Kelson and Lexi didn't come up at all this year, though. We had our Mexican food feast and did the nativity and Night Before Christmas and Books. I love my family's chill Christmas Eve. It is so different without my mom. She has been on my mind constantly.

Santa brought the whole family new Iphone 17 pros, minus Bus, who got a Gabb watch and giant bean-bag chair. That was their big gift, and they got some little things from us like clothes and toys. They let us sleep in until 6:45, which is the lastest it has been in a while! 

For New Year's Eve we spent the day shopping for a truck (which we both hate doing) for the business and then went to dinner at Maddox with most of Tim's family. Then we spent the rest of the evening stocking up on supplies for the business to try and spend as much as we could before the end of the year. So, super fun. Nothing rings in the new year quite like stress buying 250 ft rolls of electrical wire and toilets.

So on to 2026. If it's anything like last 40 years, it's going to be a good one.

Island Park

Tuesday: Leave after Brielle gets done with cheer choreo and Tim gets done with work. Arrive around 8:30 PM

Wednesday: Rent a boat. Spend the day tubing around the lake. Also grinding rocks into dust, sandbox, and s'mores.

Thursday: Yellowstone. Fountain Paint Pot trail and Gibbon Falls. Not one animal in sight. Dinner and a fire. 

Friday: Slow morning. Rent a side-by-side and cruise around. Take a couple walks. A drive around the island in the back of the truck. The rain makes the trees smell incredible.

Saturday: Pick up some lotto tickets on the way home. This will be the lucky year.

Mason's 16th

 Mason was really hoping to go to some kind of water park for his birthday this year. But that broken ankle is really getting in the way. Instead he woke up to a bunch of cash and spent most of the day hanging around playing video games. He recently bought a new xbox, so that's been his main source of entertainment. He did decide he wanted to do an escape room, so we took his friend Graydon and the family did the Mobster. And we actually made it out! We asked for three hints, but two of them we didn't really need. And we made it out with 7 minutes to spare. Then we went to Texas Roadhouse so he could get a steak. He chose the second most expensive steak and then ended up not liking it nearly as much as mine, which was the cheapest. But it was a fun night!

Mason being 16 is so crazy to me. It feels like he's almost my age! He does so well in school. He pushes himself to get perfect grades. And he is super smart. Sometimes a smart aleck. His smile is so happy and contagious, and so handsome with his braces recently off. He's a responsible, good kid. Can't ask for much more than that!

Mason's Broken Ankle

We got a call on our last night in New York that Mason had done a backflip on the trampoline while wearing Tim's crocs and sprained his ankle. Angie said it was so swollen that it was probably broken. We went back and forth a few times, but decided to have them take him to the hospital. And yes, he broke his fibula. Poor guy was really in a lot of pain when we got home. We scheduled an appointment for a week out and the Orthopedist said that he should start walking on it and that it would probably take about 8 weeks to heal. It took Mason several more days of elevating and icing it to be able to start walking on it, but by his next appointment two weeks later, he was walking around fine. He still isn't supposed to swim or ride the rides at Lagoon or do anyting else too crazy. So it's going to be a long, boring summer for him. He was also supposed to schedule his road test to get his driver's license the week after he broke it, so now he won't be able to get his license for a while.

New York

Tim and I finally decided to take a trip without our kids. It took us a while to decide where to go, but we finally agreed on New York City.

We left on Tuesday, June 17. Our 20th wedding anniversary. We flew into Newark and took a car straight to the hotel in Midtown. We spent the first evening wandering around the city looking for some Italian food and decided to eat at a restuarant in Eataly. It was fun to look around while we were waiting for our table. Then we wandered a bit more in search of dessert on our way back to the hotel and found some pastries at a random little shop. 

On Wednesday morning we planned to get up early to beat the heat but ended sleeping in and didn't get started until 11:00. So we decided to just stick to Utah time for the trip and had a NY cheesestake from a food truck for breakfast. We walked down to Penn Station and then decided to take the subway up to the park. We walked from 86th Central Park West across the park to The Met (which is closed on Wednesdays), and then got an ice cream and some lemondade and walked around the resevoir, back to the other side. I decided to live my best You've Got Mail life and get a kiss from the love of my life in front of the 91st Street Garden in Riverside park. We also made our way over to Brooklyn for pizza at Juliana's. 

Then we took the Subway back downtown to Times Square, which understably blew Tim's mind. It really is like no other place we've ever been. We went back to the hotel to try and tried to find some tickets to a show, but when we weren't having luck we decided to just wander around Broadway and see if there were any available tickets. We finally lucked out with Stranger Things and it was incredible. We were both just totally blown away and kept saying how much the kids would love it. Except Ava, she hates scary shows. We ended up just getting Five Guys on the way home.

Thursday morning we headed toward the Statue of Liberty, but decided to stop by the World Trade Center and 9/11 memorial first. We took our time walking around the memorials. Then we walked down to Battery Park and got a glimpse of the statue and sat in the shade for a while. I finally got the try a NYC bagel at Lazzaro's. It was fine. We took a walk up the Highline to look around then decided to take the subway to the Met. I really wish we had more time there, but we stopped and got Bua Thai Ramen for lunch and didn't get there until the middle of the afternoon. It closed at 5:00 - just in time for everyone to have to exit the building in the middle of a downpour. So we got completely drenched looking for the subway station. We finally found it to get back to the hotel, but we accidently got off on the wrong stop and ended up walking for a couple more miles. We went and got pizza and Alfredo at Roma Pizza and then crepes and a milkshake (definately not a Utah milkshake) and went back to the hotel to watch the final NBA playoff game. Which is when we got a phone call that Mason had hurt his ankle jumping on the trampoline...