Spreading some Christmas cheer

One of our favorite family Christmas traditions is visiting a rest home. It helps us feel the Christmas spirit more than just about anything else we do this time of year. This year we went on our 15 year wedding anniversary.

We loved having Mom, Dad and Suzanne here to share this tradition with us!
We have a chime set that the elderly residents enjoy. Our kids are actually getting pretty good at it now that we've been playing the same song on them for several years.
Devin and Danica are a hit with the residents.

It's so good for the boys to get outside of their comfort zone and visit the elderly.

Dayton gave a hug to each person. One lady asked him what his name was. She misheard his name as "Satan." Even after having him say his name several times, she was still unsure why anyone would name their child that!

Chatting and visiting, spreading some Christmas cheer.

Grandma and Grandpa come

This December has certainly been a whirlwind. Mom arrived, then we went on our cruise, next Dad and Suzanne arrived, then Mike, Ta and little Alden came by to visit. The day after they left, Rebecca and Kevin came and then we left for Katy for Christmas. It has felt like a revolving door holiday.

This was the first time Dave and my kids had met Aunt Natasha, as well as cute little Alden.
Grandpa got a piano recital from Drew. He had learned all the scales and chords and earned himself...

$50- WOW!!!

Dave and Grandpa spent several hours working together in Danica's room fixing her bed and dresser. We really appreciated Dad's work! Mom helped me organize my kitchen, which I've loved.

We didn't just work them the whole time, though. We made candy houses with the kids.

Dayton's house was dubbed the "avalanche" since all the frosting and candy was just dumped on top. An earthquake later finished it off.

Dallin color coordinated his roof.

We got in a game of plunger. It brough back memories of when Dave flew out to meet my family 15 year ago and taught us how to play.

Dayton's birthday

Dayton turned 11 this year. He is growing into such a fine young man. He is so sweet with his little brothers and sister. He always wants the same kind of birthday cake. He had his best friend Robby sleep over.

Dayton wanted "ordered" pizza for dinner.
What a treat to have Grandma here!

Dayton got a soccer goal (now we have a full soccer field out back), a soccer ball, and a game for his ds. He also wanted "store made" cupcakes for his class.

These kids don't need toys to have fun. What was funny was that Devin was standing by watching the fray. You could tell he thought it looked like fun but that it was a bit over his head.

Cruise

December 12th Dave and I left for our Western Carribbean cruise. My Mom stayed with the kids.

Our ship was the Carnival Ecstacy. We arrived on the boat and tried out the food buffet.

Formal night Dave and I enjoyed dressing up. It was pretty funny when we came up from our room, some lady we didn't even know said "Wow, you look great!" Very friendly on the cruise, I guess.

Dinner was lobster. I decided that I care for shrimp more than lobster. Dave had two plates.

The dinner times were always highlights. We had a good group at our table.

Every evening we had a towel creation waiting for us in our room.

When we arrived in Cozumel we took a sailboat ride out to snorkel then to a private beach.

It was 87 degrees in Cozumel...beautiful!

One of the things we enjoyed the most was just the chance to relax and get away from all our responsibility...and kids!











Relaxing...no cell phones, bishopric, work or kids!

Here's our sailboat. We're heading back to do some shopping.

The beautiful blue waters of the Caribbean.
The weather in Galveston had been 50-ish and foggy. So Cozumel was absolutely fantastic!

We had a delicious dinner in Cozumel.

Dave requested Christmas music and next thing we know, he's up there trying out the xylophone. I always enjoy listening to Dave speak Spanish to the locals.

The shopping was great fun. We found a little sundress for me, t-shirts for Dayton and Drew, an onyx chess set for Dallin, and jingle bells for Danica and Devin. We got this fun hat for free with our t-shirt purchase.
And Dave got sunglasses. I loved the palm trees and tropical weather.

Another big ship docked next to ours. It was fun to walk in between them.

We got to know the people at our table pretty well. We had a good time.

Next stop was in Progresso. We walked the the beach and found lots of old boats. We had some fun posing and taking pictures.

Delicious lemonade in Mexico!

Back on the boat Dave and I played a game of mini-golf. I beat him in extra holes!

Our boat had a fun waterslide.

Dave went down even after I chickened out to the cold. He only let me off the hook when I offered to take his picture.

We caught both a sunset and a sunrise on the boat. We got up early each morning to jog on the track. We also did an abs blast class. The other measure we took to counter all the yummy, mass quantity of food was not taking the elevator. We managed to stick to the stairs the whole time.

Beautiful sunset.

The princess and the frog.

Froggy, Texas style.

We enjoyed the soft serve ice cream. One evening they served up these yummy swans.

Our waiter was Augus. He added a lot of "flavor" to dinner. This picture was on the last night. We almost missed dinner. We watched Harry Potter Six and ended up being an hour late for dinner since we thought we were actually an hour ahead somehow.

I had seafood every night but one...good stuff.

We met Daniel and Nancy at the parking lot in Galveston. They had BYU alumni tags. We struck up a quick friendship and saw each other quite a bit on the boat.

Here's a few short clips from our wonderful trip.