The Rest of the Holiday

Is it really already over? Here are some highlights from the rest of our holiday.

A small group of family got together to celebrate Blake's birthday. I think the best part of the day was when Blake was presented with the phone he's been wanting ever since he saw Tony's in October. Unfortunately, they're impossible to find, but fortunately Tony was willing to upgrade and let us buy his phone. Even if we didn't do anything else the entire week I think Blake would have been occupied figuring out his new phone. A birthday success. Blake made his debut appearance at Kangaroo Zoo and I think he thoroughly enjoyed it. This was also our first visit with a mobile Jack. Just Jack walking through the bounce house created enough of a bounce to knock the poor guy over. Good thing he always had a smile on his face. And I think Blake enjoyed Kangaroo Zoo. Of course he had to create some competition, just going down the slides wasn't enough for him. Blake set up a race course, set a record time, then Andy came along and beat that record time by four seconds. I think Blake wanted to race again, but there wasn't enough time. It wasn't enough that he beat my time by 1 minute and 30 seconds! :)We attended this year's annual family post-Christmas party, where I was asked to fill some pretty big shoes and be this year's photographer. This is a big deal. Seriously. I was sweating bullets while Blake was setting up the tripod for the group picture. I'm proud that in the best picture I got, my son is picking his nose. I hope I never have to do that again!
Andy and Bri taught us how to play Canasta to fill Blake's competitive needs during the week. Too bad Blake and Andy got whooped by the girls in the first several games. Bri and I even got all four wilds two games in a row! (Unheard of in one game, let alone two right in a row!) One night Andy and Bri invited us over to their house for dinner and more Cananasta and that night Blake chose the right team. Geri could only carry me and Andy so far and we ended up losing. Big time.
And we went to see the beautiful Christmas lights at the Salt Lake Temple and test out Andy's new camera. Too bad it was so darn cold or we could have stayed and looked around all night. We had so much fun spending time with our family in this wonderful state. We are so grateful to all our babysitters who made it possible for us to watch another season of Lost and catch up on our sleeping. We are also grateful for Tony's razor, that did the dirty work and removed Blake's beard before he returned to work this week. What an absolutely perfect White Christmas!