Christmas was a delight in Utah. Johnny had three entire weeks off of med school so this was our longest stay yet. It was such a comfort to have Johnny flying with me to help with Lucy. The first couple days were spent with my family. Johnny's parents are still serving as the mission President in Ukraine, the L'viv mission. My parents gave us an early Christmas present of tickets to the play 'Elf' and babysitting of the grandchildren. We got to go watch the play with all of my siblings, it was a great treat.
Since John and I don't get to visit Utah much, about twice yearly, we packed our days full of events. I had my traditional 'Kneaders' breakfast with the Murray girls. An outing with my two best buds, Mandy and Aubri. John was in paradise skiing, especially with his brothers. He and Pete had a couple of great powder days back-country skiing. John and I had the chance to spend an afternoon skiing together at Alta- thanks to Pete for watching Lucy. We also did a babysitting swap and were able to go ski at Alta after 3 with Pete, Gena, James, Lindsay, Paul, Kristene and some of the kiddos. After Christmas was spent with the Lattin clan. We ate a delicious dinner and had a white elephant gift exchange. There was a girls lunch to Paradise bakery and lots of games in the evenings. For New Year's Eve, John and I ventured up to Boise, Idaho, to see the Boettchers. Amy and I went running together. We had a morning of Monopoly, hiking, bowling, going to the movies, and eating lots of delicious food. Amy created an array of appetizers for our New Year's Eve feast. I got to see little Matthew since it has been over a year since our last meeting.
My sisters and I had a girls night of waxing, pedicures and eating Cafe Rio and lots of icecream. Lucy had so much fun with her cousin Esther, who is only 10 weeks older. As always it was sad to say goodbye, but it is true what they say babies thrive on a schedule. Lucy had been waking about every three hours towards the end of our Utah trip and was ready for her own crib. Luckily, there were no delays on the trip home and we made it safely back to the 10 degree Morgantown weather.
