Christmas

I cannot believe it has already been over a month since Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas season with family in Utah. Before leaving California, however, we spent a wonderful evening with Brian and Anita. We had a wonderful dinner, followed by gift giving. Boy, do they love to spoil our children!!! I don't know who had more fun opening gifts- the kids or Brian and Anita watching the kids! Here are some pictures of that:

Look at that face!
He adores his new car!

The girls in their dress-ups and Grant-man with his car.
Here is the playhouse they received from Brian and Anita. They are working on coloring it at our house and as you can see they are in their dress-up clothes as they do so- also from Brian and Anita.
Grant looking quite dapper in his new outfit from Brian and Anita.

We had a great time in Salt Lake City. It was my first time having Christmas with my own Mother since 2002! The trip was nice. The children really do travel well. On the way to Salt Lake we stopped to visit the Lentz family. What fun it was to see them!

My mother lives right across from the Conference Center, down the street from the Temple. In fact, you can see the temple from her living room. View from my mom's balcony!

The kids especially loved the exhibits at the Church History Museum.
Look at that Nativity quilt- isn't it amazing!

Looking up to Moroni- if you look carefully, you can see the temple out the window.

They had all kinds of fun exhibits for the kids- hands-on stuff like this. As I write this I am realizing I didn't get any good pictures of them in the new Children's Book of Mormon exhibit, which was super fun. If you go to Salt Lake and have kids, you should definitely check it out!

My mom and all of us in front of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Christmas Tree.

Chirstmas Eve, we made a visit to Kenneth's brother and sister-in-law in Lehi and a good friend in Provo. We drove around BYU's Campus- boy has a lot changed since I was there!
Gracie,our niece, was happy with the Elmo doll we brought her.

Visit to Cabella's with Jason, Rachel, Gracie, Katelyn and us.

Visit to good ol' Provo. The 'Y' on the Mountain.

Heidi and Andrea in Provo

The kids did NOT like the cold! We certainly are spoiled here in California. (The past couple weeks we have been going to the park without jackets- it has been beautiful!) We took them out to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square in the evening , and after a few minutes, they just wanted to go home! So, Kenneth and I went back again by ourselves after we put them to bed on Christmas Eve. We sure did enjoy ourselves! Some pictures of The Lights at Temple Square:

Christmas lights around the Conference Center- across from my mom's apartment building.

Salt Lake Temple- Nativity on the reflecting pool.

Gorgeous lights!

More gorgeous lights!

I'm cold! I want to go home!!!!

My Mom made us a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with all the trimmings and a yummy breakfast the next morning. The girls were delighted with the candlelit Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve Pajamas- big hug!

I love this picture of Grant- want a funny guy! I can't even remember what we told them to do- make a funny pose or something.

Opening gifts Christmas morning.

Christmas morning with Grandma Pilz

After church, we had lunch and headed up to Logan to be with Kenneth's brother and sister. We also had a wonderful Christmas dinner there. The kids were so happy to be with their cousins. Kenneth's brother and his family who live in Lehi also joined us in Logan. We had a blast all together! We were able to stay with them for 5 days. The big project was tiling the bathroom floor. (Larchars always need a project. Work is what they do best!) And what put it all over the top was a surprise visit from Kenneth's parents, who live in New York State. The kids were in heaven!
Christmas Evening at the Dawes'. You can see Grant's gift from Santa- Thomas the Train set. He loves it!

Buddies! Tyler and Grant.

Emma, Ashley and Alyssa. So happy to be together again!

Look at all those little cousins lined up. Aren't they adorable? They had so much fun together!

Gingerbread house- making at Karen's house.

These two were the smart ones- why go to all that work when you are just going to eat it anyway? They just skipped the making part and ate!

The kids loving time with Grandma Louise.

Grant helping Daddy with the floor project.

Unfortunately, there were some lows to the visit, too. Kenneth started coughing and really started to feel ill. It came to the point that it hurt to breathe, and there was blood in his sputum, so we took him to the ER there in Logan. After some blood work and a CT Scan, the doctor diagnosed him with Bronchitis and sent us to pick up an antibiotic. We were, feeling grateful that he would soon be feeling better and went on our way. The next day, however, Kenneth's fever spiked to 104.5 and we knew something was wrong. We was already on the antibiotic and should be feeling better. We got the fever under control and he was stable. But, over the next couple of days the pain in his lungs continued to worsen and it was really hurting to breathe. ER visit #2. This time, they did an X-ray and looked at the scan from the 3 days before and found out he had an aggressive pneumonia. They were especially concerned with his history of cancer and decided he needed to have a Broncoscopy done to make sure there wasn't cancer in the lungs that could be causing all this. The problem is, they don't do Broncoscopies in Logan. So, they took him in an ambulance all the way to Salt Lake (about 1 1/2 hours away). Lucky for us, my mother lives right there, so the kids and I were able to come down and my mom could watch the kids while I went to be with Kenneth. They did not find cancer in the bronchial tubes (thank goodness!) and gave him some strong IV Antibiotics that really helped him to feel better. He ended up staying in the hospital for 3 days! At least he had a great view from his room! He could see the Salt Lake temple, Utah Capitol building and the gorgeous Oquirrh Mountains. So, it was there that Kenneth spent New Year's Eve!

After he was released from the hospital, we stuck around in Salt Lake for five days for Kenneth to recover before we made the long drive home. How thankful I am for my mother and her hospitality! While Kenneth was recovering, we did venture out to see a couple of things close to my mom's house.
Grant in the Conference Center

Kids looking out the windows in the top of the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building.

We also had one last visit from Dennis, Karen and Jason and family:
Tea party with Uncle Dennis

One last visit with Uncle Jason.

So, that was it, in a nutshell. It was great. There were also some downright scary parts, but I guess that's life.