Our Delightful Christmas Vacation

Well, our Christmas vacation started off with a bang...seriously...a bang. We were on our way to Boise when BANG our tire pretty much exploded. (All right. I'm embellishing a little. It was more of a grinding noise.) Anyway, we were stranded just outside of La Grande, Oregon, on terrible roads, pretty much a blizzard. To make matters worse, the last guys who put the tires on used a lug nut that was a different size than the rest, so Travis's wrench wouldn't even work. We were out there for over an hour flagging people down while Russ was warm in the jeep watching movies on our computer. (Lucky!) Then it got even worse. When a guy stopped that actually had a wrench that would work, we found out that our donut tire was dead too. So, to make a long story short, we called the Moultons and the Moultons called a bishop in La Grande who called one of his ward members who called us and let us eat and sleep at their house for a night. They were VERY nice people. They made us really yummy food, and we enjoyed our visit with them. Too bad I didn't get any pictures. Russ was really getting attached to them right when we had to pick up and go the next morning. Thank you so much, angel family!! And thank goodness for the church and the networking that it provides, huh?








Angry Travis. This trip is already starting to get expensive.




So, our next stop was Idaho Falls where we got to have a brief rest and visit with the Wards. This is Russ and Grandpa playing with trucks. One just wasn't enough. The next day we got up and traveled to Jackson Hole and stayed over because the weather was kind of bad and we were tired. Finally, the day after that, we made it to Lander, WY. That is 15 hours of driving, people!!! Russell was a saint! What a good boy!!




While in Lander, we had lots of fun with the Moultons. Isn't our gingerbread house georgeous. MMM...I ate a lot of frosting!!! The Moultons fed us lots of yummy yummy meals such as steak and prime rib! We also did a lot of present wrapping and preparing for Christmas. We hit an awesome sale at Wild Iris, a very nice rock-climbing/outdoorsy shop. Those Moultons spoil us every year!!




Russell loves all of Travis's old toys. Russell also loves boxes.



More boxes...really, he loves them.



Then one morning we awoke to find Sponge-Bob nudy pants in Russell's pack-and-play. This has never happened before. Good thing "Bears" was there to cover for him.




What a little stud-muffin. I love this hat on him. So cute.



He and Daddy are twins!!



Of course we had to dress him up in his snow clothes. (Even though there was no snow in Lander. That rarely happens this time of year!! Too bad cuz we couldn't go snowmobiling on Bob's new sled!) After about a week, we packed up, said our goodbyes, and made our way back to Idaho Falls for Christmas day.



This is Russell surrounded by lots of presents. How spoiled!!!



Then the Ward family went to Island Park to stay in this beautiful cabin. It's huge!! Enough room for our entire family and their families! There was soooooo much snow. A big storm hit on Christmas day. We went sledding and snowmobiling and made a cave and threw the kids in the snow and ate...A LOT...and went hot tubbing and jumped out of the hot tub to roll in the snow etc.



Logan and Lexy love their little nephew Russell as if he were their own son. Get busy, guys!!

Russell with his closest boy cousin, Joshua. After a week of festivites, we had to leave to go back to WA. We were sad to go. We do not know for sure when we will be able to make it back to see our families, so it was hard. We stopped in Boise and spent the night with Beau and Rach on our way home. We love hanging out with those guys!

This is Russell pretending to grocery shop at some museum in Boise. Hopefully that fake peach didn't have a dangerous virus on it.



Now we are back at home, and Russ is busy playing with all of his new toys. This is him wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses. What a kid!

Happy late New Year everyone!!!!!!