Chad put together an amazing scavenger hunt for the Parry side of the family. He spent hours working on it after people showed interest in the puzzle he did for my birthday. Elisa did a lot of it too but she just likes to give me the credit. I think this tradition is going to grow.

Our final gift was a script, set and supplies to make puppets for a Christmas play. People got way more into creating their puppets than I expected and we got some great video footage of the chaotic production.

Daniel spent Christmas Eve doing our last minute Christmas shopping for my family. He is such a good sport. Oddly enough the rocket supplies we sent him out to get for my dad ended up being one of the gifts Chad received from his parents. David, Jason, Chad and I put together some pretty impressive contraptions. We didn’t do the rocket from the kit because I like building disposable rockets out of spaghetti and cardboard instead. David got even more creative and built a rocket-engine-powered pinwheel.

This was my first Christmas celebrating in Idaho. Santa Claus came to Christmas Eve dinner and I was way more giddy than half the kids there. I love Santa! Elisa’s excitement helped the kids get over their stage fright. It was nice getting together with family. I am so glad we are close enough to take advantage of the family celebrations.

Chad went back to Salt Lake to work for the first half of the week before New Years. Eden and I stuck around with cousins and got sick. When Eden’s nose is running there is no reason to ever put on clean clothes. Ever.

The day everyone left for home it began to snow. It was beautiful. I was bummed that I didn’t feel well enough to get out and play in it. Honestly it was nice to snuggle up on the couch and read a book.

I had a great birthday. Our battery was completely dead on our car so I was stranded at home and I had a classes from 5 pm until 9:30 pm including a mid-term, but that couldn’t keep me down. I forgot to turn my phone back on from class the night before so all my well wishes were met with my voice mail. Our Realtor invited me out to lunch but I didn’t get the message until AFTER lunch time. I traded off care for Eden with Chad and headed to class. When I went to turn off my phone I noticed all the missed calls and was able to listen to everyone’s well wishes. I loved it! I felt so great. I did well on my final, and came home to a fantastic surprise from Chad. I do not know how we started our little tradition of puzzles and scavenger hunts but I hope it never ends! I know how we started doing puzzle hunts–it’s because we never know what gifts to give each other. So in the absence of good presents, we have to invent good distractions. I’ll take the distractions any day! Chad must have spent forever on his brain teasers this year. We’ll post the originals so you can try and decipher the clues! Thanks to my mom I got sung to on Monday and Tuesday, she was a little early this year. John said his gift to me was to not sing on his message but then he called back and sang a solo anyway. I am not sure what to think of that. Daniel called just as I was getting into class. My great friends sent me notes. Grandmas sent cards. Turning 27 is pretty great when you have so many people to help make it that way.

News flash! We just found out from a Facebook post that the Elton John & Billy Joel concert tomorrow is postponed. It won’t happen until February. We were so excited for it! Stupid Facebook!