Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas this year

Everyone humored me and wore matching Christmas pajamas.  I was feeling kind of dumb for getting them, but in the end I loved them and I loved everyone matching on Christmas morning.

It's kind of impossible to get everyone in my family to smile at the same time, but I thought these turned out pretty cute anyway.

Everyone seemed to like their presents this year. Grace is still loving Loki things.

Mark is always hard to shop for.  I got him several books that he won't have time to read for years. 😂

Joy loves squishmallows and stuffed animals in general.

Daniel and Andy were so cute opening presents together. One of my favorite parts of Christmas was watching Andy open his presents from Daniel (Daniel was so excited).  Daniel spent most of his money buying Andy presents. He sure loves his big brother.

It's so good to have BethAnne starting to feel better after her difficult surgery and long recovery.

This wasn't a Christmas present, but it's one of my favorite things from the Christmas season.  We got it at Disneyland to commemorate our getaway.  It's so cute.

Now we enter a new year with hope in our hearts, and gratitude that even through hard times, we have each other and we have the Savior and His Gospel to see us through. May we feel His peace and strength and joy this new year.

Christmas Getaway

I had some travel agent benefits expiring at the end of the year, so Mark and I decided to go on a quick getaway to see Disneyland at Christmas.

Disneyland is so magical at Christmastime, it's like a whole different experience.

Small World is all decorated for Christmas with Christmas music and Small World medley.

The grey stuff is very festive at Christmas. It's at Red Rose Tavern and it's a must-try treat all year round.

We went to the World of Color Dessert Party again.  It was a Holiday program this time and it was spectacular.  We loved it so much that we went back to see the show again the next night.

So cool! And the music was wonderful.

The Castle and Small World were all lit up for the Holidays.  It was gorgeous.

The Grand Californian is beautiful at Christmas (and all year too).

Huge Gingerbread house in the lobby

It was a really fun and relaxing trip.  And thus ends our year of travel. It was a bit of a mid-life crisis year for me, but the travel really helped and also inspired a new direction for me as a travel agent.

 

Thanksgiving at the Oregon Coast

It was a tough year with grief and health challenges, including a major surgery for BethAnne at the end of September.  Also, Thanksgiving reminded me of losing Genevieve a few days after Thanksgiving the year before. So we decided to get away to one of my favorite places for Thanksgiving, the Oregon Coast.

On the drive there, we saw the sunset behind Mt Hood. It was so beautiful.

Our rental house was right on the Ocean and it was really a great view. The house was pretty nice too.

We love spending time on the beach.  The weather was really nice, even with the November chill. So sunny.

We found a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner.  I would have settled for any restaurant, but we ended up accidentally booking a great place with a great view.

Most scenic Thanksgiving dinner ever. It was yummy too!

BethAnne stayed home to keep her dogs company. She was also still recovering from some surgery complications that had put her back in the hospital a few days earlier. She had fun celebrating Thanksgiving with my family though.

View from the back porch. 

More fun in the sand at sunset.

My sweet Mark, looking fit and handsome. As always, I'm grateful for his support of my traveling tendencies, especially this last year. 

On our last day we went to the Newport Aquarium.  It was smaller than I expected, but we loved the glass aquarium tunnels.

I tried to capture the moon on the ocean late at night. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was spectacular. I'm glad we found this beach community (Bella Beach) a few years ago when a favorite Instagrammer (Sara from Our Best Bites) recommended it. We've stayed at three different houses on three different trips now. The house we stayed at this time was the specific house Sara recommended and it did not disappoint.  It was another magical trip.

 

August thru November 2023

 We had some lovely sunsets in August and September.  We love the view from our front porch.

In August, our sweet dog, Daisy, suddenly got ill, with all sorts of scary symptoms.  It was really difficult to see her suffer and lose all sense of anything.  After three vet visits and several treatments, with no improvement, she passed away on my birthday, August 25th. Even though I'm not a dog person, per se, I had grown to love her and her death was much harder than I expected. We all miss her, and BethAnne and Lily (our other dog) miss her especially.

I love spending time with my niece Abbi, she's so sweet.

We had lots of fun with cousin Leeya when she came to visit.

Then in September we went to FanX in Salt Lake City with the girls.

They looked so great in their costumes!

Mark and I went to see the elephants at Hogle Zoo while the girls did Fanx.  It was a lovely day.

The elephants left Hogle Zoo a few weeks later to join the elephants at a different Zoo so I'm glad we got to see them.

We grew some too large zucchini, as usual, so creative Joy turned one into a Veggie Tales guy.  So funny.

We totally forgot about Halloween costumes until Halloween was pretty much here.  Luckily we had some from previous years and the kids looked great. Joy is some kind of mushroom person. Daniel is an Ender Dragon and Andy is Harry Potter.  

April through July 2023

 Grace went to Prom with some of her friends in April.  She looked like a princess.

Then we celebrated Daniel's 6th birthday.

We went with the neighbor friends to Wahooz and had a great time.

Mark and I had a fun date in June to see Shoshone Falls

It was not long after this that I came down with a bad case of Shingles. For the first week we thought it was pancreatitis, but it was actually shingles located in the same place that I feel pancreatitis (and more places).  It was a really difficult and painful experience. Several months later, I still feel a little sore sometimes when I'm tired.

At the beginning of July we celebrated Andy's birthday and 4th of July. 

Then we pulled of an epic surprise birthday party for Grace.

17 years old!

Grace's friend Lexi made an awesome "Pin the horns on Loki" game.  

And we had a Marvel decorated cake with maraschino cherries (her favorite)

We're so glad Grace has great friends.

Grace's friend Lexi also made this epic picture of "Loki Grace".  She's so talented. 

It was a great party and we love our Grace!