Jones Family: Christmas Break- in a nutshell

So I realize I am 3 months late with this post, but better late than never, right? We went to Idaho for Christmas and had a blast! I don't even know if I can remember everything we did, but I'll try.

Some of the enjoyable things we did were visiting Chez(Blake's brother) and his family in Ogden, going Christmas tree hunting with Kristi(my sister) and her family, making Gingerbread houses with Julie(my other sister), playing volleyball, going hunting, playing games, cooking, watching the kids play with their cousins, playing the Wii, exercising at 6am!, swimming, cross country skiing, ice fishing, going to the movies, eating, watching movies, visiting Grandma Great, Christmas Caroling, going to church, going to the temple, making gifts, riding the 4-wheeler, sledding, watching basketball, going to Christmas parties, watching the kids act out the Nativity, watching everyone open Christmas presents, opening presents, and one of the most enjoyable was watching my grandpa be baptized. We had so much fun doing all of these things, but being able to speak at my own grandpa's baptism and see him make that commitment was such an amazing Christmas present to all of us. It felt so right to see him take that step in his life.

We did have some less enjoyable times while we were there too. Remi told me one night she didn't feel good, a couple minutes later I was doing her hair in the bathroom and she threw up. She proceeded to do so every 30 minutes from 7:00 until 12:30. Blake saw her once and lost it himself. So he was up every little bit from like 11:00 until 3. Then the next day we went cross country skiiing. Remi was fine, but that night Broden got sick. He only threw up twice. Eventually I got it too and only Alissa escaped the nasty bug. It was so hard staying with family while we were sick. We couldn't shut ourselves off from everyone, so I think it spread through lots of the family. We felt so bad:(

Other than the sickness we were so glad to be surrounded by our families at Christmas time. Blake and I talk often about how lucky we are that we both love eachother's families so much. We both get along with the "in-laws" and feel just a much a part of eachother's families as we do our own. We are so grateful to our parent and brothers and sisters for making this possible. We love all of you and miss you!

Christmas tree hunting

This picture has a funny story behind it. The Jones' have always opened presents in their front room, but we didn't think there would be enough room for everyone in there. So we moved the presents out from under that tree and put them down in the basement under a different tree. When Santa came he also put the presents in the basement. So in the morning when the kids woke up they went running into the front room to see the presents and there weren't any. They were looking all over to see where Santa had put them. It was so funny. They didn't seem upset that there weren't any presents. They just looked and looked until we told them they were in the basement.