This week brought my parents here for a week long visit.  It has been awesome as they have put up with our slothful vacation ways.  We have slept in, eaten too many treats, watched too many movies and basically hung out a lot.  Every day we tried to do something fun where we left our little cocoon we have going on during the vacation.

We went bowling, and ice skating, we got to see the new Star Wars (except for Robyn who stayed home with a babysitter), but she she was consoled the next night with JCW shakes. 


We made wands for Robyn's upcoming Harry Potter birthday party and Jeremy designed some cool invites for us.


Robyn finished here summer reading challenge by finishing the last book in the Harry Potter series on New Year's Eve.  She has been really slow reading the last book because she was afraid of who would die.  She has been given many spoilers by other kids!


New Year's Eve we played games, ate fondue (note to self, pizza cheese does not work!) and stayed up watching movies and eating snow cones.  Allison and her friend Evy left us for a few hours to go to the youth dance while Spencer was happy to hang out with us watching movies.


My mom taught Allison how to knit a hat from a pattern that my sister Christina wrote based on a hat my sister-in-law Mimi bought.  She had to undo many times but it turned out awesome, and she is very proud of it.


Spencer has had to work for a few of these events and he is pretty back to normal with his teeth.  We had his follow up visit with his doctor and everything is healing up so he was given the go ahead to eat what he wants.

On Saturday night Spencer, Allison and I got to go with my parents to do baptisms for the dead.  It was an awesome experience watching my Dad baptize my kids (Spencer had to kneel and sort of duck forward) and confirm them.  One of the highlights of my vacation.  Spencer has been busy working on family search ever since.


We got to go to the Norman Rockwell exhibit at BYU which was fascinating to walk through.


And no trip is complete with going to BYU creamery.  (And yes its sugar free January in our house but kids have opted out of that one)


Only tough part of the week is that I had a tooth go bad right before Christmas Eve and have been on lots and lots of ibuprofen ever since.  A trip to the dentist Tuesday and then a root canal Wednesday for me.  A tooth died under an existing crown and did not go quietly into that good night.  But 24 hours later waking up without constant sharp pain and headaches was so worth it.

Today we celebrated my dad's 73rd birthday.  We made a big dinner of steaks and strawberry rhubarb pie.  I need to improve my pie making skills but Robyn graciously shared her ice cream from the creamery with everyone which covers a multitude of sins.

And today we turn in early ready to jump back into school.  Except for the early morning part - that part is going to stink.