Christmas Vacation 2016

 The first leg of our journey west was to Grand Junction.  We left home right after Kayla got home from school (we had to wait for her to take a final).  It was right around noon.  We arrived in Grand Jct. around 1 am.  The time change helped with that!  Jason's parents had a nice set-up in the basement for us.

 We slept in and then got ready to take Kayla to Colorado Mesa University for a campus tour.  Luckily we also got to meet the institute director, who knows Jason's parents.  Kayla has yet to decide where to go to college so hopefully this helped.  We didn't get any pictures of her, but Harold had Kyle and Rachel with him and he got this one from performing arts building.  Ha!

That night the kids opened their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa: New robes!  If it looks like Kyle was in a weird mood, he was.  The whole trip.  It was fun!  He kept us laughing.

The next morning we were off to Nevada.  We dropped our bags off at my parents house in Mesquite and drove to Vegas to visit the Bulows.  I'm so sad I didn't get any pictures!  BR was Jason's favorite mission companion, and he and his wife Tara have kept in touch with us over the years.  It's been years since we've actually seen them though, so it was really great, and their family is wonderful.

Christmas eve we enjoyed playing games and going to a movie!  Rachel and I went to Sing! and the others went to Rogue 1: A star wars movie.

 I love these 2 so much!

 ...and these 2!

 When we got home from the movie, we let the kids (and grandma) open their Christmas PJs!  Also, Jason couldn't wait any longer to give us our gifts.  Usually I plan Christmas gifts, but this year he thoughtfully chose something just from him for me and each of the kids.  It was fun for me because I didn't know what they were.  Here are the kids showing their gratitude:

My parents handmade everyone gifts this year, so awesome.  I didn't get a pictures of Mom's slippers, but here's the gifts from my dad, we will treasure them!

 Christmas morning we got up and got ready for church.  We got some pictures before heading out to Arizona for church, another state, another time zone!  It was fun to be a part of a big ward for a day :)

 After church, we crossed over to Utah to see Jess and Trent!  They moved there in June, and I've been looking forward to seeing their new place and tour Jess' new workplace.

 Jess, if your goal was to get all of us wanting a pet, you succeeded!  The kids and I fell in love with JoJo and the cats.

 Monday after Christmas, we went to see Jess' main place of work, the Visitor's Center of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab.  So fun!

 Then we went on a tour of the animal sanctuary.  It's so cool what they do there.  I love their values and big hearts.  I want to go back and volunteer!

 Kanab is so beautiful!

After the tour we drove through Zion's National Park and stopped for a walk:

Then we were off to Hurricane, UT for pizza dinner and a funny Christmas show at the Rattlin' D Playhouse.  It was very funny, I loved watching my kids laugh.

  

 Jason then took Kayla to the airport in Vegas, to fly home so she could make a basketball game she didn't want to miss.  We missed her the rest of the trip!  Back in Mesquite, we had a relaxing day filled with popcorn ball making, games, and a final photo for Rachel in front of a palm tree.

Then, we made our way back to Grand Junction for 1 more day!  This time Crystal was there, we had fun spending time with her and playing games.  We also scoped out the area to get an idea of what kind of housing is available, and left feeling optimistic!

Great times, good people, fun memories!