Christmas Eve 2009

We have never really made it a tradition to open up a gift on Christmas Eve. This year our family was so blessed that we decided to let them each pick one. Here they are opening a gift of their choice! Here is Cade just getting started.

And Alyssa very excited and being the drama queen that she is. :) (P.S. Both my girls did get new pants for Christmas as you can see they were desperately needed.)

Jaida opened a couple of very cute sweaters! Here she is holding up one!

And Preston, loving another remote control vehicle to add to his collection.

Christmas Day pictures still coming.........

Alyssa's Christmas Program

I'm not sure what the schedule for grades is, but Alyssa was the only one with a Christmas program this year. Maybe it is a 1st grade thing. Here she is getting ready to show us her talents.

Still getting ready. Wow, what a job to get that many 1st graders organized and quiet. (I think there is like 6 classes with about 30 kids in each class).

Not quite serious enough, but at least singing!

Here is the whole group! So cute!

"It's Christmas" was the theme of their program this year. They all did a great job!

Hometown Heroes Salute

The first Friday in November Eric's unit had a special awards night, honoring all of those who just returned, or have recently been deployed. They called it a "Hometown Heroes Salute". It was really neat. They served dinner, and had a couple speakers.

The coolest part was they invited the employers of those who had served and honored them as well. One of the owners of the company Eric works for came with his wife! We thought it was awesome they would come all the way to Salt Lake for it. (They and only 1 other employer came.) I guess they only gave them like 4 days notice! It was definately a feel good moment for Eric when they walked in. They had to walk through the line up and receive a special plaque. We took a picture, but it somehow must have got deleted. :(

Here is the "line-up". Kind of intimidating. Each of us (wives and families included) had to go through the line-up and receive awards. Eric received a very nice plaque, I received a medal, and a nice pen/pencil set and all the kids got dog tags. It was really nice.

This is a picture of Eric's boss getting her award. She is retiring here in a couple weeks, and they are really going to miss her up there!

This event was extra special for their unit also, because they were eliminating their specific unit, and combining with another one giving it a brand new name/title. It was kind of sad for a lot of them. Here is a picture of them retiring the unit flag.

All in all it was a great night, and everyone had a good time. We had a guy take pictures while we were getting our awards, and have yet to see them. Maybe someday.

Thanksgiving.....Finally!

We were able to go up to Eric's grandmas for Thanksgiving in Wyoming, and it was really nice! It had been almost a year and a half since we had been up there, so Cade was MUCH bigger to her!

Even Preston always seems to grow a few inches in between each visit!


Eric doesn't change too much though. :)

We did have a few guests join us for dinner this year!

It was great to also be able to see and catch up with Grandpa McConahay as well!

Here is a picture of Eric's cousin Ashley, her husband Steve, and their daughter Adisyn. They have since (on January 14th 2010) added another little girl to their family...Brinlyn.

Eric's Aunt Diana, and another cousin Brandy.

All the kids. Cameron (in the blue/white stripe, and Chyann the blonde on the bottom left are his cousin Brandy's kids.) Then all my kids, and Adisyn (Ashley's daughter) also seen in the photo above.

The weather was so nice the whole time we were there. The kids LOVED playing outside!

I do love the holidays, and it is always nice to get together with family! We also very much enjoyed Eric being back home, and were not looking forward to him going back to work. But it was inevitable. We headed home from Wyoming on Sunday morning, and were able to stop by Eric's dads one more time and say goodbye!

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!