New Christmas Traditions

Precious storm before Christmas! This pic is outside our apartment in Provo. We took this pic at 7 am, it continued to snow steadily until about 1:30 that afternoon. Tree branches were going down and even a big tree was overturned on campus. It was a blast. My boss couldn't get out of his driveway, so I did Service Requests on my own...the true test of an electrician-in-training. I did very well. The big boss man was impressed. Maybe I'll get a raise? probably not, but i did good work and i was happy with myself. The amount of snow on the ground is about half as much as we received that day. Yep, we have a white Christmas.


Well we have had a wonderful vacation down in Manti where the snow is deep and the love and joy of living even deeper!
We arrived here late on the 23rd and we were all ready to feel the joy of Christmas Eve. We threw a Christmas Eve party with a huge and delicious dinner. We had turkey, potatoes, shrimp, raspberry jello-thing that was really good, sparkling grape juice, etc. It was awesome! It was kind of a make up for the thanksgiving meal we skipped in place of Disneyland. We sang carols, bore testimony, and acted out the nativity after dinner. We also read Stubby Pringle...we can't forget about old Stubby, cowhand of the triple X. G-ma did the twelve days of Christmas, we loved opening a present a day, especially since we didn't have much under our tree. Thanks grandma! Here is a pic of Aubrey modeling the apron, one of the twelve presents:

Anyway, then Christmas came and it was wonderful too. This is the morning of!
Santa and loving parents were very kind. We got an air mattress so visitors can have a place to sleep in our house. Santa brought us a nice lamp, you can see the lamp shade in the above photo. Aubrey wrapped up a few the things we already had so that we could open something on Christmas day. For example she wrapped up our dictionary, my leatherman, a half-eaten box of sugar babies we bought a while ago, etc. It was fun to open presents and watch the family get excited about their gifts. I was given a cordless drill, a razor, a hammer, and a driver set, plus i was given a fur hat. I went up five degrees on the Man-Scale. yeah, then i was able to help friends building their house. My man points kept going up. We lost a screw in our license plate so it was hanging on by one rusty screw...yeah, i took my drill and a self-tapping screw and put that stinker back on! one more point on the Man-Scale. Of course, i can't be a full man until i build my own house. Until then, i just have to practice. Here are some pics of us showing off our stuff:
I caught my wife in her Christmas sweater! She got that and a backpack, a nice water bottle, BYU socks, sweet shoes, and some more clothes from her mom and dad. She's the greatest wife ever!
Aubrey made me take this picture and now she is making me post it. So, even though the drill and the hat add to my man points, this picture definitely takes away from it. I still love that hat though, it kept my head warm when i was helping build that house in 15 degree weather.