A Few Malihinis: Christmas in Utah, Part 1

This year, I was reminded just how much I love spending Christmas in Utah. Cold, snowy weather, cups of hot cocoa, cousins, siblings, and grandparents, good food, the fireplace, and so much more made this holiday sparkle for us. We spent the three weeks before Christmas doing nothing but deep cleaning and packing. Our entire house (minus the tree and some presents) was in boxes before we left, and it felt like terrible timing. We decided not to care, and it turns out that something so dreadful as a move is not as bad when you let yourself completely forget about it for two weeks.

Before we left, we helped out with the ward Christmas party. This was a notable event for a few reasons: it was our only visit with the bearded man (see my post from last year), Brady did a solo guitar/vocal piece--amped out, even--to "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and it included a live nativity. All of it would have been better had it not been pouring rain the entire time. I think we were as cold as we've ever been in Kauai that night!

You will easily distinguish the iPhone v. real camera pictures throughout this post! Love the Santa shaka.

Kate was Santa's self-appointed elf. She gave the packages to him one by one...

...but when it came time for her turn on his lap, well...maybe next year.

We left on the red-eye December 19th. We go into these flights expecting not to sleep and hoping that perhaps our kids will sleep at least a little. Good thing our expectations were low on this trip. The kids were wide awake for all but about an hour of the trip. It is bizarre that our kids will sleep 12 hours a night at home, but sleep one hour on an overnight trip. Kate didn't make it five minutes in Cory's car before checking out for the rest of the morning. We spent the morning sleeping and shopped away the afternoon.

Cory and Kristen lined up sitters and took us to their favorite sushi restaurant that night. We've had nothing but grocery store sushi here, and thought this meal was amazing. We wish we'd eaten there again sometime on the trip. Next time! We had a fun night chatting it up with them, and finished off the night with Starbucks Salted Caramel hot cocoa from their frothy hot cocoa machine--the first of about six times we'd drink that good stuff on this trip!

Friday, Kristen was gracious enough to watch our (very tired) kids while we skied at Alta. Last year, there was only fake snow in Utah, which made us appreciate the gorgeous, snow-capped mountains at this resort. The weather was clear and relatively warm, and the ski conditions were ideal. We had a great day together. We came home that night to a huge batch of Kristen's truffles, delicious soup, happy kids, and a box of hand-made ornaments (see below).

Cory and Blake joined us. Here they are in the lift. We were a little envious of Blake's skills!

A shot of Zachary painting his ornaments (this is a classic Zachary pose):

Saturday morning, we met up with Erin to make gingerbread houses. Unfortunately, we don't have any better pictures than the one below, although we know she has quite a few. She had her new baby on Monday of that week, but didn't seem phased at all. Zac and Erin built an entire gingerbread together for almost two hours. It was precious to watch and it made me incredibly grateful for our relationship with her. Zachary is very lucky to have so many people in his life that love him!

Saturday, we did another round of truck shopping. Brady was required to upgrade for work, so we thought we might as well look around while we were there. Trucks are tons cheaper in Utah than Kauai, even with shipping costs factored in.

Kate at the dealers. I swear, every place in Utah is so kid-friendly!!! Brady had to walk away from his first round of negotiations.

Saturday night, we met up with Angela and Paul and headed to one of Cory and Kristen's favorite restaurants in Utah--Communal. We had a fun time laughing, eating, and shopping. It's wild to shop at 10pm when everything in Kauai closes at 7pm.

Sunday morning, we packed up some things from Cory and Kristen's house and headed up to Heber for church with Mom and Dad. Cory was kind enough to take a few family shots in our Christmas wear. ("Our Christmas wear" is actually almost entirely clothes lent to us by sister-in-laws! Thanks so much for outfitting my kids for two weeks of cold!)

We got to hear Mom and Bryson speak at church, and listened to some singing from Angela. It was lovely! We settled in for some relaxation at Mom and Dad's.

This was Zachary's favorite decoration at Mom and Dad's house: a huge snow globe with music. Zachary was so happy to be at Mom and Dad's house again, and at this point asked if we could please move to Utah. He said he could play in the snow in the winter and surf in the summer.

Later went to Angela's for a dinner with the entire Edwards family. We hadn't seen most of them in a year, but it felt like yesterday. We ate a huge meal, and held the Edwards gift exchange. Paul handed out the first gift.

Kate got a music toy from Audrey and loves it. It got pretty late so we borrowed some PJs from Logan. He came up a couple times and commented, "Hey, that little boy has the same pajamas as ME!"

Zachary died over his present from Logan. He shot the balls all over the house for hours, and somehow still brought all four of them home.

Christmas Eve morning, we gathered for Edwards family pictures. There was an inside and outside venue option, but the weather was relatively warm, so we went for it in the snow. They hired Lindsay to do them--the same girl that took our family photo shoot when Zachary was first born. I think these turned out darling.

Cory did us yet another favor (oh, and did we mention we borrowed their truck for the entire two weeks??), and took my favorite ever winter shot of us.

I think Zachary looks so much older in winter clothes.

The minute we got off the airplane, Kate's hair lost every bit of curl. She had a mullet for the entire trip. Our friends saw her with Mom and Dad at the airport, and almost didn't recognize her. Poor girl--we really tried our best to make that hair do something cute. I think it still looks okay in this shot, but we had to use a curling iron on her air. Watch out, Toddlers and Tiaras! This mom is not above curling her one year old's hair! (Eek!)

A perfect shot of Mom and Dad. Love the red scarf!

We headed to Kneaders for lunch. Oh, delicious Utah food, how I've missed you.

Most of the Edwards family headed back to their own homes for Christmas Eve, but Angela and Paul joined us with Mom and Dad for Mom's traditional lasagne dinner. We gathered in the living room and played/sang Christmas carols, watched the boys pretend to break dance, and listened to Christmas stories from Paul and Dad.

The kids opened their new Christmas jammies.

Zachary wrote his letter to Santa and left cookies and milk before heading to bed.

We love Mom and Dad's tree--the embarrassing pictures of the kids growing up, the hand made ornaments, Dad's hand-painted ornaments, and even the Christmas teddies.

These are some of the ornaments the kids made with Kristen while we skied.

Dad's hand-painted ornaments:

Santa made it to Mom and Dad's house, and left presents, stockings, and a note for Zac (and I'm assuming he meant to also include Kate):

I love that my kids still sleep until 7am on Christmas morning. They are usually up at 6am, even. Maybe they weren't that excited about Santa. Ha! We made Zac wait while we got Grandma and Grandpa. He was so anxious to peek over the railing, but knew he had to wait for the melody, "Christmas Comes but Once a Year."

Zac has the greatest expressions opening presents. Expression 1:

Expression 2:

Expression 3:

Expression 4:

Kate was excited too, but it's a little harder to see through a runny nose and binkey:

She's been dragging Zac's (broken) Leap Frog dog around the house for a month, so Santa brought her one of her own.

I've read this book to her 25 times since Christmas.

Grandma and Grandpa's backpack present (which she loves so much, she sleeps with it!):

"Grandpa, can you show me how to..." was a phrase we heard a lot that morning.

Mom and Dad gave us pictures on disc of Brady and his siblings growing up, plus books of family history. Lots of effort!

There's a Kate expression!

After presents and a quick Christmas run, we headed over to Angela's for brunch. After another delicious, 2,000 calorie meal, we quickly packed up and headed over to Grandma Nufer's house, where my parents were gathered with the entire Nufer family. This is the first time we were all together for Christmas in nine years.

Grandma made the meal for everyone and we ate in her beautiful home on her beautiful china. After the meal, we opened presents from Mom and Dad Nufer. I love these shots: