"Home" for Christmas

Some of our friends who have moved away from Utah have always said that they are going home when they travel back to visit. We have never had mixed feelings about this and feel pretty comfortable saying that our home is in North Carolina. In fact our home is really just anywhere where our little family lives. Having said this we were lucky enough to come to Utah and see many of our friends and family over a two-week vacation this past month. After our visit we decided that our goal each time we return to Utah is to spend time with our family and friends and eat at all of the places we love and miss (like the Spaghetti Factory, The Pie , Maddox's Ranch House , Nielsen's Frozen Custard and Hires.) In the midst of gorging ourselves for two weeks on the above delicacies and great food that both Karen and my mom cooked we did have time to remember what incredible families and friends we have. I wanted to personally thank all of you for the great people that you are and for the wonderful examples you are for us and our girls. We are truly blessed to have you in our lives. Specifically... Rocket and Nana, thank you for taking care of us and allowing us to take over your home. Chris and Angie, thank you for sharing your beautiful children with us and giving our girls cousins they love so much. Trevor and Jamie, thank you for letting me dig up your front yard. Just kidding. Thanks for being so much fun and teaching us great new games. Spencer, thank you for introducing us to Laura. I was so impressed with her and was especially touched by her song on Christmas Eve. I think our little family will not go another Christmas Eve without including some rendition of A poor wayfaring man of grief. Melissa and Brendan, thank you for taking care of about a million kids for us during our party and thank you for doing a beautiful job on our girls hair. Melissa, you really have found a wonderful talent. George and Valera, thank you for spending time with our girls. One of our only regrets after moving so far away is that they are not around you two as much as we would like them to be. Julie and Art, we hope you all had a great holiday and we are sorry we did not get to see your family. Bruce and Carolee, thank you for playing games with us. We love you guys and you are such great examples to us. And Bruce, thanks for helping Karen with my Christmas present. It is beautiful. Craig and Janet, we missed you and want you to know we were thinking of you and hope to see you soon. Ben and Donna, thank you for being you. We are always excited to visit with you and love your spirits. Sean and Shelly, You guys are the best. Thanks for giving us a great date without the girls. Thanks for hosting a busy party at your home. Thanks for being great examples for us. And Shelly, I am not grateful for your passion for spin class as it landed me in spin class and I thought I was going to die. Brian and Katie, Thanks for the tour of your home. You two make a great couple. Grammy and Grandpa, thank you for always being willing to visit with us and to spend time with our girls. As always, you have such great insight into our lives and we love to listen. To all of our friends, we were so happy to spend time with you. We especially appreciated the time we got to spend with the Scotts. You two may be the thing that in the end will push us to migrate back to the Salt Lake Valley. We are very blessed to know all of you and to have your influence in our lives. Once again we hope you all had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a very happy New Year.

Our resident artist

I have been married to Karen now for over 10 years (or a decade as Emma likes to tell people) and rarely does a week go by when I don't learn something new about her. When I called home this week the girls told me that Karen was painting a Nativity scene "stained-glass" window on our house. Of course I thought they were making this up. Sure enough, when I arrived home that night our front window was transformed into a beautiful scene: Joseph leading Mary (and baby Jesus) on the back of the little gray donkey. I was truly amazed. It immediately added a sweet spirit to our home to have the scene brighten our front room. We had a holiday party at our house last night and every person who attended commented on the beauty of the picture. That's my eternal companion!!! We are so grateful this time of year for the birth and life of our Savior. What a blessing it is to have a season to celebrate the gift of His life and to remember His sacrifice. It is so great to have these couple of weeks to examine our lives and re-focus and re-double our efforts to serve Him and to serve those around us.

Our new floor

We persuaded George and Valera to make the trek to North Carolina over the last couple of weeks to visit and to help us lay down ceramic tile in our kitchen and dining room. George and Karen worked sunup to sundown several days to get our floor torn-up, cleaned, glued, tiled, grouted, cleaned again, and sealed. I am grateful for their talents in fixin' things. Our house looks great. The girls loved having their grandparents here. Valera taught Emma to play solitaire on the computer and finished a quilt for Mary. Miia couldn't stop talking about having her "papa" and "grams" here. Everyone (except Jeff) even went out to the Outer Banks for a few days and played on the beach and visited the lighthouses. We had so much fun having the Pypers here and were sad to see them go. Our home is just a little bit nicer because of the hard work and love from our family. Thanks.