2 Families 2 Days 1 Christmas

Being our first Christmas married we were able to celebrate twice with both of our families. We loved that we were able to spend time with all of our family, and that we got to open presents twice :) Christmas Eve was spent at the Peterson house. Jason and Laura came from Idaho Falls and Cass' grandma was there so the whole family was together. After a terrific ham dinner we opened presents because we were off to Elko the next morning. Here are the pictures we took from Christmas Eve.

The tree and all the presents. Can you tell Treygann was a little excited?

This is Cass's mom Sherrie looking at our gift to them. It is a book with our wedding and engagement pictures. The kids were pretty excited to see pictures of them in the book too.

Cass and his Axe detailer. This is an inside joke, but I was so excited to give it to him. Sorry about the red eyes I was going to change them, but then forgot and was not going to remove all the picture and fix them and then repost them so just pretent like we don't look possessed.

Opening our presents from his parents. I don't know why I look creepy in the one with our new camera, but I do.

Cass got me new scriptures with my new name on them. I was pretty excited and impressed that he remembered me saying that is what I wanted months ago.
After opening gifts we had to leave because Cassidy had to work Christmas Eve night. So at 6:30am when he got off work we jumped in the car to head to Elko. I stayed in my pajamas as you can see in the picture.

The Christmas tree in Elko.
We didn't get there until 9 am and then we were quickly rushed to change in to new pajamas and start opening stockings that I forgot to get a picture before we started opening presents.

Random stocking stuffers, but we were excited so I had to post them. I hope you have used the crayons Jamie, I tried mine and they were pretty fun :)

After opening our presents the Norton family does show and tell. This is Aunt LaWayne with her new Jazz jersey from BJ which is exciting because she can wear it to the game on New Year's Day that we got her for Christmas.

And finally Cassidy with his present from me. It is his favorite painting Prayer at Valley Forge. (he was more excited than he looks in this picture). It is a pretty small one, but they are expensive so we are working up to the larger one. Besides we don't have room in our apartment for large art. We had a wonderful Christmas with both our families and look forward to many more.

Merry "Christ"mas

This year to help us remember the true reason that we have Christmas Cassidy and I attend a few events that focused mainly on Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the month we went to the BYU Museum of Art's exhibit titled Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand. The exhibit is all of Carl Bloch's paintings of Christ. The focal point of the exhibition is five large altar paintings four of which have been gathered from churches in Denmark and Sweden. These paintings have been removed for the first time since they were originally installed in the late 1800s. We were amazed at the beauty of the paintings and the rare opportunity to see them all together. Here are some of my favorites of the paintings.

A couple of weeks later we went to Temple Square to attend Savior of the World. This musical production based on scriptural accounts of the birth and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is put on by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it is amazing. It really helped us focus on the miracles made possible through the life of our Savior. He lives and because of this we may live with him again as eternal families. What could be a greater blessing?

Sorry the pictures are not that exciting, but neither place let you take pictures in the actual event so this is the best we could do.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We have been up to a lot this month getting ready for Christmas and just enjoying the nice winter weather. So this blog is going to be kind of a random collage of the past couple of weeks.

Since this is our first Christmas we don't have too many decorations, but I got this little nativity a couple of years ago so at least we have the most important decoration. And our tree lit up with 25 years worth of Christmas ornaments.

I also made this chocolate nativity the other night because I think it is so fun.

We also went with Cassidy's parents to the cemetery to decorate the graves of his grandparents The first picture is of Cassidy's dad's dad and the second is his mom's parents.

This year we also made treats to take to some of our neighbors to get to know them better. Here is what the plates looked like. I had a blast getting them ready to take around.

We also went to Temple Square and saw the lights. We missed BJ this year to take good pictures. This is the best one we got of us with the lights. Sorry about the thing in front, but self timer isn't always easy.

And finally, we went ice skating! The funniest part was there were a whole bunch of blind people ice skating too. And the sad part some of them were better than me, but this was only my second time so cut me some slack.

These are totally posed so don't think Cass was really this cool or that I was having that hard of a time. Anyway this is what we have been up to lately. We hope you are all enjoying this holiday season.

School for Santas

I love to make gingerbread houses every year for Christmas. Normally I go home for Thanksgiving and during the weekend my dad makes some gingerbread, cuts it into the pieces, I bring it back to Utah, and we make homemade gingerbread houses. If you read the previous post you already know this was no ordinary Thanksgiving so this year Cass and I made our house out of graham crackers. The finally product was a school for Santas. We think it is pretty cute and impressive that it is all held together by frosting alone, none of that hot glue that Cassidy's parents use :)

Us with the final product. Notice how festive we are in red and green.

A work in progress. Love the cheesy smile :)

This is the only part of the house that is not edible, but we couldn't figure out how else to write the school name on it.

Experiencing some difficulties while decorating the school. We think it is funny and not really noticeable in the other pictures because it is on the side of the house.

From another angle. Pay attention to the detail. Cassidy even wrote numbers on our clock.

Who will win the tug of war?

And in a few weeks this is what will become of the house. A yummy snack :)

Grandpa Norton

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving I got a call at work from my mom saying that my grandpa Norton had passed away. It came as quite a shock since we had just seen him two days before in Las Vegas and he seemed fine. In talking with one of my co-workers about it (because everyone knew within 2 minutes when I started crying) she described my feelings best when she said it hurts because the world goes on and we want everyone to stop and honor the great man that has passed. So this is my way of letting the world know that a great man has passed.

The funeral was held in Pocatello, ID the Tuesday after Thanksgiving with a viewing on Monday night. One of the things I learned about my grandfather at the viewing was what an amazing home teacher he was. Their was a wreath that said home teacher. When I asked more about it I learned it was from a family he home taught more than 30 years ago. Amazing! There were also several other home teaching stories that I learned as different people talked about the wreath.

After the funeral on Tuesday morning we had a graveside service where my grandfather received military honors for his active time in the Army and 27 years in the National Guard. It was windy and freezing. The mortuary was so nice to set up a canopy and bring blankets for the family.

This is not a very good picture, but behind my brother and dad you can see the 21 gun salute.

This is a better picture of the awesome volunteers that came out in the bitter cold and wind to honor my grandpa. I know the whole family appreciated it.

Interesting story here. The man that presented the flag to my grandmother was a former home teacher of my grandparents. I love the church and how it helps us develop life long friendships. I also love that it teaches the Plan of Salvation which makes the death of a loved one easier to bare over time because we know we have been sealed as eternal families.

This is my siblings after the service. No judging how we looked. I can't stress how cold it was and we just had to listen to taps played about my grandpa.

My cousins Bonnie, Tyler, and Lucy from my Mom's side were so nice to come to the funeral and luncheon so that we could spend some time with them. Thanks again guys.

Things I will remember about my grandpa: the senior citizen money clip (see the picture below, he showed this to everyone), his joke about always getting the cup with the big hole in it when the waitress would bring his drink, blue suspenders, how much he loved split bananas (banana splits) his corny jokes especially about the bible last joke told was Do you know where in the bible it says women can't make coffee? Hebrews :) Cleaning the airport with him, looking at his airplane books, that he loved frenchtoast crunch from his silver bowl, that he is the one person that always called me Randi Leigh, that he would drive blocks out of his way to miss a stoplight, and how much he loved to go to the temple even though towards the end of his life he could only do initiatories because he had a hard time changing his clothes.

(Senior citizen money clip, a pop tab around a penny. When he would show this to you he would always say it wouldn't be so funny if it wasn't so true. Every time.)

I love you grandpa thanks for all of the memories and we will see you again someday.

Weekend in Vegas Part 2

Now that we have teased you with what we did in Las Vegas here is the real story:

The guys adventure started off by going out to Hoover Dam to see the newly constructed Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. This awesome bridge gives you a great view of the Hoover Dam at 900 feet above the Colorado River.

After spending some time on the bridge we drove the little ways to walk across the dam its self. Even after driving or walking across the dam several times, i still love it and see one of the great engineering structures of the 1930's.

After spending a few hours out at the dam we made the trip back to Las Vegas to lunch and then to a pawn shop on Las Vegas Blvd. For those who have ever watch Pawn Stars on the History Channel well this is that pawn shop. For those who have not seen the show (you should watch it) you are able to see some great artifacts of history like 200 year old muskets and great Americana pieces.

We then made our way down to the Imperial Car show to see some rare classic cars from all over the world.

Our last stop we made was Fremont street to watch one of the shows (we watched animation with George Thorogood music).

After the show we congregated around a street magician where Curtis, Randi's cousin, was volunteered to help in picking out the correct card.

Our last activity on Fremont street Cassidy, BJ, Curtis, and Rudy all took a trip down a zip line that span several blocks down the street, it was a blast. Although you can't see him very well this is BJ on the zip line.

When it was all done it was a great weekend spent with the guys. We are so grateful we got to go and spend time with Randi's grandfather before he passed away on Tuesday.

So why the boys went and played Jamie and Randi got to spend the day pampering themselves. This is how excited we were to ditch the boys in the parking lot of Jamie and Rudy's apartment. After this we went and did a little Christmas and baby shower shopping.

Then we met up with my friend Shawna for lunch. It was fun to catch up on things with her. I haven't seen her since I got married.

Then Jamie and I went for pedicures. We didn't get a picture or our toes, but use your imagination. Then we did a little grocery shopping before going home to do facials and watch a chick flick. No pictures of that because we don't want to get made fun of.

On Sunday we were headed back to good ol' American Fork. We had heard about a storm so we left a little earlier than planned. Things were going fine until we hit Beaver, UT. The snow started, but nothing that bad. We made it about 10 miles out of town and this is what we ran in to.

We tried to make the best of not moving and not knowing why. Here is a picture of us chillin in the car. At least we weren't really cold.

And two hours later this was the scene. In case you can't tell we haven't moved. There is definitely more snow though. A few minutes later we started to move, but we didn't make it far. We went about half a mile to an exit where we were directed to turn around and head back to town. By the time we made it to Beaver all the hotels were full so we drove another 50 miles backwards to Cedar City to spend the night. We still have no idea why the 30 mile stretch of freeway was closed.

This is where we finally ended up. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. After a hot breakfast it we hit the road again and this time made it home with no problems. Although it was frustrating at the time we did enjoy the extra night of vacation and are happy that we made it home safely.