Getting There in Time to Party

No time soon do I plan on repeating the events of Dec. 14. Flying alone. Ok, well I wasn't technically alone. I got to brave security and the air-headed, Southwest check in-lady with Rach and Gavin. But once we got on the plane they made us split up. She was still a comfort sitting behind me, but that's where anything resembling comfort, ended.

Maybe this kid's face explains how he felt about the situation. Given, it was his nap time and he doesn't sleep well anywhere but his crib. One hysterical fit later.. sleep ensued and my nerves had an hour to calm down. The other four hours of flight were spent stuffing his face to muffle the screams (not sad screams, just "I'm on a loud plane, and thus need to be louder than the plane even if I'm just playing" screams, and watching Kidsongs. Bless portable DVD players.

Another blessing... direct flights. We got in around 8:30pm and had to say goodbye to Rach, who was connecting to Salt Lake.

The next day, I got together with a couple of my best friends from high school. One of them, Jessica, lives in Pittsburg while her husband also does dental school. She was only in town until the next day so we made sure to get together for lunch before she headed back. I'm amazed that we aren't doing a "stare off" or flashing the peace sign or some other made up gang sign in this picture. I don't think we even have a picture of us in high school without such poses. It doesn't really need to be said, we were really cool :) I love being with these girls and visiting. It's still really weird to me that we're all moms and supposedly "grown ups". Between the four of us we have 9 kids. Ok, Jenni really spikes that number with 4, but still... :)

[Side note to this day: I just have to add that I got to drive the car my sister and I shared, post high school, to Jenni's house that day. Good 'ole Cami. Cami is short for Camry. My parents still own it and I had the pleasure of driving it for our stay in AZ. I was actually really excited about it. It was like stepping into a time machine. Excitement turned to panic, however, as I steered that bad boy onto Southern and passed 30mph. Grinding noises accompanied by clunks and scraping metal had me convinced I had either lost a tire or dropped my transmission. I swerved into Target parking lot, frantically calling my sister to check that this car was in fact drivable. After confirmation from my dad that it was indeed road worthy (questionable), I cautiously made my way to Jenni's. After I grew accustomed to the cacophony of noises, I again grew fond of Cami. I hope she's still around next Christmas to remind me of my childhood. (If only we could take a joy ride in Jenni's GrEEn BeAn truck, my life would be complete :)]

The next few days brought me my husband (yea for the 1st semester of the "worst" year of dental school being over!), a fun night with my aunts and cousins making cute headbands (WHY did I forget a pic?!), and much cleaning to get ready for some major family parties. My parents hosted both the Lindblom and Udall parties this year. Friday night brought the 80+ crazies known as the Lindbloms. Ok, let's be honest, the name Montague should really be assigned to most of those crazies. :) 51 to be exact. (My mom counted). They really took "multiply and replenish" to heart. We ate yummy Mexican food in the outside garage, then came inside for the usual "talent" program. I use the word, talent, lightly. It's usually "shove your kids onstage to sing Jingle Bells" talent. Maybe that's part of the reason why my mom made my family learn "Oh Say What is Truth" for this year. My parents and brothers spent the past month memorizing all four verses as a Christmas present to my grandpa. It's his favorite hymn and he also has it memorized. Have you ever paid attention to the words in this song? It's ridiculously hard. They had to use the dictionary just to pick apart the meaning of most of it. Us married kids only got in on memorizing the last verse and cheated with a hymn book for the other verses. We struggled with staying on tune (A Capella is always a sketchy way to go), but we did it.

What better way to end the night, than going on a hay ride? We just didn't know this was the hay ride that never ends. We look happy because this was taken before it started. There were two trailers and we happened to get on the one full of kids. Kids who like to sing, but don't know the words to any songs past 1/2 way through the first verse. That's when we started hearing renditions of The Star Spangled Banner. And after a half hour it got cold, even for us seasoned New Yorkers. But it was fun passing a backyard wedding reception a couple times and trying to be louder than the music playing :)


Sunday night was the Udall family party. Still a lot of people, but significantly smaller than the other side or our family. Again, we started with dinner in the outside garage. This time, soup and bread.

I love being with Shelley and Leah!

For the Udall party, we have a program where Luke 2 is read, interspersed with Christmas hymns. I love this program. It's short, but really brings the Spirit and reminds you of the real reason for Christmas. Next, we have the second reason for Christmas... presents. :)

The unmarried kids do a gift exchange and the married kids do a White Elephant exchange. We brought an annoying electric megaphone, complete with siren, that I knew a Hogle boy would snatch up. Sure enough, Lanny and Jesse fought over that one! Thanks for the idea, mom :) And Trav was nice enough to let me steal the gift I wanted.. a distressed picture of the temple. Love it! Thanks, Natalie!

All the single ladies! Just kidding. Only three are still single!!

Then, Monday night we had the Evans family party. Unfortunately, we missed the party for Paula's side of the family the week before. We ate "Flora Specials" (chimichangas), and had a talent show. Then the adults played a game that scored us a gift card to Ned's Crazy Sub! Not too shabby :) Here's Grandma with Collin and his cousin, Matt, that is a few months older.

It was so fun to be home for family parties this year since last year we missed them all. We love being a part of BiG WoNdeRFuL FaMiLiEs!!