Aaron’s Christmas Memories

Drew’s post on Christmas memories was quite touching. It was a really good post, and made me think about a couple of times when people have helped me out. Way to be Drew.

I also completely agree with Andrew’s Post, which is absolutely the truth for me. I can’t remember a Christmas where we didn’t get together and watch “A Christmas Story” or at least laugh and talk about Scott Farkus. (“He had yellow eyes.... So help me, yellow eyes!”)

One of my favorite Christmas memories is the time that my family was a secret Santa for one of our relatives. We drove down to their house every night for the 12 days of Christmas, put some silly presents on their doorstep, knocked and ran. Dad wrote silly poems to go with the presents every night, and I remember laughing at them. We were close, and it was fun to drive and plan how we were going to pull off that nights scheme.

I had my first kiss during the Christmas season. It was 1996, er, 1995, December 18th to be exact, and it was the first kiss for both of us. What a cool Christmas memory!

Christmas 1996 was in La Pintana, Chile, and it was my first summer Christmas. We had so many good people in the branch who wanted to spend time with us. It was around Christmas that Daniel, Juana, and Miguel (my first family to go to the temple) were baptized. I also met Luz and Mario Aaron Sanchez for the first time. Christmas 1997 was back in La Pintana in a different ward, with the Matthews family. (Yes, Matthews. One of two in the entire Santiago phonebook.) I had spent five months in the area, and it felt like home. Four days later, I got news that I was being transferred, and I cried like a baby for the better part of two days because I really wanted to end my mission there.

Christmas 1998 was Julie’s and my first Christmas together, and when we announced our first pregnancy, which was exciting. (It turned out to be a false alarm.) I finished my AS at Weber just in time for Christmas 1999. James’s first Christmas was 2000. I was in school in December 2001 and 2002. I graduated with a BS in Accounting in December 2003, which was Anna’s first Christmas, went to my first Christmas party with Tanner in December 2004, had Dad and Candace come up for Christmas 2005, went to Houston in 2006, and have, thus far, had a great holiday season in 2007.

We’re looking forward to having Mom come north to spend a couple days with us. We’ve already gotten a Christmas tree (the first for my kids because we’ve been living in places where we didn’t have space), decorated it, and I’ve done most of my shopping. It’s been great.

I hope you all have a great Holiday!

The Story

O.K. here is the story. One day out of the blue I got an e-mail from our West Valley neighbor Holliann. Holliann was wondering if they could fly up and visit! Holliann's son, Ben, had been wanting to visit James. Holliann had just helped a guy at work with some major computer issues, he asked Holliann if there was anything he could do for her. He happened to be a pilot, and so they arranged to fly up here to the little Big Piney Airport, it also just happened to be James's Birthday weekend! They flew up on Friday, Nov. 9th it took about an hour and twenty minutes from Salt Lake. Me, James, and Anna all got to go for a ride over the city, and then they had to head back home.

How can you not love a face like this?

Maybe I’m just a sentimental old Dad, but my heart melts. What can I say? My kids are just so darn cute. They can’t help it though. They get it from their mom.

Grocery Shopping

Today on the way home from the grocery store I saw a herd of 30 antelope, a 5 point buck, and a bald eagle. I need to start carrying a camera! -Julie

Due to popular demand...

Well, perhaps not due to popular, but at least due to limited demand, we have removed the “invited person only” restriction on the blog. We hope this makes it easier for certain readers (you know who you are) to easily gain access to our inner lives because they couldn’t figure out how to use email and invitations. We still love them, of course.

Newsworthy items: We spent the weekend in Salt Lake to have some time with Dad, Andrew and Kristi, and Emily and Drew. We stayed with David and Mary Jean, and talked to Mom. For those who aren’t aware, Dad is heading to Iraq, to be a bus driver. We had a great time with him, and it was good to see everyone before he left.

Next week is James’s birthday, and the clan is trekking up to our little town for a couple of days to celebrate his birthday. We’re excited to see all of them. We just barely got off the phone with one of James’s friends’ moms (that was a grammar test to get those Ss and apostrophes right), and she and her son are flying (yes, flying) into Big Piney for a couple of hours, and James will get to go on an airplane ride for his birthday. Wow!