In Layton for the Holidays

We left our home around 5am on the 18th, just in time to miss a gigantic storm that would've foiled our travel plans (here in VA they got over 22 inches of snow in a day!). Our adventures in the Delta airplane were not so fun but we managed the 4 1/2 hour flight without too much drama. Luckily I was able to sit by a sister missionary on her way home, after serving in VA for the last 18 months, so that was fun. Lily wanted to sit on my the entire flight, despite the fact that we had a paid seat for her. I brought plenty to eat and entertain the kids with and we ended up not needing most of it because Delta actually had little mini tvs in front of every seat that offered shows and music. It helped us a ton! Alisha and Dad came and picked us up from the airport and we were on our way. It took a while to adjust to the time difference. We were all ready for bed by about 6 or 7 that night (way before some of the family even got home). We were really anxious to see Leanne and Bryan since they recently got home from their missions. Leanne was working at LDS Distributions and we paid her a visit that afternoon. Bryan was traveling with the CA Clarks and we didn't see him til the next day. It was nice to be back in Layton but most especially to see family again. WE had been gearing up for this for months and now the time had finally arrived. Nathan was pretty much out of control hyper and too excited to even contain himself. He was ready to "rise up" like he never had before, thus sparking some people in the family to create the "tone it down" committee.
The CA Clarks arrived the same day as us, but late in the evening, after I was fast asleep. We saw them in the morning and also welcomed Bryan home from the mission. (a few weeks late). The day we had to practice singing "Away in a Manger" in order to sing during sacrament meeting the next day. Kaylie and Jared were the stars of the show as they had their own little parts of the song to start us off and end the song. It went well. The Clark family is full of talent and I am always amazed at how much I love it when we all sing together, it is a choir of angels!

Abigail getting used to being in a crowd of people. There is never a shortage of people to hold and entertain the kids. The older kids did a lot of that on their own this holiday as they really seemed to enjoy playing with eachother and with their uncle Peter and other aunts. It was fun to see the cousins interact with eachother.

Nathan was really feeling the music... maybe a little too much as he was constantly told to turn his ipod or stereo down during our time out there. He has a passion for music like I have not known or seen before and it is fun to see him get into it, especially around the holidays.

I am sad to say that I did not take very many pictures during our time in Layton. I guess I left that job up to our family photographer, Alisha. I know that we copied a lot of her pics but don't know where they are on my computer at the moment in order to add more fotos to this post. Oh well, I will have to make a different post for that.