New Years in Utah

So for New Years our family flew from Vegas to Utah to spend some time with my family, and we had so much fun! I got to surprise (unintentionally) a friend of mine who was about to teach a lesson at church right after I flew in, and I'm very glad she didn't have a heart-attack when she saw me! It was so much fun going back to church right after we got there and seeing everyone again! We wondered if we would feel homesick coming back to our old neighborhood to visit with friends, but we were quite surprised that while we felt very nostalgic, our house just didn't feel like it was OURS anymore. I guess that's a good thing...but we did have the best neighbors ever, and now we know what we're missing!

All of my siblings had flown into town, so while at my parents we got to have ANOTHER Christmas. Of course the kids got even MORE toys that they don't need, but they loved it and they love their Nana Betty and her generosity (aka: credit cards)! And it was only about as chaotic as you'd imagine having six children under 7 (and 3 of them were 2-year olds!) in one house for a week...my poor mom! I don't know if the house will ever be the same again after letting Kennedy, Aubrey, and Grant run the place! But it was very fun and the kids all got along remarkably well (unfortunately the adults may now all have to be permanently medicated, but it was worth it to be together!)

Somehow we missed getting any pictures of all the 6 kids opening presents together, but here are a few of them all separately. And don't worry --we got some great professional pictures taken of the entire McMaster family while we were there, so I'll post those soon.

McLain, McKinley and Kennedy opening presents

Matching and Mischievous!

Ashley and her darling three kids

Adrien and my Mom opening presents

And of course all the kids LOVED seeing Aunt Adi! She is the resident fingernail-painting aunt, so she's always a favorite, especially for the girls!

We got to spend lots of time with Nana while we were there, and here is a fun picture we took of her with 11 of her 16 great-grandkids. Nana is holding the newest addition Sydney, who is my cousin Jeff and his wife Tran's baby girl, and she is the cutest little thing ever! We hadn't met her yet, and it was such fun getting meet and hold her!

Here is a picture of lunch with some of my high school friends which was, as always, full of obnoxious laughter (a good deal of it mine). I'm sure people look at us when we get together and wonder what all of us moms are laughing so hard about (this time it was Becky re-enacting a YouTube classic). We had so much fun, and I just wish everyone could have come!

And we finished out the week by driving in blizzards and getting snowed in everywhere we went (it just kept snowing!) And of course the two Utah stops to Cafe Rio made the trip just that much more meaningful! The only things we wish we could have done is spent more time with friends we didn't get to visit with as much and maybe another couple visits to Cafe Rio, but we did get to have lots of family fun! We really had a wonderful time and we can't wait to go back and visit again. Our flight home only included being stranded at an airport due to weather-delays for a few extra hours, but that made it even nicer to get back home (with no kids sleeping in our room) and no more living out of suitcases! YEA!