At the Cabin

Eating chili and sipping hot chocolate.  Roasting marshmallows. Playing board games.  Revving snowmobiles along snow-covered trails.  We gathered at our family cabin near Oakley, Utah, on December 27, 2019, and celebrated the warm and chilly, social and solitary, welcoming and austere ways of experiencing winter.  Dave, Grant, and Bryce left Salt Lake at 4:30 in the morning to drive to the Pine Mountains gate, hike the mile to the cabin, and then spend five hours warming the cabin up before we all arrived.

Henry couldn't get enough of our "hat tree", with its dozen or more varieties of hats.  He wore two at once!

Jenny relaxed a minute, as relatives swooped up her adorable three sons.

Sophia modeled a favorite hat from the hat tree.  We bought it at a mountain man rendezvous.  The artist certified that it was made from fox roadkill.  He charged us a premium because the pelt still had all its legs!

It's been a while since Camille cuddled a baby of her own, but it was irresistible to borrow Thomas. 
Dave wore yet another hat from the hat tree.  He is the collector of all of them, from the fox roadkill to this leather cowboy hat, to a proper stovepipe.

After dragging up two bins of food for the family in the sled, and then cooking lunch with no running water (we dragged buckets filled from the spigot outside), it was a relief to sit back and sip a cup of cocoa.

Our grandchildren love board and party games, and they launched several of them as the afternoon wore on.

Annelise challenged Jonny as the most expert marshmallow roaster.

That marshmallow was a bit well done.

Jonny held his own with his golden brown, four-pronged wonders.

And Ezra and Mia just sat back, next to the skunk pillow, and watched.

Jenny went from solitary contemplation to too much of a good thing.

Heidi took a  nap as Mike contemplated....a difficult tenant? his trip to Ethiopia next fall?  President Trump's latest excesses?

And Steve relaxed amid the chaos with an iPhone that just might reach beyond these mountains to civilization.

Sophia, at nearly 14, enjoyed a seat next to the heater--and a fast, cold ride on the snowmobiles.

Thomas is beautiful in whatever he wears, but especially in one of the striped outfits that Jenny collects for her baby boys.

Grant was ready to confront the icy snow and cold of a snowmobile ride around Pine Mountain.

Add a parka, and Emilie would be ready, too.  She is the lone attendee of the University of Utah among her cousins, but a full ride scholarship from the Honors Program was the deciding factor.

As he gets older and more sophisticated (5 years and aging), it's harder to catch Sam with a smile.  Bingo!

With four brothers and sisters who have attended BYU, Bryce has a favorite brand.

And Daisy was happy to nestle among the coats on the couch.

After all his hat modeling, snowmobiling, and cabin exploring, Henry finally crashed, still in his snowsuit!

Love to Jono

So near and so far.  LDS missionaries email parents and friends every week, but they get to call home only twice per year--on Christmas and on Mother's Day.  We huddled around the Eberts' TV as Jono skyped from Okinawa for forty minutes.  He was upbeat and inspiring, but we knew the last six months have been hard.  Japanese is a tough language to learn.  Although Jono has mastered Japanese faster than most missionaries, he was still "at sea", understanding hardly anything, when he arrived in Japan after just eleven weeks of study at the MTC.   After a couple of challenging companions, Jono is now thoroughly enjoying Japan and missionary work.  Jono has a Japanese companion who can not only help Jono with Japanese, but who also speaks fluent English, since he spent time living in Hawaii.

Camille read Jono the letter Mia wrote as a Christmas present to her parents.  She thanked them for raising such a good family.

 Accompanying Mia's letter was her Christmas present--a box which opened into a nativity scene with tin foil figures Mia fashioned herself.  Mia left a hole in the box so she could throw paper "snow" inside.  Family members were afraid to open the box because of the hole.  They thought there might be a live rat inside!

 When the forty minutes was over, Jono and Emilie, the family missionaries, both bore their testimonies (expressions of faith) before the family said goodbye.  A year from next summer, Jono will be coming home.

Ezra showed his favorite Christmas present--a huge panda bear!

Christmas Morning

We had a joyous birthday party on Christmas morning for baby Jesus, full of family, good food, love, and laughter.  Our traditional Christmas breakfast is crepes spread with Nutella and filled with fresh fruit and cream.  We loved having Emilie with us, just back from her 18-month LDS mission.

And we treasured these last few family parties with Kirsten, before she leaves for her mission in February.

Alan Dale's wife, Shauna, brought her daughter, Diane, who graciously helped to make the dozens of crepes consumed by our throng.

We relaxed around the tables, eating and talking.

And then we opened gifts.  Grant was resplendent in the wildly differing political statements on his new hat and t-shirt, "Make America Great Again" and "Long Live the Proletariat."  I try mightily not to echo my mother in telling my children and grandchildren how to vote!

Mia is a special favorite with Sam and Henry.  When she disappears for a moment, Sam and/or Henry ask, "Where's Mia?"

Mia has some new furry slippers.

And Ezra, at 11 3/4, is finally old enough for Camille and Steve to issue him a cell phone!

Spencer was custodian of Daisy on Christmas morning.  Daisy is always welcome at our parties, particularly since Spencer and Naomi are so fastidious about making sure she is taken outside whenever necessary!

Shauna's grandson, Dylan, joined us for Christmas.  He was a good chess player and enjoyed competing with Bryce, Sam, and Ezra.

And finally, the moment some of us (I, anyway) have waited for all year--the Christmas tables.  I have three tables, one each for the children through high school age, the grandchildren and their spouses who are out of high school, and my children and their partners.  I spread gifts on the tables, each participant throws dice to establish a place in line, and then they take turns picking gifts until the gifts are gone.  I also buy each of the young children a more substantial gift, to supplement the Christmas table trinkets.

The gifts on the children's table are little, fun things--markers, bath bombs from Lush, plastic cars, candy bars, dollar bills, and four plastic eye balls that Dave and I bought at the State Fair last September.  The eye balls were hot items.  The winner threw one of them at the ceiling and it stuck!  We spent part of the morning trying to get the eye ball down and remove the spot it left.

The young adults table had more substantial things--board games, books, Ancestry DNA kits,  a Google Home electronic assistant, collections of hand lotion, lavender sachet, and jams.  The hot items were the Groupon coupons for massages, an axe-throwing competition, and even an introductory scuba diving lesson!

Michael K and Rebekah participated from Florida by Skype!

And finally, the Christmas table for my eight children and children-in-law.  There were all sorts of treasures, from 16" hand-carved statues of dragons from Bali to a Cuisinart food processor, sterling silver jewelry from the Art Museum of San Diego, the latest Apple earphones, and outdoor equipment from REI.  I even saved all the $20 bills I get each month from work for submitting my billable hours by the deadline, and laid them on the table!  It was fun for me to see who wanted what, and it was fun for the kids to keep poker faces and strategize.  "Heidi got 5 of the top 9 things on her list," said Michael, who had, of course, compiled spreadsheets to help with the choices for both Heidi and himself.  Mike was in Axtell, participating by Skype.

Dave and I received and appreciated the many thoughtful gifts and sweet notes.  The gift to remember, though, was this sweatshirt from Jonny and Jenny which had a drawing of a hairy chest, including nipples, on the front, and a drawing of a hairy back on the back.  We asked Dave when he is going to get the matching pants!