A VERY belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Please note: This blog is fairly long... I apologize. What do you expect after missing a month of blogging? :)

Man has life been crazy for the last couple of weeks! I was pretty used to my typical pace of life and then Bam! We were here and there and everywhere. As most of you know, we have decided to stay here in Utah. Derek had to go into work on the morning of his graduation (December 14) and let his employer know if he was planning on staying or not. When we pulled into the parking lot, he still didn't know what he was going to tell them. He even got out of the car without telling me what he was going to say. I anxiously waited in the car for about half an hour to find out. He returned and informed me that he had told them he was staying. As I said before, we had been going back and forth. Almost everyone that knows me, knows that I am a very, very bad decision maker so I was completely fine with whatever we did. Afterward, we hurried over to Weber State for the graduation ceremony. Derek graduated with a Master's degree in accounting... more specifically tax. After much proding on my part, he finally agreed to participate in the ceremony. My sister Jill also graduated that same day with a degree in Geography. That was part of my ploy... I told him that he can either go sit through the ceremony and watch Jill graduate, or he can be a part of it as well, but either way we were going. I like to pretend that I had control over the situation but we all know that if Derek really didn't want to go, he wouldn't. :)
Since we had decided to stay we figured that we would go down and spend Christmas in California. We left the Saturday before Christmas and drove through the night so Lincoln would sleep most of the way. Luckily, it was an uneventful drive and we arrived safely. On Sunday we spent the day with my family in the 80 degree weather. There is nothing like warm weather when you've been in very cold weather. To me, it is one of the most amazing feelings to walk out into the warm sunshine with sandals on. The cold definintely makes me appreciate that! On Christmas Eve we went to visit Autumn and Chanda and their families. We went to lunch and spent most of the day in the backyard watching the kids play. Great times! Lincoln spent his first Christmas at my family's house in California. It was a wonderful day filled with love, gifts, pictures, and yummy food courtosy of my mom. The food was great mom... butter and all!!! We had both cars down there since Derek had driven one down a couple weeks before to drop it off. We left thursday night but stopped halfway in Mesquite since I'm wimpy and can't do the whole drive at night. We arrived home on Friday, and by Saturday we were off again to Burley, Idaho to celbrate Derek's Grandpa's 84th birthday. We spent the day eating more food and, of course, playing games... no trip to Idaho is complete without some good game time! That night I got sick for a little while and unfortunately had to visit the toilet a few times. Later on that night I started to feel better, though, and was back at the table for more games. Little did I know that in just a few hours (3 am) Lincoln would wake up "barking like a seal." I was very worried because I had heard this was a symptom of croup. Derek, Lincoln, and I spent a while in the bathroom with the shower on as hot as it would go. The steam seemed to help him and we finally made it back to bed. Needless to say, it was a long night. We made it back home Sunday evening to a house filled with things that had been placed here and there as we rushed in and out. I'm kind of a neat freak, to put it mildly, so I've been keeping myself busy trying to get everything back in order. What a crazy, wonderful holiday! On New Year's Eve we went to my cousin's house and Lincoln ended up waking up about an hour before midnight. We let him stay up to ring in the New Year with us. It was wonderful!
So, now we are back to the same ol' same ol'... and it's wonderful. I always look forward to holidays, but must admit that everyday life is great too... most of the time. I am not home right not so I will post pictures when I get there. We hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season and we had a fabulous time seeing everyone! For those of you that have made it to the end of this blog... thank you, I appreciate your patience!!!