Bridgerland Adventure Park

This morning Rick and I went for a walk in the cool morning air. We came back to the cabin to a delicious breakfast which included bacon, eggs, pancakes, and fruit! Then everyone headed to Bridgerland Adventure Park in Garden City! The kids had a blast! Thank you to Grandma Jensen for helping cover the expenses and for Julie for doing the research and helping with the reservations! Unfortunately Jared was still feeling really out of it due to his cold and so he stayed back at the cabin and slept, which is too bad because he would have loved the activities! 

Josh, Jaiden, Janelle, and Brigham did the Aerial Challenge course (ropes course). They all also did the giant slide with tubes. For the slide they were allowed to go down 15 times! Jenna went on the giant swing with Julie and then later she went again with Troy. You can see her reaction when the swing suddenly drops in the picture in the top right corner below! Jenna also had fun going on the tubes along side London and Jhi and the other kids! 

Jenna told me that she wanted to do the huge zip line but I was hesitant because last night she asked me to come watch her go down the big slide in Grandma's back yard and she sat at the top for at least five minutes -- too scared to go down. So you can see my hesitation when she wanted to go down a 2400 foot zip line off of a giant tower! No one was doing the zip line and I wanted her to see someone else go first but no one was on it. She continued to persist and so I finally told her to go ahead -- and she stepped right off the tower with no hesitation at all! Crazy girl! Then after she went there was steady stream of others going on it too!  

Josh, Jaiden, Janelle, Brigham, and many of the other family members did the zip line also. I didn't know that Josh was doing it and didn't hear him yelling at me from the top of the tower and so I felt bad that I missed his big moment and didn't get any pictures or videos of him. I got a video of the three girls though and I did get Josh doing some fancy tricks on the bungee trampoline, including a double back flip!! Jaiden and Janelle got to go on the giant swing also and Josh and Brigham played some mini-golf. I would have liked to go on the zip line also since I like that sort of thing, but I didn't want to buy an extra pass for one activity. All in all it was a fun day and the kids couldn't stop talking about it! 

Josh, Jaiden, Janelle, Brigham, and I were the last ones there. We were there for over three hours! Everyone else had left to go back to the cabin for lunch. Some of the relatives came back and picked up Josh and Brigham and took them to go check out the booths and shops at Raspberry Days while the rest of us went and got some lunch, then Rick and I took a nap! 

Tonight we had a dinner -- macaroni and cheese and brisket. Janika and Brandon headed to the cabin from Logan tonight and arrived during dinner. After dinner Grandma had Jared give sort of a missionary homecoming report/talk. He did a great job (in spite of the fact that he still wasn't feeling well). After his talk he showed several pictures from his mission and then Rick showed everyone the homecoming video he had made with pictures and videos from Jared's mission. We then played a fun game called "Snake Oil." It was a funny game sort of like Apples to Apples -- but more entertaining since everyone had to come up with funny stories to defend their choice of cards. Then we all headed to bed! 

Our Christmas Eve (2016)

Tonight we had our family's Christmas Eve. We had a yummy dinner of ham and cheesy potatoes (Janika made the cheesy potatoes and yummy salad).  Rick is always in charge of the Christmas Eve lesson/activity and he puts a lot of thought into it and always has something really cool prepared. This year he taught a really neat lesson about the ten Virgins, teaching about how half were ready for the Savior's arrival and half were not. We looked up a bunch of scriptures about the how various prophets testified of Christ's birth and asked what we would do if we knew Christ was coming in just a few days. We talked about preparing for Christ to come again and then watched the video on the ten virgins.  It was a great lesson! 

We then went to the kitchen and he brought out and authentic oil lamp from Israel and lit it. That got the kids attention and then he pulled out a little oil lamp for each member of the family and the kids eyes got really big. They were excited to get their own oil lamp. He poured olive oil into each one and each child would share a part of their testimony to another family member one at a time and then light their lamp. Josh shared his testimony about Faith and told the story about Enos and I shared an experience from after my mission when I had specific prayers answered and each of the kids shared their testimony with a personal experience or example from the scriptures.  We then sang a song together (this is the part where Jared tunes out -- he hates singing with the family). But other than that the spirit was present and it was a neat lesson.

We always have really cool Christmas Eve experiences like that.  At least Rick and I think they are pretty neat -- the kids are probably just anxious to open one of their presents -- another tradition. But they often talk about past Christmas Eve activities.  One of their favorites is when we dressed up in Nativity garb and had goat cheese and pita bread in tents in the basement and roasted S'mores in the wood burning stove. Anyway, the idea tonight was to go out and go caroling to some neighbors who might need some cheer and then give them one of the oil lamps to keep.  It was raining, however, and so we decided not to go caroling (much to Jared's relief). 

 

Jenna's Blessing Day!

Jenna was blessed by her Father on Sunday, November 30th in the Deaf Branch. We were grateful to have several extended family there including Grandma and Grandpa Westra, Grandma Jensen, Gerilyn, Voy and Donna Daley, Merrill and Lorrie Norman, and Jason and Kiki Norman and their kids. Jenna was fussy right before but quieted down as soon as her blessing started. We are so blessed to have this precious new member of our family! She even rewarded us by sleeping through the night the past two nights!