Last part of our Christmas Trip

Here are the last couple of pictures of our trip home to Spokane for Christmas. Our families only live about five miles away from each other on the south side of town, so we definantly were juggled between both houses.

Below you will find...Momma Ashby

Papa Hawkins, sporting the shirt that Liz made for him.

Papa Ashby and our nephew Grant, putting toys together on Christmas morning.

Emily and Lucy on Christmas. What a darling duo!

Isaac, Emily, and Lucy. I put this one up because Lucy is smiling so big!

The dark, cold looking hillside outside the Hawkins house.

The Christmas tree in the sitting room at the Hawkins house.

Brad and I before church at the Ashby's.

Needless to say we are so greateful to be back in warm PHOENIX! It was however, good to see family. We invite everyone down here for Christmas next year! Can't wait til 2009!

We forgot to bring the Sunshine with us.

We were told the Spokane airport was not taking any flights before we left Phoenix, but Southwest reader boards said everything was ontime, so we boarded for our first leg to Reno. After getting stranded in Reno and being told we could not fly into Spokane until Monday night, we decided to take a flight to Seattle the next morning to join Peter who was also stranded for an indefinite amount of time. Papa Hawkins rose to the occasion and drove over to Seattle to rescue us from a holiday spent in the airport. All in all, we only lost a day of our trip. Here are some pictures of our trip so far.

This is us at the Atlantis Hotel in Reno. We got the distressed passenger rate of $25 for a room. The sheets were as rough as the toilet paper.

The Drive from Seattle went smoothly. This is while crossing Snoqualmie Pass through the Cascade Mountains.

Sledding at Manito Park at Dusk. Spokane got 24 inches of snow in 24 hours the day before. Hence, the airport fiasco.

Brrrrr. . . More to come

Being a Law Widow...

So Brad, the love of my life, has five finals this semester. Granted this is Brad's second year in law school, so this is not my first finals with him, but I believe it to be true when they say...

• The first year of law school they scare you to death,
• The second year of law school they work you to death,
• And the third year of law school they bore you to death.

I realized, today especially how much he has been gone. I was able to sleep in, do an hour workout, go grocery shopping, make chocolate covered pretzels as well as the cookies in the picture shown below and do homework, laundry, and clean the house.

Tonight we went to a party our friends had put together, we were only able to be there for about an hour and a half, as we needed to get home so Brad could study some more. ha-haha. So here I am blogging away as he is studying.

Brad has a final on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday...we fly home for Christmas on Thursday...FREEDOM!!

THANKSGIVING!

For Thanksgiving Emily, Nate and Elle came over from California to visit. We had an absolute blast! We ended up going to Cafe Rio about three times to feed Emily and Nate's craving. We also went shopping and laughed a lot.We enjoyed a relly good turkey on Thanksgiving. A thank you!We also went to the Mesa Temple Christmas Lights. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and a good time to remember what we are grateful for. I am going through Elle withdrawals! I think her and I had the most fun.

Believe it or not we did not plan on matching!

Brad and I have loved the Mesa Temple. We enjoy going to the Christmas lights as well as the spring time Easter pageant.

An example of how neat the Christmas lights are, here are the three wise men on the front lawn of the temple grounds! I love CHRISTMAS!