Kelly Times Two

Three of our four family members wanted to go to Colorado this year again, as opposed to my wanting to stay home. The majority ruled, so we planned to drive there, leaving on December 23. Then the Midwest got hit with a blizzard and a lot of snow and blinding ice warnings for the route we normally take up through Oklahoma. We debated on whether or not to go, and felt like it would be too dangerous. At the last minute, we found some plane tickets on good old Southwest Airlines and flew to Denver on Christmas Eve to return on New Year's Day. Thank goodness we could take two bags each on Southwest without getting extra fees. We maxed out what we could check with eight suitcases total. Christmas morning. Three families worth of presents all piled up. Aunt Deb and Uncle Mike's kids tore into everything rather quickly. Michael seemed to like his new shirt from the Texans. Christopher loved his new Nerf gun from Uncle Mike and Aunt Debbie. Christopher also had a blast sledding a...

My friend, Julie, who lives in China, contacted me to say she'd be in town to go to her son's university graduation in San Antonio, and had a couple of hours to meet with us in Austin. I planned a family home evening with them and two other families who also know Julie's family. Here is Julie, Yvette, Sam, and their daughter, Julia, a great friend of Lindsey's who just returned from her first semester of college at BYU-Hawaii. Here's Lindsey, Julie's husband, Ken, their son Zach, who is a freshman at BYU-Idaho and also a great friend of Lindsey's, then Christopher, and Julia's two younger brothers, Matthew and Steven, who are both buddies of our son. After we had our Christmas devotional, the adults socialized in the living room and I took a few pictures of the youth. Julia is the first friend that we let Lindsey sleep over at her house when both were about half this age and the girls were still in elementary school. Zach and his family lived down th...