the holliday's: Christmas with the Holliday's

The funny thing about Blanding is how tight-knit so much of the town is. Seeing how close this town is, a friend called Chavis asking if we could pick up a couch for them in Hurricane before heading to Blanding for Christmas.

Before getting the couch I stop by the Turley's (another couple from Blanding who live a couple miles from us who are good friends with Chavis' grandma Joey) to pick up some items for Grandma Joey for Christmas.

Of course Chavis was working all day, so I was the one who got to help load couch into the truck :). I show up at the Ashley furniture warehouse and there is one large man in the office (i'm thinking to myself, "great, I wore ballet flats and a cardigan to lift a friggin couch into the truck). The man is nice. He has me sign a receipt and then back the truck up. And then he grabs the couch like it weighs TEN pounds! I climbed into the bed to help center it and scoot it back...should've seen these gangly legs straddling the bed so the couch could fit all the way in...haha...I'm sure it looked pretty goofy.

Turley's..check, couch..check, now all that was left to do was load the truck.

I pride myself on my ability to stragically pack so that large amounts of things can fit in small spaces!

As soon as Chav gets home we hop in the truck, and off we go...through the crick (colorado city per Chav's co-workers), and rez...to grandmother's (and mother's) house we go!

Christmas Eve Chav and Punk got up early to call coyotes..the rest of us slept in and then went to the eleven o'clock showing of TinTin; this was an employee present from Dr. Black, even though I think there were some random people not employeed by the hospital that decided to come too..When Chav got back we stopped by Kendra and Jordan's to meet their new addition Jag, and visited with Cindy and Monte before heading to Grandma Joeys for the Christmas Eve Party!

At the party we got to meet Mort and Nicole's baby boy Heston...such a cutie! This was the first party I have been able to attend (since I've worked every Christmas Eve/Christmas since becoming a nurse). It was fun to have Jayne there, she livened the party up with games and got everyone laughing. Grandma Joey gave each couple a book on the History of Seth & Vivian Shumway (Chavis' great grandparents...through whom 1/2 of Blanding is related). What a great gift, and interesting to me in different ways than it was even to Chavis. I had the opporutunity to care for Joey's older brother Merwin before his passing with the wonderful company, Professional Case Management. It was neat for me to see pictures of my patients when they were younger, and remember many of the stories I have been told about by them about growing up.

After the party we heading to Shane and Merri's house to meet... (if we were catholic, i'd for sure be this angel's god-mother..but since I'm not..I'll just have to be happy with honorary aunt :D) BRYIR PALMER. I have loved her since the moment I received the picture message saying she'd arrived! And getting to meet her in person, honestly made my entire trip! She is so precious, and was born to great parents! I am so grateful for the friendship we have with Garrin and Cheyna, and am so excited for their new little family!

Christmas we spent a good two hours talking to Jace on the phone (currently serving a mission in Colorado). It was soo good talking to him..Chav and I miss him lots not being in St. George with us, but he says he plans to come back...and we're glad! We also got to talk with Bri (currently serving a mission in Florida), but we only had 30 minutes (she is very by-the-book...which is a good thing).