our christmas vacation so far

I think this is going to be a long post so bear with me.

We have been in Utah for the last week or so and have been having the best time. Our trip started out eventful. I hate when a trip does. I had checked our seats the night before to make sure nothing had changed and we still had three seats together on our long 4 hour flight west. We did. When we got to the airport, we no longer did. Our gate agent was less then helpful and seriously couldn't have cared less that we were separated on our flight. His big help to us was to ask passengers to switch with us once we got on the plane. Thanks gate agent, I'm pretty sure I couldn't have come up with that on our own. Since Quinn has quite a few followers on Twitter, I told him to tweet about it once we got through security. I have heard  stories of people with substantial followings getting good results when they tweet about problems they have with a company. I kid you not, 5 minutes after he tweeted we had a customer service agent with Delta asking for our confirmation number to help us out. We made our short flight to our connection city and by the time we landed our problem had been solved. 3 seats together. Many other passengers were not so lucky. There were a lot of angry passengers at the gate.  Who knew Twitter would save our trip?

We arrived safe and sound and spent the next day close to home so the kids could recuperate from a day without naps. Next up, I was able to help my mom and Dana host a bridal shower for Jiao, my cousin's fiancee. See here for more details. It was so much fun.

Cameron, Ashley and baby Liam flew in next and now everyone in the family was together. We all got to go see A Christmas Carol and really get in the Christmas spirit.

The adult tree

 The kid tree

Christmas adorableness

My cousin Mackenzie was nice enough to host 45 Arnett's at her house for a Christmas Eve celebration.

 The kids table.

 Stacey, Sydnee and Ashley

 Baby Ty's first Christmas Eve

 Mark, Mallory and Sydnee

 Beckham and Mark

 Nativity fun

 Asher was a wiseman with an offering of potato chips that he munched on during the Nativity.

Beckham visited with Santa. Asher saw Santa's three times this year and I still haven't managed to get a picture of them together.

After the party we returned home to open our Christmas Eve present, jammies of course. 

Here is my dad with all three of his grandsons born this year and interestingly enough all three of them bear part of his name. 

Larry Dee Arnett

babies left to right: Liam Dee Arnett

                            Ty Larry Arnett

                                             Beckham Arnett DelHoyo

Christmas morning the adults were up even before the kids to shower and dress so we could make it to church on time. We had to wake the kids up around 7 am so they could have time to see all the goodies that Santa had brought them, then it was off to church. Our whole family was able to attend church together.

A pre-church candy cane.

Beckham loved what Santa brought him

 Everyone

 All the grandkids

Our family photo

 Asher modeling Mallory's shoes.

 Christmas Beckham

 Asher loving the Dora book from Mark and Mal Pal.

 All of Jaxson's BYU football dreams came true.

 Is it Christmas without crying?

 Stacey's new car dreams came true too!

Later that day we had a delicious prime rib dinner and stuffed ourselves until we couldn't move. 

The day after Christmas we were able to attend Jantzen and Jiao's wedding. I always love a wedding and can't help but cry. And who doesn't love a love story that brings two people together from other sides of the world.