December 2012 - extra pictures from Sam's post...

I like pictures...a lot...and I have a really hard time leaving out pictures in my blog-posts, if you can't tell...so as I was going through pictures, I decided I had to have these on the blog too...they kind of just fill in extra space and more details from Sam's blog-post (which I LOVE that he did by the way:)). 

Toward this beginning of December we found out that Sam's boss had finally sold his house (something we weren't expecting to happen until the Spring since he had taken it off the market), which meant we would be moving to Philadelphia by Feb. 1st....WHAT!!!????? I had just gotten my mind out of "we're going to be moving any day now" mode and was settled back into life for the school-year in Rapid City. I was excited, but mostly bugged with the timing. And the fact that we didn't really know how we were going to afford life on the east-coast with the salary his boss was offering him....and we had to find a place to live, and.....you know the enormous list of to-dos when you are moving. But, to make matters more complicated, we were planning on being in Utah for Christmas, and with the extension of our trip in order to be able to leave kids with grandparents while we flew out to PA to find a house, we wouldn't be getting back to Rapid City until 2 weeks before moving day...too much too fast for me! Well...it all turned out okay...easy to say with hindsight. But I cannot say that I handled it gracefully at all....and I will make the excuse that being pregnant did not help my attitude much. Why is pregnancy such a roller-coaster? Oh yeah...and we found out, after we got pregnant, that our insurance doesn't cover maternity (although we asked our agent before even trying to get pregnant if it did...and we were told yes....ARRGGHHH!!!) Anyway....to make a long, emotional, roller-coaster of a story short...it all worked out fine...this post, January, and February will cover the story of it all for the most part....

This was our at-home Christmas morning/evening before we left for Utah...a little early, but better than hauling all the gifts to Utah...we think:)

 And there's not a picture of it, but one of our Christmas presents (Sam's surprise for me) was a new camera...nothing fancy, just a point-and-shoot...but from the pictures above, can you tell we needed one? All the rest of the pictures are with our new camera...and I am very pleased:)

 Morning after our fake Christmas...in their new Christmas jammies...love it!

 I love this picture of Ben hugging Samantha...I don't really know why they were doing this, but they were like this for like 30 seconds....

 Christmas presents from papa! Isn't the D.I. great? We're easy to please:)

 Hanging out at the cabin on Christmas eve...I LOVE just hanging out with family

 

 Wasn't the weather for Ben's first day of skiing awesome?! Normally I would think this would create a miserable experience for a 1-year-old, but it didn't even phase him? He LOVED it and did NOT want to go back inside....but Sam and I wanted to have a turn to hit the pow-pow.

 Samantha did a great job as well...all smiles:)

 I love pictures of cousins...in Christmas jammies no less. I especially loves this one of Clark with his arm around LucyMae, and Samantha's arm around Ben

 Christmas Eve story-time with Aunt Tenille and an attempt with the cousins (both LucyMae and Clark having done it with Joy School already) to do the nativity...

 Christmas morning....Clark and Cannon opening our gift to them...Sam made some awesome rubber-band guns for them:)

 I really like this adorable little red-headed boy...he's so handsome!

 More pictures of presents at the Evans' household...our kids, and we, were VERY spoiled!

 Samantha...she is HILARIOUS!!!! So easily entertained and independent...

 

 This is the awesome look on her face as she slides herself down the hill and is happy as can be:)

 And this is the reward for all her hard work...

 

 Story-time with aunt Amy...

 FUN Thai dinner with all the Evans siblings (except Andy who had already gone back to school...and Amy was busy...we missed them)

 Visiting Nana...Ben was thoroughly entertained going in circles with this train...

 Temple square...always a must and freezing and fun...

 Our wonderful, beautiful day of skiing with Sam's buddy Adam...THANK YOU ADAM!!!! It was all I wanted to do the whole time we were in Utah...esp. knowing we were about to be moving to the East coast...away from this amazing snow....