December--travels, birthdays, and Christmas fun

December started off with Hannah's birthday. It also started off with Alex and me traveling to Brookings to visit my mother.

While there, I had my 60th birthday (Hannah threw me a "black" party for me on December 31st). Back in Fallon, Glen had arranged for the marquee at the old Fallon Theatres to broadcast it:

some misread that as my goth birthday and not my 60th--hence the black party for me

Alex made us shrimp scampi for my birthday dinner!

While in Brookings, Alex and I also were able to visit the annual Christmas light display at Azalea Park. I had gone once years ago when Hannah and I were visiting Brookings after Christmas. It's totally amazing!

Alex taking photos...

Everyone was able to come home for Christmas! Eric even took the week off so we could spend lots of time together. We stayed up late, ate too much, enjoyed a little bit of snow, and played tons of games. COVID changed some of our gaming plans with the extended family, though. :(

Another really fun thing we did was something Hannah and Kaellen set up. They organized us into 2 groups, gave us different challenges, filmed us performing the tasks, and later showed us what everyone had done, and scored our challenges. It's from a show on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/Taskmaster).

The 2 groups had different challenges. Andrew won in his group (which included Alex, Glen, and Angeles). Eric won in my group (which also included Ryan and Heather). SO much fun! We laughed so hard. 

Tasks included things like make your funniest noise (I did a Tarzan yell, which sadly was not good enough for me to win that challenge), eat 345 calories from an array of food in front of you (that was a task done in Glen's group), and do something that would look impressive when it is played backwards (another task from Glen's group). 

The backwards challenge had 2 amazing entries: Andrew (who won the challenge) was filmed scrambling up 3 solved Rubik's cubes while blindfolded, which turned into the amazing feat of him blindly solving 3 cubes very quickly. Alex set up a complicated game with lots of pieces and then pushed all the pieces to the floor which then looked like he set up the complicated game in a few seconds. 

Grandpa, Joy, and Henry making cookies for caroling

these were for us

Andrew, Henry, Joy, and Heather with their little snowman

All ready for Santa to come

Henry and Joy left out treats that Santa ate

Hannah is the pickle finder this year!

Joy

Angeles, Andrew, Heather, Ryan (and Henry)

Joy, (Eric), Hannah, Kaellen, (Alex), and Glen

Let the show begin!

Alex, Glen, Angeles, Andrew, and Henry watching their clips

the clip of Glen trying to eat 345 calories from the food choices given

We kept track of all the games, gamers, and winners

Hannah had been planning on throwing me a birthday party inviting friends and family to come, but because of COVID, in the end there were just 8 of us (Andrew and his family had already left). Black clothes, black decorations, black fingernail polish, dark cake...

turning 60 is such a serious occasion

we had Gary take a few photos of us...brrr

November--Alex is home! Eric's birthday

The main events in November dealt with the fact that Alex completed his 2 year mission for our Church. Glen and I went and picked him up in Salt Lake and did a quick, mini tour of his mission.

The night we picked him up, we made a few visits in Salt Lake and spent the night with Jerome, a man who had worked with Alex and the missionaries. The next day we traveled to Rock Springs, Wyoming to do some more visiting. That evening, we traveled back to the Salt Lake area, spent the night at Jacob's, played games (I really liked Space Base), and headed home on Friday. Alex (and Eric) spoke in church that Sunday.

Glen, Eric, Alex, and I traveled to Mesa to visit Andrew, Heather, Henry, and Joy that week. Our visit included, as expected, lots of game playing and celebrating Eric and Joy's birthdays, but we also got to attend martial arts class with Henry and go through the Mesa Arizona Temple open house, one of which was really fun and the other of which was very cool. The Church had just finished a major renovation of the Mesa Temple and had an open house before it gets rededicated this next Sunday (12-12-21)

For Thanksgiving, the 4 of us went across the street to Alan and Debbie's house and had a wonderful afternoon there. (I believe I have a picture of this on some device. I will have to find it and add it to the post later)

Got our trees up and decorated. Made my Christmas cards. Life is good.

going out on visits in Salt Lake

thought it was going to snow on us in Rock Springs, but it didn't

the tradition continues with the styrofoam cup welcome home sign

Eric (30) blowing out his candle with his hands

Joy (4) enjoying her cake

we attended Henry's martial arts class workout to "earn our turkey"

Ex Libris with Eric, Andrew, Heather, and Alex (I love this game)

stopping for a burger at Middlegate on our way home from Mesa

red, silver, and gold this year