A Very Very Merry Christmas and A Happy Happy New Year

Brayden brought home this letter he had written for a school assignment about his winter break. I thought he summed it up so well I would let it be the text for this blog post. So, here are his words (with some pictures added by me):

"Dear Miss Allen,
I'm writing a letter instead of writing about the picture. I was going to ask you but you were with a group.
Anyways, I wanted to tell you about my crazy, awesome, surprising, fun winter break. The day after winter break started me, and my family went to the eye doctor. Me and Kenna did the test stuff. My dad thought I had his bad eyes. (He has a really bad disease where his right eye is almost blind). Kenna had perfect vision but I had bad eyes and I needed reading glasses.

Christmas eve We (my family and our friends family) went to one of our friends house. There were three families there. We acted out the Christmas story then made cookies.

Christmas morning my family and me opened up some presents. Then got ready for church. After that we opened up the rest of the presents. Then went to church.Christmas day 1:00 pm-9:00pm we went outside to play with friends. My friends werent home so after Kenna came home we watched Prep and Landing, noty vs nice, Santa Clause (<-- its how they spell it) Santa Claus 3 and another one I forgot. I went up to mom and dad and asked "why they were making so much food? Are we having anyone over for dinner?" Dad said "I think we might eat a lot."
Around 6:00 pm dad got out the video camera and told me to play piano. So I did. Then in the middle of it some one knocked at the door. My dad told me to answer it. When I opened the door I thought it was my cousins. Then I saw their parents. I was so surprised they came here from Canada!
Then we ate dinner it was awesome. I was so shocked.
The things we did:
-Go to the Zoo



-Go Trail Center




-Bounce You
-go ice Skating

-Mahoney State Park

-go to Amazing Pizza Machine





-Swim

And some other stuff. It was probably the funnest winter break in my life.
People who came to visit:
-Grandma Grandpa
-cousins
-aunts/ uncles
-more cousins
- more Aunts/ Uncles
- Me
-Mom/ Dad
-Siblings

Only Grandma and Grandpa got a hotel. The house was the most crowded I had ever seen.
Your Student,
Brayden

---end of letter


I thought Braydens letter did a great job of summing it up and mostly accurrate except the playing with friends from 1-9pm???. Here are a couple more pictures I just had to include:

New Years Eve Chocolate Fountain:

Picking up Chloe and Jonah at the airport.

A "Man-Only" outing to Sinful Burger to experience the "Gluttony Burger."

The kids on Christmas Morning before Church.

When Brayden tried out his new bike in his Church clothes we couldn't help but pose him as a missionary. A vision of things to come.

A gift exchange and white elephant.


Besides all that there was a whole lot of board games, card games, wii games and all sorts of other games. We ate many feasts and had many fun days and nights. The only thing that wasn't had in abundance was sleep but I'm sure we'll make it up later. It was great to be together with family- a very wonderful blessing indeed!