Christmas in Idaho

On the beautiful morning of my 44th birthday, we loaded in the car and headed south. Again.

Our destination was Logan, Utah. Jill and Larsen met us there, and we went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I even sat in the saddle and let them give me a birthday shoutout - for my 29th birthday.
We all stayed in a suite at the Comfort Inn and went swimming where they had a sweet waterslide. Then we had some "pillow talk" as Hanna calls it and lots of laughing and talking before we went to sleep.

The next morning we went to visit Steve and Karma for a few minutes, and then we went to help Jeanette set up for Nathan's wedding luncheon, and then we went to the Logan Temple for Nathan's wedding (see the next post). We made it to the temple at precisely 1 pm (even though Grandpa Randy was worried we would be late).

After the wedding and luncheon, we headed to Idaho Falls so we could have a pre-Christmas celebration with Jill and Larsen, my parents, Sharon's family, and Julie's family.

We went to Christmas church with Grandpa and Grandma. Then Grandpa cooked hamburgers on the grill. Then we had a white elephant gift exchange. We laughed a lot. Austin got these quality ear muffs from Tristan's childhood that even have Tristan's name on them.

Then Sharon's family left and headed to Boise. 

We had a short message about Joseph Smith, and then we acted out the Nativity and sang a few Christmas carols. Then our kids opened their Christmas pajamas and all slept under the tree. (Larsen is a good sport:)

On Monday morning, we opened a few gifts with Jill and Larsen.  Then we went to the church and played a little basketball, went bowling and shopping, and then had a ham Christmas dinner. Let's stop and just record for all history who the bowling champion was - that's right, it was me. Kaylynn 117 points. After dinner, we went on a lights ride led by my dad (a little longer and more spread out than I would have done it and a little bit getting lost, but I did ask him to lead it.) Then we went out for ice cream.

On Christmas Eve morning, Jill and Larsen headed south and we headed north. We were going to race, but they had good roads, and we had lots of snowy roads where we were going far below the speed limit. Then we were almost to Butte, and we watched a car coming the other way start sliding and then go in the ditch and hit a pillar under an underpass head on. We quickly stopped and Austin headed to their car and told me to call 911. After I called, I helped gather blankets and went to the car to see if I could help. There was a mom and dad and three kids ages 1 to 7, and luckily they were all alive. We stayed with them until the ambulances came. Austin and I talked to her sister and dad on her phone since she was in shock and so much pain. The dad got out to try and help his family, but he was in so much pain they just laid him down until the ambulance came. Everyone else stayed in the car. One of the little boys, Donovan, crawled out of his car seat into the front and was crying, so I got in the car and held him. 

We couldn't stop thinking about it for a couple days. We are thankful that we were there at that moment to help them. We are thankful they were alive. We were thankful that we traveled safely on the icy roads. We were wishing we took their number so we can text them to see if they were okay.