Christmas!

I am so far behind on blogging...

So. Christmas. I spent Christmas Eve with Sean's family and we had dinner, and then opened presents. I even got a few! I got a bracelet from Elizabeth (Sean's stepsister), Joe (Sean's stepdad), and Linda (Sean's mom) that is made out of paint. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it'll be pretty cool. I got a box of homemade truffles (made by Sara, Sean's sister) from Sean. They're amazing. They look professionally made - and Sara said that she made 15,000 truffles this year - crazy! Best of all, though, I got a pair of pajama pants that Linda made for me! And they're pink! I love them. They have an LDS pattern too - pictures of a baby, a baptism, Primary kids, a Young Women's group, a girl reading the Book of Mormon, and a bride and groom standing outside the Salt Lake City Temple. Rinse and repeat. The pictures continue around and around, so the pattern just keeps going. They're so warm. Thank you, Linda!

Christmas morning was spent at my house with Mom, Dad, Leslie, Pieter, and Sean. I got a bunch of stuff, much of it is useful for me living on my own. I got a set of Henckel knives, which apparently are some really awesome and high quality, a "Sauteuse" pan to make crepes and other stuff in, a cookbook from my brother Scott and his family, a pass to go tubing in Midway from my sister Laura and her family, and a set of pens that look like syringes in different colors from my sister Aly and her family because I start the nursing program at BYU this semester. Sean gave me a brown sweater and a burnt orange long sleeve t-shirt. And stamps. Lots of stamps. I think he wants me to write to him while he's gone on his mission??? Leslie gave me a couple of long sleeve t-shirts as well as a beanie. It's like people think I live in Utah, where it's cold, because they keep giving me cold weather clothes! :)

We had a nice Christmas dinner, and then Sean had to rush off to work before dessert, so I went down to the movie theater where he was the manager (it was his last night of work too!) and gave him some dessert. Mmmmm...

I even got to have a third Christmas, on the 28th, with more of Sean's family. On Christmas Eve, it was Sean, Joe, Linda, and his stepsister and three stepbrothers (and the 4th is in Spain, so he wasn't there). On the 28th, it was Sean, Joe, Linda, and Sean's two sisters and their families. We had brunch and then the family opened more presents. It was so much fun being able to watch the kids opening their presents! After the fun of opening presents were over, everyone got ready to go to church. Sean spoke in church because he is leaving soon for his mission. Tons and tons of people afterward told me what a great job he had done. I'm so proud of him.

Ha! I almost forgot to talk about my excitement trying to get home for Christmas! I was supposed to fly out on the last flight going to Oakland from Salt Lake City on Southwest on Wednesday night. Well...our flight was delayed, and then eventually canceled. There had been a snow storm in Las Vegas that day, and the plane and flight crew that were supposed to be flying us to California got stuck there because of three lousy inches of snow. We were able to scrape together a first officer, flight attendants, and a plane, but we couldn't find a pilot ANYWHERE who would be able to fly us! We were stuck. We were able to get seats on the 6:30am flight out the next morning, but by this point, it was after midnight, so we decided it would be ridiculous for us to get a hotel that night or have Laura come pick us up from the airport, so we had a giant slumber party in the "Fishbowl" (I guess it's actually called the Rotunda) in the Salt Lake Airport. The people working there basically unloaded a plane and gave us all the peanuts, drinks, other snacks, earplugs (wonderful, wonderful inventions!), blankets, and pillows we could ask for. Of course, no one slept really well because there wasn't any really comfortable place to sleep, but I got a couple of hours of sleep, at least. Sean and I were both pretty bummed that we wouldn't be able to see each other that night and would have to wait until morning. We got on our flight in the morning, and made it, uneventfully after that night. Seeing Sean again was awesome. My mom and dad took us straight from the airport to Pieter's house, where we picked him up and then we went to Country Waffles for breakfast, and Sean met us there! It was so nice seeing him again - I had missed him!