Kanyon had basketball practice on Monday night, and after he and Ammon got home from their practices, we had Family Home Evening. We talked about the boys making their lists of what they wanted for Christmas, and we discussed our family Christmas service project. In previous years, we've hosted a family (buying clothes and a meal for an entire anonymous family) and we've participated in the Christmas is Sharing program numerous times (where you take tags off trees at stores in town, and purchase specific items needed for people in the community). This year, we wanted the boys to be more active participants in the giving, so we decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas activity for a family that Josh felt inspired to share the Spirit of Christmas with. The boys liked the idea, and we talked about how we'd start on the 1st, and do random days until the 24th. The boys would help deliver the items, and help purchase a few things, and Josh & I would purchase the majority of the items. We asked them to keep it anonymous, and not tell anyone who our family was, because keeping the secret was part of the fun. They were glad to go along with the Christmas service project, and we were excited, and started making plans for ideas that we could give for each of the 12 days.
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| At preschool on Monday afternoon, one of the students was sorting a giant box of animals into random piles/lines based on the type of animal it was. It made my heart so happy to see OCD prevalent in a young child! It's exactly what I would've done with the box of random animals, too! |
On Tuesday night, my college mentor called and said I was officially all set to start my student teaching in January. Yay!
On Wednesday evening, Kanyon and Ammon both had basketball practice. Ammon dropped off Kanyon before going to his own practice. I went in to pick up Kanyon after an hour, and dropped Jonah & Micah off at Scouts. They were going to get a ride home with Ammon because Josh and I were planning to go to our last Swing Dance Class, but then he got injured at work that day, and ultimately decided he didn't feel up to dancing on his hurt leg. He'd been trimming trees alone at the golf course, specifically some of the old willow trees along #9 fairway. He was on a ladder with his chainsaw cutting through the trunk of one of the old willow trees, when the tree fell a different direction than Josh had planned. He shifted his body at that moment, to try and get down from the ladder quickly, but his foot slipped through the rung, and his body fell backwards. His knee was wrapped around the rung, and his body was laying upside down on the ladder. It knocked the wind out of him and he laid there for several minutes in that awkward, painful position before being able to get enough breath and strength to pull himself back up. It really shook him, and as he told me about it that night, I told him I'm just so grateful that the tree didn't fall on top of him and pin him, and he admitted that he felt the same, because he thought when he first fell that that's what would happen. Every winter, he cuts trees at the golf course alone, and he always puts himself in scary situations just to cut a stupid old tree down. He's had several incidents over the years, some that have injured him, but none that were too severe. He's already had an accident earlier this fall at the golf course while cutting trees, too, but thankfully there was someone out working with him that day, so he was able to get help to recover quickly. I made him promise not go cut down anymore trees at the golf course until someone else was around!
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| When Kanyon saw this picture on our ladder a few days after Josh's incident, he said "that kind of looks like what happened to Dad". We got a good laugh out of it, but Kanyon was totally right! |
Thursday was the first day of December, and our first day of delivering goodies to our 12 Days of Christmas family. Josh was gone on a bus trip to Challis, so I took the younger boys and we did it by ourselves. We figured out where to park, who would take the package to the porch, and where they needed to run to remain unseen due to street lamps and neighboring houses. Then I took the boys to the movie theater afterwards to watch Fantastic Beasts (written by JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter); we all liked it. The boys were kind of scared at one point, but I thought it was exciting and I really enjoyed the film.
We decided to go get a Christmas tree on Friday morning. We drove up above Williams Lake road, went around the lake, then kept driving on the road up into the mountains. It's the same place we went last year, but there was less snow this year, so we made it up the hill further. We stopped and looked at several trees this year, and I found the perfect one about 25 yards below the truck. It was the first time we've taken the tree I picked out! And it was great to have it be so close to the truck, too, since Josh's leg was still bothering him. We got another pine this year--we used to always get fir, but last year Josh really wanted a pine and we all liked it, so that's what we decided to get again this year. On Friday evening, Ammon had his first varsity basketball game at Challis at 7:00. Josh didn't drive the bus, so he got to drive with me in the car, which made me so happy! The other boys decided to just stay home, so it was like a date night for the two of us! Unfortunately, our boys team lost the game, but it was definitely an exciting game! At one point, Ammon got pushed down, and we all thought he'd hit his head (because he fell backwards), and I freaked out big time and was screaming at the refs! Thankfully, his hip hit the floor first, and he was able to get up off the floor by himself. His hip hurt the rest of the night, but that's much better than his head!
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| The tree I picked out |
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| The boys watching dad cut it down |
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| Josh let Ammon have a turn at cutting it, too |
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| Heading back with our new tree! |
Saturday afternoon, Ammon had another basketball game at Darby, Montana at 5:30. The boys' and girls' teams went together, so there was JV and varsity games for both teams all afternoon. Josh and I drove up together again, which was awesome, and we picked up Hannah on the way so that she could come watch, too. We were able to watch 3 of the 4 games. The boys' varsity game was SUPER close, and the boys looked so much better than they had the previous night, but unfortunately, in the 4th quarter, they began to get behind the other team's score, although they had been the scoring leader the majority of the game. Darby has the BEST concession stands EVER, which was great, because I just started the no-sugar, no-carb diet that day and I was glad I could eat at the school without having to leave the games to go get something. Ammon drove home with us, and was bummed to have lost the game, but we were so proud of him and the rest of the team for their strong efforts!
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| Tied in the 4th quarter. This is where the game began to turn around, and unfortunately not in our favor. |
I was in charge of Sharing Time in Primary on Sunday. I'd been asked to be in charge of the program at the Ward's Christmas party the following week, so I used the time in Primary to have the children practice the program that I'd written and prepared for it. It was kind of stressful, because we ran out of time in Senior Primary to run through it all, but Camille had helped teach the kids the songs the previous few weeks, and she was a great help to me during the practice, for which I was so grateful. Sunday was also Fast Sunday. I won the monthly contest against Gina! Yay! We had tithing settlement later that afternoon, and then we went to the Hobbs' house after for treats! Gina makes such delicious treats, and she spoiled us with Peanut Butter Balls, pie, and cookies that night! We stayed and watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional with them--which we've never watched before; that was so nice of them to share the experience with us. When we got home, we decorated our Christmas tree. We put the tree in the family room this year, and put it right next to the central wall so that it could be taller (we have vaulted ceilings). We decided to put blue lights on it with silver, blue, and pink decorations this year. I put the lights on, and the 3 younger boys decorated the whole rest of the tree, which was fabulous; they did a great job! And we all loved the way it looked when it was done.
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| Watching the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional at the Hobbs' home |
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| The boys did a wonderful job decorating our Christmas tree! |
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