Excells Move Out; Ward Family Christmas Eve Party; Christmas Dinner; Prime Rib New Year's Dinner

 The Excell family had a gingerbread house-making activity which was fun to observe. 

I enjoyed seeing the Christmas activities going on at Ben and Haley's home.

What a cute photo of Monty with Santa Claus.

One day Sarah was gone and when Carson got hungry, he took matters into his own hands cooking up a pot of macaroni and cheese which he shared with his brothers.

All the paperwork for the sale of Jeff and Sarah's Las Vegas house and for the purchase of their new home in Utah went through. 

With that news, the decision was made for them to move all their belongings out of our garage and into their new home two days before Christmas. 

Another U-haul was rented, family members were rounded up, and this time Glen was feeling healthy and strong. It was a great day for a move. 

We were grateful it was not snowing, but the temperature was sure COLD for all of them to be working out in that weather. 

Thankfully, the move went smoothly and they were finished in just a few hours. (Easy for me to say since I wasn't out in the freezing coldness.)

Jonah and Lincoln were patiently waiting for the truck and all the inside stuff to get all packed up.

The boys were excited to see their new home.

It's always a relief after a piano gets moved in. Two neighbors dropped by to welcome them to the neighborhood--both of the women were named Sarah.

First meal in the Excells' new home. 

Time to get organized!!

See the contented look on Jeff and Sarah's faces knowing they were all moved into their beautiful new home. 

As soon as everyone had left to unload at Sarah's house, I got busy cleaning the house and preparing food for our Ward Family Christmas Eve Dinner Party scheduled for the next evening. 

It was a lovely party and we were so thankful the weather cooperated. 

The next day was CHRISTMAS!! 

Sarah's family had already been going to church in their new ward. It sounds like their older, established ward (aka old people) will love having new families moving in. 

Jeff and Sarah are hopeful there will be some children their boys' ages moving into the new homes that are being built in their neighborhood.

This is what Christmas morning looked like in the Excell household. 

After her flight getting cancelled twice, Natalie finally made it home to Omaha for Christmas. She put her cosmetology education to use by coloring Emma's hair.

Logan and Claire got busy with their new Christmas gifts.

It did my heart proud to see Ben was carrying on in the family tradition he grew up with by having little cereals Christmas morning. 

Then I looked closer and saw it was not cereal, but puzzles. Cute!!

Here's what Christmas looked like in the Golden family. 

On Christmas Day, Glen and I spent the morning at the prison as usual, bringing some holiday cheer to the inmates. 

Once back home, we got busy preparing Christmas dinner. Rebecca, Sarah and Ben's families joined us.

When the family started arriving, we were noticing how Sarah, Glen and Rebecca were all matching.

Then we needed a pose of Ben and Haley matching in green and Dallas and me matching wearing red.

Caroline was excited for us to open the Christmas gift she gave us. Haley has taught her to crochet and her latest project has been making yarn snails. So cute!!

The following week, Dad and Mom were eager to join us for a prime rib New Year's Day dinner. Nani was also invited, but she politely declined. She shares the same sentiment as me about prime rib. Not our favorite! 

I can't believe Glen had been so excited about this meal and I didn't even get a photo of him and his prime rib!!

Of course there had to be some game playing before the day was done. With Sarah now living close, she has become part of the gamers.

I got talked into playing some Minute to Win It games. They were a lot of fun. 

Kade insisted on trying everything we were doing. He is following in his parents' footsteps and loves to play games. Caroline likes to play games, too. The rest of the grandchildren were playing in the basement.

We had a lovely, family-filled Christmas holiday and it was wonderful! It was nice to have Christmas on Sunday this year. 

Despite all the gifts, food, fun and games, it was nice to go to church and remember our Savior's birth is the reason for the season. 

Quotes of the Week

 In His love, He crated a plan, a plan of redemption and happiness to open to us all the opportunities and joys we are willing to receive, up to and including all that He has and is.

--D. Todd Christofferson

The Savior will lead and guide you in your personal life if you will make time for Him in your life -- each and every day.

--Russell M. Nelson

Prayers are answered ... most of the time ... by God using other people. Well, I pray that He'll use us. I pray that we'll be the answer to people's prayers.

--Jeffrey R. Holland

The Saviors healing power is not just His ability to heal our bodies but, perhaps even more important, His ability to heal our hearts.

--Brent H. Nielson

Moving Excells to Utah; Visit Jacob's Family in Omaha

We had gotten home from our Hawaiian cruise vacation Sunday morning. After getting all his stuff unpacked (and the ornament hung on the tree), Glen settled in for a long winter's nap, only to wake up a few hours later feeling absolutely horrible with a fever, head congestion and achy body. 

This was NOT good timing to be getting sick as he had promised to help Jeff and Sarah load their moving truck and drive it from Las Vegas to Utah. 

Of course nothing would stand in the way of his helping them, so the next morning we were off to the airport to take a flight to Vegas. Thankfully, Glen wore a mask the whole time we were gone.

The plan had been for us to get to Vegas, help load the U-haul, drive part way home, and then drive the rest of the way home the next day.

Sarah picked us up from the airport and stopped on our way to her home to pick up a lunch take-out order. We saw the moving van parked out front when we arrived at their home.

After hearing how sick Glen was, Jeff and Sarah had loaded the truck by themselves (yes, Sarah is a Superwoman!), only needing Glen's help to get a few of the heavier items on the truck. 

Imagine our shock and surprise and feeling of gratitude that my sick husband only had to lift those few items for them. They were definitely our angels that day!

Notice the beautiful weather in Las Vegas... It was not so beautiful in Utah. A big storm was rolling in and we were not very excited to be driving through a snowstorm. 

Glen gutted it up and we drove the whole way home that same day. He was one exhausted and still very sick and fevering, achy, nose-running man. 

The thing that propelled him to keep on driving (besides me actually staying awake the whole way to help him stay awake the whole way) was he just wanted to get home and get settled in the basement in his recliner to recover from this horrible illness. 

Thankfully, it did not settle in his chest and coughing wasn't an issue for him. 

As soon as the four boys got home from school, Sarah loaded them in the van and she was not far behind us on the road heading to our home. Jeff stayed behind to finish out his work week, planning to join his family on the weekend.

We got home before the storm hit and were so thankful we were not driving in the snowstorm the next day. 

Dallas has the first part of the week off work, so he and Rebecca were willing to come over and help Sarah unload some of the truck's contents into our garage. 

Sarah had asked a few of her friends to come over in the evening to help get the heavy stuff and the rest of the load out of the truck.

Dallas returned the moving van and that was another big help

It was a big relief for Glen to have them do that project so he didn't have to be involved in any part of it. He said he was feeling way too weak to even lift anything. He kept telling me how sick he was. Poor guy!! I kept waiting for his germs to infect me...

Sarah's family stayed with us a couple of weeks until they could finalize the sale of their Vegas home and sign the paperwork for their new home. 

We enjoyed the perk of Sarah's meal planning and preparation. Lots of yummy food!!

Shockingly, by Wednesday Glen was feeling so much better. On Thursday he was declaring himself all recovered and was able to go with me to do our regular Thursday afternoon ordinance worker shift at the temple. 

It was hard to believe how quickly he had gotten sooooo sick and then how quickly he had recovered. Strange--but a huge blessing.

Because on Friday we had a flight scheduled to go to Omaha and visit Jacob's family for a few days. 

Jacob picked us up at the airport. Laurie was busy with the girls practicing their parts for their violin performances over the weekend.

That left us with the boys that evening. Luke and Logan chose HuHot Mongolian Grill for dinner. I love the wide assortment of vegetables, meat and noodles that are available for the choosing. Then what each person selects is given to the chefs who grill it all up to perfection. 

Once back home, we played a rousing game of Yahtzee. Just to shake it up a bit for our last game, we  used 10 dice instead of 5. That way there was a possibility of getting more Yahtzees, which put an interesting twist on the game.

This is only the second time we have been to Jacob and Laurie's home since they moved back to Omaha. I enjoyed so much looking at all their Christmas decorations and being in their beautiful home once again. 

The next morning Logan and Claire had big plans for Glen to play Nintendo Switch with them after breakfast.

Then we were off to a school to watch Logan play a city league basketball game. Jacob was their team's coach. Logan is on the far left in all three pictures.

Emma went off with a friend and we met up with her later that evening. The rest of us chose a restaurant in town--Upstream located in the old market area of Omaha where we enjoyed some delicious food.

There was a super fun, colorful, old-fashioned candy store nearby. Despite the absolutely freezing weather, we walked there to take a look around.

Then it was time to go to the Omaha Symphony Christmas Celebration--starring Emma and Claire!!

The girls have been taking violin lessons and their teacher is in the symphony. She arranged for her students to be part of the lobby performances before the show. 

It was such a wonderful evening of beautiful music, singing and acting. The Christmas theme was so fun and festive. Towards the end of the evening, Emma and Claire's group came on stage and performed one number with the symphony. 

It was so beautiful and they acted and performed just like professionals. It was impressive. The violin students came back on stage at the end to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with all the professional performers. So cute! So fun! Such a wonderful production! I LOVED IT!! 

I loved it so much that when Laurie said she had two tickets the following evening and wondered if I would like to go with her, I jumped at the chance.

Laurie and the girls had to be there early for an afternoon performance, so Jacob and Glen drove me to the symphony that evening and I got a ride home with Laurie and the girls.

There were bassoonists performing in the lobby in one corner and when they were finished, the violinists were doing their performing in the main part of the lobby once again. 

It was another evening of delightful entertainment, with the culmination being when the violinists came on stage. So fun to see the older students performing and then so cute when the younger students walked on stage to join in with the older students. 

Emma was so sad when the performances were over. A lot of time had been spent together with the other students and they were going to miss being with each other. Such a bonding experience it sounded like--especially for the oldest students who would not be coming back next year.

The night before we left Omaha, we went to dinner with the family at Lazlos Brewery Grill close by Jacob's home. The food was delicious. It was our last hurrah before we headed to the airport early the next morning. 

We thought it had been extremely cold in Utah for the previous month. The weather report for Omaha made us all the more excited to leave beyond-bitterly cold Omaha to come back home to cold Utah.

This was reminiscent of the time I watched Jacob and Laurie's children in the dead of winter while they went off to enjoy a Caribbean cruise. The temperature all week was -35 degrees. I never got warm the whole time I was there.

After experiencing that amount of cold, I was definitely happy we were not sticking around to see what -45 degrees felt like.

Quotes of the Week

 Whenever we show Christlike love toward our neighbor, we preach the gospel--even is we do not voice a single word.

--Gary E. Stevenson

The Holy Ghost can assure us that we have been forgiven. As we sense joy and peace, guilt is swept away, and we are no longer tormented by our sin.

--Dale G. Renlund

I learned in a profound way that deliverance from our trials is different for each of us, and therefore our focus should be less about the way in which we are delivered and more about the Deliverer Himself. Our emphasis should always be on Jesus Christ!!

--Amy A. Wright

Remember that your most important identity relates to your divine nature as a child of God.

--Dale G. Renlund