It's like a catapult

The rest of the family showed up over the past few days. As it turned out, Jon's flight HAD been delayed: Five hours in St Maarten, which made him miss his connection in Chicago. He spent that night in a Hilton lobby armchair. All in all, it was 33 hours of travel time, including the drive to St Anthony from Utah. Oh yeah, and a few more minutes were tacked on when his plane almost landed on top of another plane at the Salt Lake City airport. I don't like to think about it, but apparently they were seconds away from landing when a plane on the ground decided to move onto the runway underneath them. So up they went, with lots of g-force, circling the airport waiting for another try. Good job, Air Traffic Control!

It hasn't been too eventful around here - just how I like it. Lots of slipper-wearing, lots of movie-watching, lots of game-playing. There's this one called "Bananagrams" that is a new obsession. There's a big pile of letter tiles in the middle and you have to create crosswords, like Scrabble, only it's timed and you can rearrange your words as much as you need. Then, if you want to trade a letter, you call out "DUMP!" and exchange it for three others. DUMP. It's written in the actual directions. Capitalized and everything. I like to shout it as obnoxiously as I possibly can.

What else, what else.... Oh. Corinne and I braved a trip to the Wal-Mart in Rexburg which was pretty interesting. We saw the saddest Santa ever, tucked away in a corner near cosmetics, wearing what appeared to be red pajamas with unraveling white trim. The only Christmas decoration nearby was an old heavily-creased hand-drawn backdrop. I wanted to cry.

Speaking of crying, have you ever been to Ririe, Idaho? We accidentally drove through it FOUR TIMES in one day. I sank into a deep depression.

So I've got this overachieving follicle on my right arm. I was pretty proud of the two-inch-long hair it had produced and showed it to my whole family once I got here. Then last week, while Jon and I were cuddling on a loveseat, he suddenly grabbed hold of it and yanked it out while I hollered in protest. Then he explained that I was getting too attached to it. We laughed for an hour.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I hope your Christmas was merry and bright. Ours was.

Ada staring down a bottle of fry sauce at Big Jud's - just outside of Ririe :-(

Gunner and the General

Fondue on Christmas Eve - Sweet family tradition!

Mom trying out her new Wii

I gave her those boots. That's why they're so cute.

Trying out my brother-in-law Steve's trebuchet (movie below)