Home for the Holidays
December 28, 2017 | Rob
We just got home from a Christmas visit with my side of the family in Utah. It's always hard to see everyone that you would like to see while visiting, but we crammed a lot into our four days there, and it was time well spent.
Before taking a late-night flight to Salt Lake City, the three of us (ok, two of us) opened presents at home by the fire on Saturday (12/23). The fire was just for ambience, of course. Here is a video link of that.
We stayed for two nights with my sister Victoria and her family in Murray. During that time, we were able to visit friends, have Christmas Eve dinner at my parents house with some siblings, watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas with Victoria's family (which Becky had somehow never seen), and participate in Christmas Day festivities with the family who gathered at Victoria's house.
We then stayed for two nights with my sister Linda and her family in Heber. There, we got to relax, enjoy the mountain scenery, go sledding, and go see Star Wars thanks to some babysitting help and a little Podunk theater in town that happened to be showing the movie.
Before flying back to Phoenix, we came back to the Salt Lake valley and went to the Living Planet Aquarium with some of the family. We also visited with some of my friends from college over sandwiches at Buds, which happens to only have outdoor seating as it turns out; and so we followed that up with some hot cocoa.
At the end of the evening, the three of us took a late flight home, which was delayed making it even later. The shuttle at the airport was also delayed, making for a very late night. We didn't get home until 3 am. The silver lining of red-eye flights is that the baby is either sleeping or in too much of a catatonic state to complain most of the time.
The trip produced lots of good memories, which makes all the hassles of holiday travel worth it. It is especially valuable for Alex I think, because he gets to interact with his cousins so much. He really got spoiled with gifts, both for his birthday and Christmas, and was relishing all of the extra attention from the extended family.
It will be more difficult to visit home as often after we move to New York, but hopefully we'll at least make it back again next year during the holidays.