Our adventures in Utah began around Nephi on the way up from Vegas when the car in front of us slid into the median. Luckily, they were okay and there was a copy not far away helping someone else who had slid off the road. We kept cruising along at 25 miles/hr and made it safely to Murray in time for the Christmas Eve festivities.
Before our tradition of acting out the nativity, we had the chance to talk about how much we know about the Savior's birth. I enjoyed being able to hear about all that we do know, while still wondering about the many things connected with the birth and life of Jesus Christ that we don't know. I guess that's why we're supposed to continually try to come to know Him better, because there will always be things about Him that we don't know. As far as lifelong pursuits go, I can't think of many that would be more beneficial than coming to better know Christ.
Speaking of the nativity, we finally had a full cast (minus a baby) and audience for the first time. Sarah and I were Mary and Joseph in the Brockbank theater in the round.
My mom would probably be the first one to point this out, but it was the first time that our whole family had been together since Brandon left on his mission. Or you could say that it was the first time our whole family had been together period, because it's the first time we've been together since Sarah joined the family.
My big Christmas morning surprise was a bearded beanie, made for me by my mom. I think one of her hopes was that if I ever had the desire to have a beard again, I would just put this on. (So, I won't let her know that I've grown my beard again.) That being said, it was an awesome gift and I love it.
The day after Christmas, we went and took family pictures, and for anyone interested in checking them out, here's the link.
Our other big family adventure was going to see "Les Misérables" with the whole family. My favorite part was probably after the movie when we all decided to sing to each other to communicate rather than simply talking. That and hearing Brandon sing "look down, look down..." for the next two weeks.
The rest of our time was spent mainly on two activities: (1) playing games and (2) woodworking.
There's never a shortage of game playing when we're all in town and it was nice to be able to get together with (Ben's) friends from high school (I've been a tag-along ever since).
The woodworking consisted of two different projects. The first was buying a 4x4 from Home Depot and having it cut into blocks. We then sanded the blocks, which we eventually become decorative blocks for our apartment for all the different seasons. (Alyse's gift to Sarah for Christmas was the vinyl letters to put on the blocks once they are painted.)
Sarah and Alyse working on painting the first few blocks
The other woodworking project was much more involved. Sarah's grandma had given a wooden nativity puzzle that she painted to Sarah's family for Christmas back in 1995. Here is a picture of the nativity puzzle:
Sarah had thought that it might be a good gift for my mom since she loves nativities and it could be one that future grandchildren could play with. So, a couple days after Christmas, Sarah asked Ben if she thought it was possible to make something like this. Let me give my perspective on how each person interpreted the question:
Sarah - Well, I just want to know if Ben thinks it's possible. If he does, then maybe we could ask Joe (a friend of hers who does a lot of woodworking) to make one for us that we could then paint for Lori.
Ben - Is that a challenge?
I'm sure you can guess what happened a few minutes later, after Ben answered that he thought it could be done and Sarah put the nativity away. Ben turned to me and asked when we were going to go make the nativities. Next thing I knew, we had been to Home Depot to buy the wood and were cutting it in the basement of my dad's office. Once it got to the point of cutting out the inside of the puzzle, I think we realized we were in a little over our heads and Ben's jigsaw blade was too wide for the job. So, we called a member of our ward, who let us come over and use his scroll saw. Since we had the wood for it, we decided to make three nativities (one for my mom, one for Ben and Alyse and one for us).
After getting the inside of the three puzzles cut out, we spent the next day sanding and routing. Here are some pictures from day two:
Then it was on to the staining, painting and sealing. This process was spread out over a couple days, but everyone managed to get their nativities done.
Since I was the last one to post pictures, I can include pictures of everyone's finished project:
My mom's nativity
Ben and Alyse's nativity
Our nativity
Overall, I don't think we did too bad in replicating it, with our own touch.
The worst part about the long Christmas vacation was when we realized it was over and time to drive back to Oklahoma and start school up again. (As a side note, since I know everyone really cares, we put 4,200 miles on our car during the break.)
It's always crazy for me to think that we live so far away from family because when we get together it seems like we've all just been really busy, which can happen whether we live thousands of miles away from each other or just a few.
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