A little catch-up

Things have been rather crazy lately. I haven't had much time to blog. The holidays have been a blast. We had a family party on the 20th of December at Linda's new house. It was fun being with the whole family. The morning of the 20th some of us girls got together and made donuts (like we use to make growing up). It was a ton of fun. Then that night was the actuall party. The kids loved it because Santa came (Dave dressed up in his Santa Suit). He gave each of the kids a present and a Chinese Finger trap (my brilliant idea). No better way to tame a bunch of kids than to have their fingers stuck together all night. It was entertaining.

Mike and I spent Christmas Eve with his family. They usually do a Christmas get-together but figured it would be more convenient to do it on Christmas Eve this year. They had their traditional Honey Ham and huge Thanksgiving-like dinner. Then we went downstairs (where they keep the tree) and opened presents from each other. Mike's parents are VERY generous for Christmas. I got a couple cute shirts, some PJ's, a $50 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble and a few other things. We then went home and opened our PJ's we had bought for each other which is my tradition.

Christmas morning Mike and I got up and opened our presents to each other. He got me a Marti Report on my car (you can read more about that on my Mustang Blog), A $20 gift cert for Barnes & Noble, The 2nd part of the "Are You Being Served" DVD Set, and a cool 3D puzzle of the Tower Bridge in London. There were some other things but I am having a hard time remembering it all. We also had gotten Christmas Presents for all the animals. Molly was Cute because she knew there were presents for her. she was so excited as I helped her unwrap her presents. It was fun.

After we did our thing, we went over and had Christmas Dinner with my family at Linda's. That dinner consisted of all the trimmings we have for Thanksgiving, like turkey, and Cheeseball. It was soo good! I also spent some time helping Linda put together the family cook books she gave us all for Christmas. She had us all submit recipes we liked and put them together in a nice little book. I am excited to have more recipes to try, and ones I know I love. I wasted no time in putting that book to use. I already spilled all over one of the pages.

Now on to how we rang in the New Year last night. They do a little race at Sugar House Park called Beat the New Year. It is a 5K that starts at 11:30 PM and you are suppose to try to run it before Midnight. Well Mike has done that race a couple times and already knows he can beat the New Year. This year it became a family affair. Mike's sister, her girlfriend, his dad, and him all ran it. I was just a spectator. I got the cheesy Idea that since this was the first race where so many of his family members were running, they needed matching shirts. So last night I made them all shirts that said "Team Epperson" on the back, and had the mustang symbol on the front that said "Just trotting along". They all wore their shirts and ran the whole 5k together. They ended up missing the New Year by 9 minutes, but at least they finished. They really didn't do too bad at all. It was neat they all got to run together. And I also got my New Years kiss... just 9 minutes late.

We then went back to Mike's parents house where his mom had Peach Cobbler and Hot Cocoa waiting for us. We ended up sitting and chatting until about 1:30 am. It was fun. At one point Mike and his dad ended up in the other room chatting so it ended up all the women in the dinning room chatting. It was fun. I like feeling included in the family. I honestly think this was one of the better New Years I have had.