Surprise Christmas in Utah

December 23, 2010

We decided on a last minute whim to go to Utah for Christmas. It has been 7 years since we've been "home" for Christmas and everything just seemed to fall into place.

Lexie has been asking me a lot lately if we can spend the night in a hotel. So on the day we were leaving, I took the kids to Kate's house for a 2 hour playdate (bless her!) and told the kids I had a surprise for them when I picked them up. During that two hour playdate, I packed the car, presents and all, and went to pick the kids up. They saw how the car was packed and knew we were going on a trip. I told them that their surprise was a trip to spend the night in a hotel. They were so excited! Poor kids, they didn't know it was going to take us 9 hours to get to the hotel! We picked dad up at the hospital and off we went!

The next day was Christmas Eve. That morning we gave the kids the rest of the "surprise" and told then we were going to Utah for Christmas.  They were all very excited! We drove the second half of our trip into the Salt Lake Valley. I always love this part of the trip because the closer we get, the more mountains we see. We were very blessed to have excellent weather for this trip. It seemed as though the clouds parted for us.

When we arrived, the Ellingson side of the family did not know that we were coming.  6 of the 8 brothers were there having Christmas Eve festivities at grandma and grandpa's house.  We just walked up to the door and started singing Christmas carols.  It was a lot of fun surprising them!  We brought their numbers up to 7 of the 8 boys and I think I saw a tear in grandma and grandpa's eyes. It was really neat being there with with so many of Derek's brothers and their families. We definitely missed Jonathan and his family!

The Elliingsons have a big Christmas Eve family party where they open a game or jigsaw puzzle.  Here are all the great Ellingson minds hard at work on the 2010 jigsaw puzzle!  (Tanner was right there with them and quite in his element!)

Christmas morning started off PERFECT with Ellingson BULLETS!  (aka crepes)

Here's the CHEF! You make 'em the best grandpa!

Grandma was on baby watch.

There were lots of young moms there. Some helping children...

Some eating as fast as they could before the baby needed something.

Then the opening began!  With so many people in the house, we had lots of gifts to open.  We opened our stockings at Grandma and Grandpa Ellingsons then went up to Salt Lake to open more at Grandma and Grandpa High's house.