The last weekend with Ryan : (

So My little brother Ryan just left for the MTC to serve an LDS mission for two years in Halifax Canada. It's been a bitter sweet experience in that I am so proud of him and know that what he is going to share with the people of Canada is a priceless gift, but I also miss him very much and can't believe I won't be able to see him for 2 years. We tried to pack in as much family fun as possible with him before he left and definitely made some good memories. These pictures are all from the night he was set apart to be a missionary. We had some little smokies with the bacon wrapped around them and the brown sugar sauce, then headed over to the church- it was a really neat experience to be there for. The only thing that was super embarrassing was that Lyndi hit the Stake president in the face (he's also my boss) when he said hi to her (I just about died). When we got home we had some birthday cake since it was my little bro Hyrum's 13th b-day the 19th. Then because my dad was bald in all of our last family pictures we tried to get some before Ryan left. Don't worry we were trying to get a toddler to behave for pictures at 11:30 pm. Through all the craziness we still had allot of fun and I love my crazy big family. You'd think it wouldn't be weird missing a couple with such a big group but we all notice it for sure.

Family Pictures

Funtivities

I got to hang out with my cute friend Lisa and her boyfriend Steve before she left for DC. Steve's mom made some amazing authentic Mexican food and we just chilled and talked. They are cute together huh? Then the next two pics were after my brother Ryan went to the temple and we came back to my house for brownies and ice cream after. The last two are Lyndi at Pets Mart and the mall quarter toys. All around this break has been awesome and so nice to spend some time with Jake and Lyndi with no school and less work. Family is the BEST!

Rockband Groupdate

We (Jake and I, Emily and Mike, Ryan and Angie, and Braden and Melissa) had a blast doing our Rockband date! I was related to almost all of our participants which was fun and we rocked out pretty hard. We had all sorts of crazy 80's colors with the girls and a bit more on the punk stuff on the guys. We did Hawaiian haystacks for dinner then rocked out and finished off with watching A Knights Tale. I love that my younger sibblings will hang out and go on dates with us even though we are "old and married".

Memmot Christmas Parties

These first pics are of us being silly at the cousin's white elephant gift party. Cheers! We went up in their play room and took some pictures because their playroom was way cool. I especially like how creepy Jake looks coming out of the little door. Notice one of the coveted gifts was my sweet unicorn from my collection when I was little. "My horn can pierce the sky!" Michael from The Office

Jake's mom's side of the family always does a Christmas get together with everyone where we eat soup and breadsticks and act out the Nativity. Lyndi was the cutest little Angel you have ever seen and Isaac (Jake's little bro)was a pretty sweet shepherd. Jake's mom is the youngest of nine so you can imagine we have quite a few people there when we all get totgether. We got a picture of Jake with his grandma and I got to hold one our cousin's tiny little baby (I miss how little they are).

Christmas Morning

Well Christmas this year was amazing and extra meaningful. We didn't have alot of money so presents were a bit more sparse but I would have to say its been one of my favorites. Jake's family had a visitor from Taiwan (Jake's brother John is there on an LDS mission and Ernie is the ward mission leader in his area right now) so we got to meet him and do some fun Utah things together, also he reminded us of the importance of missionary work and showed us the effect this gospel and specifically Jesus Christ has had on his life. We were able to go to Body Worlds, the Capitol, a SLC carriage ride, sledding and lots of family fun with him. My family's Christmas this year was special because we all decided to cut back on presents for us big kids and chip in together to be able to afford a hearing aid for my little sister Lauren. The picture of her with my parents is when she opened up the card and money. She was overwhelmed by how much we were able to get together and very thankful. She is such a sweetie and has been saving all of her babysitting money for a while. It was also very fun to have Lyndi so excited about everything. We did alot of going back and forth between our two families and had sooo much fun!

This picture with her mouth full is at the Macfarlane's when she stuffed a whole package of gushers in her mouth to make sure her tongue was ALL blue. Her one Christmas wish was to get a green ring pop which of course Santa granted since she's such a good girl! I have a really cute picture of her eating it on my phone so I'll post it later.