Family Time!

The first week Jared was home was pretty fun! Hugh arrived the night before and stayed for a whole week this time! He hasn't stayed that long since.. maybe my wedding? I can't even remember. We were all very happy he stayed longer this visit! 

That  S U N D A Y  night my mom made us a turkey dinner. She is awesome! Hugh stayed at our house and we all had dinner together and used our new table for the first time! But we actually hadn't stained it yet, so we made sure we kept it clean and sanded and stained it that night. Thanks Hugh for helping us! 

M O N D A Y  we basically got ready for Jared to arrive. And went to the airport that night.

Jared needed to get some new clothes so on  T U E S D A Y  we went to City Creek for some shopping! We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, one of my favorites. I love going to the mall around Christmas time, I know crazy, right? It just feels so festive, the decorations, the music and it reminds me of when I was a kid. City Creek looked so beautiful with all the lights everywhere. 

On  W E D N E S D A Y , Jared, Hugh, my mom and I went to the temple early in the morning to do some Sealings. Once inside the temple, it just occurred to me that it was my first time being in the temple with my mom. For some reason I thought we had gone together already because a few months ago when my mom got her recommend we made plans to go but it didn't work out. So that made the experience even more special, as it was also Jared's first time going with her as well. 

Later that day we went to Sophia's school to watch her class sing in the Christmas concert. She's a cutie! We didn't stay for the whole thing so we didn't get any pictures with her but here's a few we took outside.

Haha, Noah in his sleepy state

On  T H U R S D A Y  we relaxed during the day then went out to grab some din! Derek and I had gift cards to The Garden so we decided to go there. It's on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building downtown. It has beautiful views of the Salt Lake Temple. 

We really wanted to walk around and see the lights at temple square but it was too late for Noah and Elijah was not feeling too well so we just went to the lobby to get a picture really quick and then ran outside to get one more with the lights. 

F R I D A Y  was the day of the party! Months before Jared came home I knew I wanted to throw a homecoming party for him. But as the date got closer I realized it was going to be the week right before Christmas and we usually get together with my side of the family for holidays anyways. So we just did a combined, 'welcome home/Christmas family-get-together'. It was an awesome night!  

My aunt, Sarahi came with my cousins, Kleidy, Danny & Koby, my cousin Aaron was able to make it down from Provo, my cousin Vagner and his wife Kendra, and of course the Olsens, and the rest of us here. There was lots of good homemade food, including Kendra & Vagner's homemade pizza, my favorite Spinach Artichoke 3 cheese dip, Hugh's yummy meat balls, Sarahi's famous jello salad, delicious chocolate pretzel desserts Jessie made, and some scrumptious oreo truffles I made for the first time that turned out to be a hit!

Sophia loves her cousin "Noey"

Aaron played the piano for us and Kendra sang

After we talked, sang and enjoyed some food together we all went downstairs to watch Jared's mission slideshow that he put together for us with his pictures he took. I loved it. We were able to see tons of pictures from each of his 5 areas. It was really cool! He also showed us the "Canada Vancouver Mission Slideshow" which is what the missionaries watch at each transfer meeting. It was a beautiful video that really brought the spirit. I'm thankful he was able to share that with us.

We then did the gift exchange! On Thanksgiving everyone picked a name so we each just had to give one small gift to someone else. It was fun, pretty much everyone got what they needed.

I had such a good time that night. I love my family. 

S A T U R D A Y  Hugh was supposed to leave but ended up staying an extra day -- yay! So that morning, they went to do some temple work again in the morning. The rest of the day we just hung out and watched some movies. 

What a wonderful week we had together :)