Sunday Trifecta

It has been two weeks and we had a special occasion, so Dax came home already.  😊

Last Sunday was a big day, Three Priesthood events.

Dax is starting to prepare for his mission so he met with the Bishop and Stake President to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and get ordained an Elder.  Curtis is on the High Council so it was nice to get updates from the Stake President said he had interviewed Dax, and he was impressed, then the Stake President sent out an email to the rest of the High Council asking for their vote of approval.  It was nice to hear the comments from the people that know Dax.  One of them had been teaching the mission prep class so he got to know Dax.  His comment was "I can't raise my hand high enough to sustain Dax"  That was great to hear.

It was an exciting day.  Curtis stood up in our ward to present Dax to be ordained.  All went well, and I think everyone thought that was special that Curtis had the honors to present his own son. Right after church Curtis ordained Dax and Elder then immediately after that Curtis and Dax ordained Derek to be a Priest.  Although Derek just turned 15, now with the changes in the ordinations coming at the beginning of the year rather than at their Birthday Derek became a priest an entire year early.

Then we all came home and had pizza for lunch and Dax immediately left to go back to the dorm.  It was great to see him and hear about his college adventures.

Newely ordained Priest and Elder

My Three Sons

All my boys 

One Flew the Nest

The day has finally come. Dax has left home and moved into the dorms at ASU. He was very excited.  This is an exciting time and we will miss having him at home, but we are excited for him to grow and mature and have new experiences.  He will only be 20 minutes away.  I asked Dax how often he thought he would come home his reply "only special occasions"  YES- that was the correct answer.  I want him to grow up and have the full experience of living away from home. I don't want him coming home to do laundry and hang out with the family.  Not because we don't enjoy being around him, but we want him to grow up.

He is off.

Nice when all your belongings fit in a cart

He is a Sun Devil Now. These Dorms are luxurious-seriously.

Dax's roommates were not there for the first few days.  They still had not returned from Christmas break.  I think the first few days were a little lonely,  and he was trying to figure everything out.  I don't think he really minded, I think he liked having all that time to himself to do what he wanted.  he finally met his roommates and he likes them and is enjoying his college experience.  Dax says the classes seem too easy.  I told him he was well prepared his high school was called "Arizona COLLEGE PREP" 

A-ha Moment-Merry Christmas style

Christmas was great.  Curtis Mom Shauna arrived on December 20th, we celebrated Derek's Birthday on the 22nd (his birthday is actually the 23rd) then we celebrated Shauna's birthday on the 24th.


Derek is always so easy going about having his birthday so close to Christmas.  This year we gave him a pumpkin pie (his favorite) for himself, then we bought one for us to share.  With all the other goodies around the house, we had a lot of junk food to get through.  We also gave him a new monitor for his computer.  He settled on a curved screen.

Family Christmas pic- Derek's 15th Birthday

Then Shauna's Birthday is the 24th.  We met with Curtis' Sister Alisa and took Shauna to the Hen House Cafe.  I have wanted to go there for a while.  I love going out for breakfast and I have seen people posting pics of their food on Social Media.  This pancake was ginormous.  We barely ate any of it, we took the rest home in a pizza box.  That is how huge the pancake was.  It was a fun breakfast.

"Mom's Homemade pancake from the Henhouse"

Curtis Dad, Brent, and his wife Marilyn arrived about noon on Christmas Eve/Shauna's birthday.  We had a nice dinner with them, and everyone stayed at our house.  This would be the first time in about 40+ years that  Curtis would spend Christmas morning with both his parents.  This was a long time coming since his parents divorced many years ago.

I love to wake up early on Christmas morning and open gifts.  I think Christmas should happen before the sun comes up. Nobody else in the house agrees.  I asked everyone what time we were going to do Christmas so we all knew what to expect. I was told nobody wanted to wake up early.  They wanted to sleep in, then have breakfast then open presents about 9:00 a.m...  I don't agree with that but I went along with it.  No fun having cranky people Christmas morning.

I had a talk with Trey a few days before Christmas and he let me know he knows the truth about Santa.  So no need to play the Santa game anymore.  As usual, on Christmas Eve we put all the presents out (this time we didn't have to wait for them to go to bed) and sealed off the front room/living room with sheets of butcher paper so nobody could peek in.  A tradition started by Shauna's parents.  Everything was ready to go, we went to bed.
I got up about 6:30 a.m. Christmas morning.  I could hear some music playing, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  I finally tracked it down.  It was Trey's iPod alarm going off.  He has his iPod set to go off at 6:30 playing A-Ha's "Take on Me"  He left his iPod in the living room to charge the night before.  Then we sealed off the room so nobody could go in.  The tradition is when it's time for Christmas you tear through the paper to see what Santa brought.  I heard the song play through once and thought it would end.  NOPE.  Then I thought it would play for 5 minutes then automatically go off.  NOPE.  Maybe it would be 10 minutes then go off.  NOPE.  The song played continuously on a loop for at least an hour before others started to get up. Then Trey got up.  I started to make breakfast as planned.  Some people were annoyed at Trey, some were just annoyed with the song.  I thought the whole thing was hilarious.  Everyone had to suffer through it because they insisted on waiting to have Christmas and tear through the paper the night before.  Christmas music eventually got turned on to drown out "Take on Me"  I think it is a funny Christmas memory.

Then we had a nice time opening Gifts with Brent, Marilyn, and Shauna. Dax got some money for college, and I gave Trey and Derek Morse Code equipment.  I'm sick of giving them video games.  I was mad at them for the PlayStation 3 incident where they tricked me and gave each other a Play Station 3 for Christmas, but they actually gave it to each other a month early.

The Giving Machine

The LDS Church started a program "Light the World" encouraging people to give to others during the Christmas season.  Last Christmas they introduced "The Giving Machine"  It is a vending machine where you can buy all types of things to give to other people throughout the world.  100% of the proceeds go to where it is needed.  There are all types of things you can give, seeds, a sewing machine, work boots, meals for a month.  It is a great idea.  They placed one this year in Gilbert AZ, not too far from us.  We had been wanting to go with the kids the entire month of December but we were always busy and we had heard the lines can be long.  We finally made it the last night it was available.  We donated seeds, two chickens, and vaccines.  The kids picked those items.

It was a fun experience, I hope the machine comes back next year.